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Lori Austin's (aka Lori Handeland) An Outlaw in Wonderland has been named one of Publisher Weekly's Best Summer Books of 2013!!
A big CONGRATULATIONS to Goddesses Lori Austin (Lori Handeland) and Sabrina Jeffries for being named as RITA finalists for their historical romances BEAUTY AND THE BOUNTY HUNTER and A LADY NEVER SURRENDERS!
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Some authors use photos of their characters to get an image in their heads of how these people appear. I’ve always been the type who shied away from that because I could never find exactly what was in my head in the real world.
In truth, physical descriptions of my “peeps” are hard for me. I see them so clearly that sometimes I forget to describe them more than generically, if at all. I’ve had editors say “you never told us what he/she looked like” and lo and behold I didn’t. I even wrote one book where I never mentioned the heroine’s eye color. Whoops. In the sequel, I made sure I did.
However, there are three books I wrote where I did find photos of the heroes and then fashioned the character’s descriptions based on these real life men. The reason? I was collaborating on a six book series with another author. Our characters would appear in each others’ books and therefore, we needed concrete idea of what they looked like.
For the first time, The Rock Creek Six, by myself and Linda Winstead Jones (aka Linda Devlin) are avaliable in ebook format. These books were so much fun to write and they are some of my favorites of the 50+ books I’ve done so far.
The hero of the first book, REESE, is fashioned after Michael Biehn. I thought I was being fairly clever here. The leader of the Magnificent Seven is played by Yul Brynner. Hubba, hubba. In the television show, the same character was played by Michael. And my favorite role that Michael played was . . . Reese! In The Terminator. In my book, Reese has many of Yul’s sexy traits. That man could MOVE. Watch him walk across the screen sometime. Sex on two legs.
The hero of my second book (third in the series) is Rico. Called “the kid” he is the youngest of the group, and one of the most deadly. Women swoon for Rico. Until Lily Fortier arrives in town. For Rico I used Benjaman Bratt.
For my final book, NATE (the fifth in the series) I used this photo of Joseph Fiennes. Nate is a former preacher turned gunslinger with LOTS of issues. He shaves his head for reasons I will leave to the book to explain. But having no hair only makes his eyes even prettier. See?
Do you picture real people as the characters in books? Do you like it if an author likens her characters to someone famous? Does it help your imagination or hinder it?
38 Comments on “The Magnificent Six”
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I very rarely see a character as a person, both when I’m reading and when I’m writing. Mostly I don’t even pay attention to the physical description, I completely overlook them. I tend to imagine the characters by their names. Whatever their names makes me think of, is what I picture them as.
The only character I completely see as an actress is Suze Cleath-Stuart, from the Shopaholic series. I have no idea why, the first time I read the book, I thought of her exactly as Keira Knightley. But it’s in such a way, that whenever I see Keira, I actually think, “Suze!”
<3 It was a horrible miscast in the movie.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 3:23 am.
Miscasting is the big issue I think. And that always happens in the movies.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 9:02 am.
I rarely identify real people as the characters. I may if they played that character in a movie or on TV. The obvious one being: I totally picture Colin Firth when I read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 3:52 am.
Have to. He owned that.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 9:03 am.
Generally I don’t but that could be because I am terrible at doing the whole visualization thing that it sort of astonishes my psychologist. It normally doesn’t bother me if an author describes his or her characters, as long as I can get lost in the plot of the book then I am very happy indeed. I hope that your Christmas was wonderful Lori and other Goddesses, New Guy and I had a great day and didn’t get trampled during the Boxing Day sales today.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 5:23 am.
I usually gloss over descriptions when I’m reading. More interested in other things.
I did have a great Christmas, thank you! I will not go near a store today. Nope, no way!
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 9:04 am.
My mind creates some morphed version of the leafs based on the author’s description but the all usually look similar to my mind’s eye. When the author’s inspiration is shared, my mind reconciles the two images.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 9:46 am.
Leads, not leafs. Oh auto correct, always good for a laugh.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 9:48 am.
I was wondering what a morphed leaf looked like!
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:33 am.
Sometimes a photo suggests a character to me, but often, I’m like you—it’s hard to find the right picture.
I do like your lineup!
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:19 am.
Finding the right photo was always my problem too. Although why I believe I can find a photo of an imaginary person, I’m not quite sure.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:34 am.
That’s the wonderful thing about books. You can imagine characters running through the books any way you want. I think it helps to have reference points, but I like “watching” the action unfold in my head.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:24 am.
That head action is the best part.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:34 am.
I rarely pay attention to character descriptions- I always end up picturing the same kind of character for most heroes.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:27 am.
One author told me she always made her heroes have dark hair and blue eyes so she didn’t have to worry about making a mistake. But, for me, real people are different and so are characters. So they can’t all be the same. And the characters end up pretty real to me anyway.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:36 am.
