Faces

I’m pretty bad at visualizing things. When it comes to writing, this means that although I don’t have difficulty with superficial physical characteristics (long black hair, deep blue eyes, etc), I’m hopeless at putting it all together in my mind and knowing what my characters actually look like.

Years ago, I tried to draw them, but unless my stories were populated with misshapen lumps, it didn’t do me much good. When I write, I see the scene happening in my mind. If I can’t see the characters clearly, I can’t accurately transcribe what they’re doing.

This weekend, I realized that I had lost several hours to scouring google images for the cast of Aya’s Wings. I had already found a few of them months ago, but I wanted to round out the rest. The above, for example, is an actress by the name of Maude Adams. She was very famous around the turn of the twentieth century and, by all accounts that I’ve found, she was a decent person as well. And she bears a resemblance to Amarinne Thelorian. Not an exact replica, mind you. Amarinne is blonder, younger, sadder. There are many photos of the lovely Miss Adams, but she only really looks like Am here. But it’s enough for me to work with.

I wondered, as I was searching for them all, if this were not just an elaborate way to avoid actually writing. Procrastination in the name of inspiration. Uh huh, sure. But then I pulled out my old binder of Arylle things and there, tucked in the very back, were pictures I had clipped from magazines of the gowns that she wore, the way her hair hung, and even people who resembled Cor and her (without naming names, let’s just say that they were actors from a now-defunct soap opera). So I guess that this is just part of my process, and it happens to be fun as well.

-Melissa

Posted in: characters,drawing,inspiration,writing