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Casting Your Characters

Black Dragon

Staff
Administrator
One possible technique is to "cast" your characters with famous actors or people that you know. Some writing guides go so far as to suggest collecting pictures of those whom you "cast," and referring to them when describing the characters.

Have you tried this? And if so, did this help to bring your characters to life?
 
I draw my character concepts, if that counts :D but then, I'm digiart is another of my hobbies, so I guess I'd end up drawing what I was thinking anyway...

still, I feel that helps me keep the character as one person, and as a character, rather than a name I assign lines to :)
 
I've never done this, although it might now be interesting to think about now that novel one is done. I used to do this with books I read. One of our favorites back in the day was to hypothetically cast the original cast of Dragonlance. We had some good picks too!
 
These were some of our classic picks for DL...back in the day when the actors were in their primes:

Caramon: Arnold
Raistlin: Val Kilmner (think the sickly VK from Tombstone)
Flint: DeVito
Kit: A modern day pick might be Angelina J

There were others, all typical, but I can't remember. It would be fun to cast it now.

If I cast my own novel, some actors/actresses that would be perfect:
Michael Clark Duncan: Voice and some CGI work to make him a giant white minotaur.
Eric Bana(sp) for one of my protagonists.
James Franco (maybe) - he would need to pull off 'really dark' for another protagonist.
Rosario Dawson - for my black lady pirate type....and the fact that I love Rosario Dawson.
My dog Nami would play the dog Nami.
Vin Deisel or his type voice (for voiceover only people!!) for Map the Dragon.
John Lithgow as Kree (a vilainous character, I love Lithgow's villains)
Daniel Day Lewis would play a farmer named Brin
etc.
 
Daniel Day Lewis would play a farmer named Brin

I know this impression is wrong, but I had the image of him just being a random, non-plotcentric farmer who popped up everywhere the protagonists went, somehow always ahead of them :D
 
Not quite...but my farmer is quite non-plotcentric. Major enough for a main actor...but I really just needed a body. He might become important in book two.


Actually - can I just cast Rosario Dawson as everyone?
 

JoanofArch

Scribe
I tried casting my characters once, but I found it way too distracting. David Tennant kept acting like David Tennant, and not my character.
 

Telcontar

Staff
Moderator
Yep, done this before. With the caveat that I'm always in my own casts - my ego will not suffer me left out of a movie of my own book! :)

Also, oddly enough, Nathan Fillian and a handful of other actors always seem to find roles in my casts...
 

CicadaGrrl

Troubadour
Yeah Fillian! In anything! I love the concept of the roving farmer. It almost turns him into a trickster figure. i adore tricksters. I actually cast my characters after the book is over. Usually with my Dad. We love the game of it. But we love any movie game. I also play it with my brother. Except he's a little more serious since he's done some movie work. Insightful.

As far as casting ahead of time, I've never tried it. I guess I'd be a little afraid that I would lean too heavily upon my casting. I want my characters to be my own own own own, so I work up character sheets in obscene detail and spend my days thinking about them in any sit. possible
 

Ophiucha

Auror
I've never found my character's appearances to be heavily important, at least not the sort of things that an actor would help with. Some of my characters are part tree, but that is a different matter. I've done it for fun - just to kill time and giggle over mental images (the three characters I arbitrarily cast as Idris Elba, David Tennant, and Billy Zane have a threesome in my novel...), but it doesn't help me in the slightest. I wouldn't do it ahead of time, since I reckon if I got too caught on an idea it would change how I wrote the character. But as an afterthought, fun around the forums sort of thing, sure. If I really needed an image of my charries, though, I'd just get some art done.
 
I read some good advice about this topic a long time ago. The author said it was best to 'not' have a too-detailed picture of your character, and even if you did in your head, to not let too much slip onto your page. Perhaps it's best to let the reader evoke his or her ideal of what the given character's appearance.
 

Fodwocket

Minstrel
Love the Dragonlance casting! Didn't get Val Kilmer at first, but when you mentioned Tombstone, suddenly he was perfect.

And I've done this, but not really to help get the feel of the characters, more just for fun, to see if I could find people who looked the way I pictured. Had some fun with Photoshop to get my main character right, and now I can't not smile when I look at it.

I agree with letting readers picture characters how they like though, so it's not something I'd share with the public or try to impose on readers, just a fun thing that really amused me.
 

CicadaGrrl

Troubadour
The trick is to know your characters in obscene detail so that you can get them and their thoughts and emotions filled out with just a sentence or two.
 
I have thought about it a bit, I don't know much of what my people would look like as actors, but I know their squishy insides quite well now, better than I used to.
 
Also, oddly enough, Nathan Fillian and a handful of other actors always seem to find roles in my casts...

That is because the world exists to showcase Nathan Fillion's awesomeness: http://www.cad-comic.com/sillies/20110228

That said, I typically find an actor or actress I'm familiar with and meets the general physical description of my character and use them as the image of the character in my mind. It has to be someone I can see playing the character were the book ever adapted to a movie. For example I would never cast Jack Nicholson as a non-psychotic person in my books.


 
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Bella

Acolyte
I wrote a book last November by NaNoWriMo, and I used casting for all of my characters. one of my main charactes I was picturing as Blake Shelton. Garth Brooks was the father of my female Character. I like doing this cause it makes it easier for me to build characters and personalities.
 

Dante Sawyer

Troubadour
When I began writing my novel, I actually got some ideas for characters after celebrities. For example, for my main female character Alice, I thought of Tricia Helfer (Number Six from Battlestar Galactica). James Franco also came to my mind as someone who might play Dagon. Picturing celebrities in the roles just made it easier to describe and image the character doing things.
 

mudart

Acolyte
I've done this. It provides a shortcut for hearing a character's voice, noticing mannerisms and pinpointing unique physical features.
 
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