I love your line-up! And I agree with you 100%: Yul Brynner was sex on two legs. That intensity! That masculine power! He was like a panther.
I use pictures now to get me going on my characters. It keeps them straight in my mind’s eye, especially when I have a lot of people who have the same coloring. How to tell one blue-eyed blonde from another blue-eyed blonde? With a photo, it’s easy. But I don’t like it when you can tell from the written description who the character represents. It blows me out of the story.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 10:59 am.
I think having a concrete image when there are a lot of characters is most helpful. I wonder if George RR Martin uses pics for his novels. There are SO many characters.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 11:36 am.
I have never used pictures when I wrote a book, but I have sometimes “cast” the character afterwards. As a reader I don’t need detailed descriptions and sometimes they sort of get in the way of what I am imagining. If a writer is going to mention someone famous (He looked like a cross between A and B) it helps if (1) I know who that famous person is and (2) it is mentioned really early, before I have formed my own picture and start arguing with the author “What? He does no look like A at all!”
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 11:03 am.
Good point about mentioning the similarities before the reader has a chance to form a picture in their head. Very true.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 11:37 am.
Hello! Happy Post-Christmas Day
I’m terrible at shaping up the personal description of characters (especially male characters) in my head. Sometimes it’s helpful to have the model on the cover…but most times I don’t like it. Especially if I don’t like the look of the model (and there are some of those)–then I can’t get that image out of my head, and it annoys me. Fickle, I know!
Have a good one.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 11:04 am.
Most of the time the model on the cover is so far from what I imagine–for my own books and for others. A lot of the time that’s because they’re so darn young. But lately, everyone is. Sigh.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 11:38 am.
I create voices for my characters more than faces for some reason. I like it when authors share their inspiration, but usually it doesn’t fit with the voice/person that was in my head.. if that makes any sense.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:03 pm.
I definitely create voices. Hear voices? Talk to the voices?
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:45 pm.
I like to know who authors visualize when they create their characters. It adds an element of reality to the stories.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:23 pm.
Interesting.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:45 pm.
When reading I like for my imagination to picture what the characters look like. Strangely though when writing I like to have a pic to refer to so I can keep certain traits straight. My mind often flitters around and it takes no time to forget something like eye color or hair length. Maybe with a little more experience that will change, I don’t know.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:28 pm.
I always forget what I said in the beginning. I don’t know if that’s because I don’t know the characters well enough yet, or if they change or what.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:46 pm.
Even if the author reveals whom the character is modeled after, I tend to form my own picture of what they look like. I use the author’s descriptions to draw upon, but sometimes embellish based on how the character moves and acts. I can’t remember using a real person to form my opinion, even one different from the author’s selection.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:37 pm.
It’s always interesting what people imagine, even from the same descriptions. Even colors seem to be different for different people. Or at least hair colors. I know people keep calling me blonder and I keep seeing grayer.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 2:48 pm.
I can’t say that I’ve ever read a book and said this character looks like so and so. What affects me more as a reader, in ‘seeing’ a character, is more about who the character really is. It’s like the more you come to know someone, you like them more or maybe less. Someone who was not so attractive to you, is more attractive. Of course, the opposite is true, too.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 4:09 pm.
Couldn’t agree more.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 4:31 pm.
I absolutely adore Yul Brenner I watched Magnificent Seven so many times I could quote it chapter and verse, The King & I as well.
I think I would rather make up my own vision of what the characters look like, oddly enough they rarely look like anyone recognizable such as Angelina Jolie or George Clooney. I want the people in my mind to be my people if that makes any sense. I also find that once I have associated someone in a particular role it is very hard for me to accept someone else in that role, Sean Connery as James Bond readily comes to mind. I know others have done admirable jobs in the role but they always seemed like they were pretending while the real Bond was out of the room.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 4:41 pm.
My people. Makes complete sense to me.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 6:36 pm.
Those cowboys — especially Reese — sound awesome, Lori. I frequently find a pic to use, mostly so I remember to do physical descriptions. It sometimes feels odd to have to describe a character’s outsides when you’re inside their heads.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 5:58 pm.
Ah, maybe that’s my problem. I’m so into their head, I can’t see out of it.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 6:36 pm.
Honestly, I tend to make the characters what I want. I find that I don’t need, nor most of the time do I want to see the cover people. Basically because too often the description of the character does not in the least match the picture in my minds eye.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 7:43 pm.
That’s always my problem with covers too. They never fit for me. And you think they would since you see the cover first and then read, but nope.
Posted on December 26, 2012 at 9:19 pm.
I like to take the description of the characters that the author gives and make it what I want. I could never read a book and think of them the same as the “last book” I read. They are all inidviduals and that is how I see them. I can go with the likeness of the first to pics as Reese and Rico but the picture of nate isn’t at all like I saw him. LOL.
Posted on February 5, 2013 at 11:04 am.