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Romance Author Roundtable
3.
AOTW: Do you visualize your characters as anyone in particular? A celebrity or a significant other?
Leslie Carroll: Your first sentence is almost a two-part question. Yes, I visualize all of my characters. I can hear the cadences of their speech, know exactly what they look like, how they walk, hold a coffee cup, open a door. I'd have to say that most of my characters are an amalgam of people or personalities, in that different aspects of their behavior may be ascribed to several people I know, or have come across at some point in my life. Sometimes it helps to "cast" a celebrity because that's a great way to visualize a character's physical attributes. However, if that's all you do when it comes to creating a character, the danger is that you come up hollow --- unless you actually know these people. Otherwise you're basing your character on their stage or screen persona, or how they played a certain role. Significant others have played a part in the creation of some of my characters (for better or worse!), but none of my heroes (or even the jerks I've written) are based entirely on any one man who has been in my life.
Kerrelyn Sparks: Some romance authors cut out pictures of movie stars/models and use them as a guide for the physical characteristics of their hero and heroines. With For Love or Country, the hero is a James Bond-like spy during the American Revolution. Because of the James Bond angle to the story, whenever I visualized the hero, he tended to look a little like Pierce Brosnan. I was okay with that . And I have noticed that my heroes tend to have a naughty sense of humor much like that of my husband. Writing from the male point of view can be a challenge for a woman, so I probably am influenced by the men I know well --- husband, father, brothers and sons. As for my heroines --- I want them to be intelligent, brave, kindhearted and beautiful. Not that they're perfect! They can also be stubborn, sassy, and even distrustful. I can picture them in my mind, but I don't purposefully model them after any particular celebrity. I want them to be unique.
Brenda Novak: Hmm, I don't usually envision a celebrity, just a package of features I find particularly appealing. I sort of draw a picture in my head. But my significant other does figure into my heroes on a pretty regular basis. They're all different, don't get me wrong, but many of them have one characteristic or another that I've seen and admired in my spouse.
Rachel Gibson: I usually look through People magazine and tear out pictures of what I think my heroines look like, depending on hair and eye color. My heroes are always either Matthew McConaughey or Jason Patric. I am very faithful to those two gentlemen.
Teresa Medeiros: I often start out visualizing them as a celebrity, but as the story unfolds, they tend to take on their own appearance in my mind. I've always said that all of my heroes have a little Mel Gibson in them! For One Night of Scandal, I posted a long-haired pic of Mel from Lethal Weapon over my computer along with the CD cover for Charlotte Church's Enchantment. Charlotte had a twinkle of mischief in her eye, just like my heroine.
Carly Phillips: Yes! I have pictures in front of me and it helps so much! Sometimes I don't even need the exact character picture. Just a photo of George Clooney provides inspiration! Or any television show that's giving me that rush of adrenaline --- those characters work for me too! Lately that's Sydney and Vaughnn on Alias.
Judith McNaught: Rarely. If I do happen to envision facial similarities of some celebrity, I mention them to readers either in narrative or dialogue --- i.e., Meredith Bancroft in Paradise resembled "a young Grace Kelly."
Dorothy Garlock: No. I admire only historical figures. I'm sure that some of my characters have taken on the personality of Nathan Hale, Daniel Boone and even Sergeant York.
Barbara Samuel: Once in awhile, a character comes to me looking like a particular celebrity, but not very often. One just walked in recently looking like Gabriel Byrne, but that's rare. I needed an Irishman and he showed up.
Mary Lynn Baxter: Often I do, but I reserve the right not to name names [grin].
Christina Skye: Only once. T.J. McCall in my book 2000 Kisses happened to be the spitting image of Mel Gibson --- which caused a few interesting misunderstandings.
Candace Camp: No. I think it would be distracting to me, that I would want to make the character the way that actor or actress was in whatever movie I liked them in. And the only time I've ever used someone I know in a book was once when, as a family joke, I made an extremely minor character in one of my books like my brother.
Jo Beverley: No. This doesn't work for me because it makes them seem artificial, created, instead of real people who came to visit my head. Fans love to play the casting game, and sometimes I'm startled by their picks. Just occasionally I agree after the fact that an actor might be just right for a character. For example, Ioan Gruffudd, who plays Horatio Hornblower on television might work for my character, Francis, Lord Middlethorpe, the sensitive and unexpectedly virgin Rogue.
Julia Quinn: Not really. It's funny, though, because when I finally see the book cover, and I look at the painting of the hero and heroine, I'll think, "Oh, she looks nothing like that." Which is odd, because I never did have a clear idea of what she did look like. I should add, however, that this works the opposite way as well, and sometimes I see the cover and think, "Wow! That's exactly what she looks like."
Gaelen Foley: I'll sometimes start with a celebrity in mind for my heroes as a physical model, but as the character comes to life, he evolves away from the model and becomes an individual creation.
Shirlee Busbee: Absolutely not! My characters are fiction. Too spooky and fraught with potential legal problems to base a character on a real live person.
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