While reading through the many blogs and mailing lists geared to authors to which we subscribe, I came across an interesting question. "If your book were to be made into a movie, who would you cast for the main characters?"
Some of the authors responded to the question saying they had to think about it. For Cecilia and I it is an easy task. You see, Countermeasure was born as a Role Playing story and, if you know a little about RP, players choose their avatars for their characters prior to creating the profile for the character they are planning to play.
In our case, Trevor and Cassandra were created long before the books were written. We developed their character profiles taking into account we wanted to be able to have pictures of both our characters together, interacting, etc.
We scoured the internet for images of a couple that had the physical characteristics we wanted for our characters and after a few weeks of searches we hit the proverbial jackpot. We found the two actors/models we saw as the physical incarnation of the people we had in our minds.
If we were to answer that question, we would definitely answer with the two since they have "been" our characters for over a year now. It would be difficult to watch any other actors take our characters to life the same way that it feels weird to watch them play other characters on tv shows and big screen movies.
One thing is for certain, the two give us the inspiration we need to create our characters' world and interactions. We are lucky to have such an abundant source of it. They make it easy for us to see the scenes in our minds' eye, to "hear" their voices inflections when we write a dialog, to "see" their gestures when they are antsy, upset, worried or wickedly happy.
I recommend that authors find a model for characters before writing about them. Study the model as if you were studying a model for a painting or a drawing class. Features, expressions, hand movements, anything that can give your character flavor when writing about them. Small nuances can make a difference in a scene. It makes for robust dialogs and a clearer showing of the scene.
Sláinte!
