Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Casting your characters

Tip of the day: writing a blog post on your iPhone is probably not the most productive use of your time.

One of my biggest struggles with writing is making sure each of the characters have their own voice. I have a tendency to want to make all of them sound exactly like the main character. Usually because I have so much fun with the main character's voice.

But having everyone use the same words and sound exactly the same is not only boring but it's also confusing.

So in an attempt to prevent this is the future I'm going to start casting actors/actresses/ and people I know to play my characters. Then I'm going to try to study what makes their voices unique: either their movie characters or their real life voices.

Do they have a phrase they love to say?

Do they always lift one eyebrow when talking?

Do they stutter?

Do they mumble or talk really fast when they are nervous?

But researching this before the book should hopefully help get my characters down before I even write anything they say.

And modeling it after traits of movie characters or friends and family should hopefully help.

Does anyone else cast their characters?

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

5 comments:

Rachel Harris said...

I do and it is so much fun! After casting, I come up with bio sheets and decide possible favorite phrases... then I go on Youtube to see if I can get any more treasures by watching the actors/actresses/models talking in interviews--favorite catch phrases, word choices, mannerisms, etc; Lots of fun seeing them in 3D even once I start the writing process, too.

Emily Marshall said...

Rachel,

Love your ideas! Watching them on Youtube is a great idea. Probably much quicker than watching bunches of movies :)

DeenaML said...

Em and Rachel -- this is a great idea! Good post.

Lisa Schroeder said...

This is a great idea. I should try it!!

Kate Fall said...

I think it would be really good practice to have bio sheets, especially of phrases and physical mannerisms.