Do other fiction writers make characters like people they know in real life? I know, there are many reasons to avoid representing real people in your fiction, but I mean, at least as far as appearances go, are there writers who secretly see a fictional character walking around with the face or body of a real person they know?
The other week, I saw a little red-headed girl whom I saw only once before, a year ago. She was so cute with her hair back in barrettes, her little teeth poking out between her teeth, her eyes heavily lidded. I wrote a preschool-age character in my novel and modeled this character, Jaibee, after this real-life little girl. Seeing her again surprised me, both with the passage of time, and the clash of the character I wrote and what this real little girl is like.
I am a very visual person, and what my character looks like really matters. I read that Stephen King really doesn't think that's important, and he keeps physical description to a bare minimum. That bothers me. I need to see a face and body because as I read, my mind makes a film for me to watch. I hate it when a writer keeps physical description sparse at the beginning, so I just have to make something up--and then, later, the writer tells you a detail about the hair color or some feature and it totally smacks against what I was forced to invent before!
I'm reading Anna Elliot's "Twilight of Avalon" novel right now and I appreciate how she introduces characters with physical description--not exhaustive, but adequate. The better I can visualize characters, the more real and distinct they are. When writers don't describe them in concrete ways, I run the risk of mixing them up because their physical appearances change and morph, they're so indistinct.
When I write, I sometimes can't help visualizing someone I know as the face of a character I made up. I'm the same way as a reader. I'll never forget, my entire life long, that a freshman I met in college, who is now a working musician, was what I visualized for the character Ransom in one of CS Lewis' space trilogy novels; the boy was a classmate in the class for which that book was assigned, and I think a small description of the character's hair matched this boy's distinct hair, and before I ever realized it, this unsuspecting person I barely know is forever running around in my literary imagination, living the life of Ransom.
In writing, the same happens. For instance, one of my supporting female characters looks like a mom I met years ago in a mom's group. We were not close, and I never knew her particularly well, but nonetheless, I found myself seeing her as this girl in my own in-progress fiction. Their personalities aren't the same, nor are their lives; it's just the face. The problem is, what was once a mere acquaintance when I began writing the character is now someone I know much better and see regularly! It's just a bit weird to see this now-friend walking around in the imaginary world, as a different personality, living a life I invented.
I try to invent my characters entirely--rather than inspired by living, breathing people in my life--even the face. (Though many writers may agree that is sometimes nearly impossible--but that's another blog entry.) In a previous novel attempt, I did lots of sketches of my characters so I had something to visualize without relying on existing faces in my world. That really helped. I didn't do this for my Asher novel, so I've run into these funny problems of real-life look-alikes. I just realized too that another of my supporting characters, a male neighbor, looks a lot like someone else I went to college with. My female leading character though, she's entirely her own. I've been successful in seeing her face and form and not letting her morph into someone I know in real life. Maybe because I don't know anyone in real life with her facial structure. The closest description I can give would be comparing her to the actress Emily Deschanel who plays the lead character in the TV show Bones. Her jaw line is something similar to my character Ginny's, but Ginn'ys features are entirely other than Deschanel's, and her hair is dark, heavy. This is good. I'm starting to wonder if there's a connection between a character in my book having a set, original physical form which I see clearly, and my understanding of that character's personality. Hmmm...
My main character, Asher, has been giving me the biggest problems, both in that his looks keep morphing in my imagination, and he gives me the msot problems in anticipating and understanding his reactions to events. (I don't clearly idnetifiy with him as ocmpletely as I do with my other characters.) I've been writing him all these years and he's still morphing in my mind. I know I even have conflicting physical descriptions in my first draft of the novel. Some things stay the same, always; his hair is blonde and curly, he's short and well-muscled. But even in those parameters, there's a lot of latitude, and I find I don't even visualize him the same way in all chapters.
Last summer, while at the beach, my family took a little touristy boat ride tour of the area, and the tour guide had the right hair, and a face I liked. So I decided I'd let him be my face for Ash; I never knew him, will never see him again. he as a real person will make no impression of his own on me to conflict with this character I made up. But even since that, my mind is having a hard time not letting him morph. I ca go back to chapters I wrote years ago, and I realize now that Ash looks like what I thought he looked like back then--my mind made a film for me to watch of the scenes I wrote, and that "actor" is still there, even if I recast him more recently. (In one of the earliest chapters, his hair is even brown in my mind's eye, though it never was in the writing.)
But in writing this I've pondered if there is indeed a link between the facts that my character's face is hard to nail down, just as it's hard to nail down his personality. Asher is very much unlike me; I've been reading personality books and such to help wrap my head around his psyche.
This really matters to me because I'm so visual. Another fly in the ointment is the comparisons between Ash and his dad, Curtis. Curt was easy for me to visualize; he was created with the description that he looked like Michelangelo's David, with brown hair--complete with a funny story from his college days about that comparison. I also have a very set image of Curt the age he is in the present time of the novel: he's got long white/grey hair in a ponytail, and his face is fleshy from age. But though Ash is said to look like his father, over the years, I've changed, in my mind, and in my writing, what exactly is retained from Curt's looks into Ash's face. Curt was easy to set in stone in my mind because his face was literally set in stone centuries ago!
Maybe I need to go sketch, to get Ash's face set firmly in my mind. It's a technique that works. But seriously, the last time I tried an honest sketch of a person was--? Years ago. 5 years? Ten years? That's a scary admittance. I grew older in a life where I couldn't sustain both writing and my visual art pursuits. I chose writing and let drawing fall completely away. (That too is another blog topic...)
In the meantime I also have written some nonfiction articles:
Natural Deodorants: Do Any Work as Effectively as Popular Commercial Brands?
Organic Food: Eight Benefits for You and Your Children
Veggie-loaded Meals Kids Like
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
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