Faces and Other Visual Prompts

I was asked an unexpected question last week. I'd given a copy of Black King Takes White Queen to a medical assistant intern at work whose 18-year old daughter immediately began reading it. The intern asked me the next day if I had pictures of what the characters looked like. There is some description in the book of the main characters, but not all of them. I said, yes, I do have some pictures that I based the two main characters descriptions on and she asked me for copies of the pictures so she could take them home because her daughter wanted to know what they really looked like. I said, "Well, the characters are based on these pictures but are not necessarily their literary twins." So the following day I gave her four more books for her daughter to read and a color photocopy of the two images upon which I based the main characters. The next day she said the image for Ivy was spot on, exactly as her daughter had pictured her, but the image of Romney wasn't quite as her daughter had pictured him. I said, "Romney has some Native American facial characteristics but he's not necessarily full-blooded Native American, but there may be Native Americans in his bloodline because his family came here in the mid to late 1600's. I also said, I based him on this picture and described his features, like cheekbones, aquiline nose, sensual mouth...but he's not identical. I leave it to the reader's imagination and preferences to fill in the other details." She said the image was close to how her daughter had imagined him, but too pretty (I think the image I used was of a Native American male model so of course he was "pretty," as she put it.)

Sometimes I am inspired to create a character from a face I see. And sometimes, I type in characteristics I'm looking for to see if I can find a face/image to use to model my character on. Sometimes I need a visual guide.

I do the same thing with houses and other structures. If a house catches my eye I might construct a whole story around it (the Second Empire mansion known as The Cedars Funeral Home in The Girl With The Ivy Tattoo in Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume II comes to mind.) I'll print the picture or take a picture of the house and use it as a descriptive prompt.

My dining room is littered with faces and houses ad some cars and other vehicles. These are references and reminders to me of what my characters sort of look like in case I write a sequel. I really need to put them in a visual prompt scrapbook by novel/story. That would be ideal and a much better way of organizing them than the scrap pile on the table!

My table also has stacks of research- like the magical qualities of herbs, plants, trees. Vampire traits. Ranks of angels and descriptions of them. I have articles on chinchillas (The Archetypes series), haunted houses, ghost hunting gear (the as yet unpublished Amberton Paranormal Investigative Society novels set in the vicinity of Burlington VT), funeral home etiquette and livery (The Girl with the Ivy Tattoo in Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume II), magic acts and the history of magic (The Magic of Cross and Crowe, also found in Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume II), forensics, the duties of a medical examiner/ coroner (the Talon series), and colonial architecture (for a future novel set in New Hampshire about witches), and road and area maps (Life Skills which is set in the Hampton Beach/Portsmouth/Rye area of NH but extends up to Freeport Maine- my family has vacation in that area all my life so I'm familiar with it and landmarks but needed the maps as guidelines and reminders).

The majority of what I write comes straight out of my imagination, but sometimes I need certain more authentic details and descriptions. These visual prompts and the research I do provide those aspects.

My ideal writing room would have a corkboard where I could pin up pictures and maps I draw to remind me where things are located in relation to the main setting, etc. Right now I don't have that sort of space in my home, but I hope to one day- we have a millennial daughter still living at home with all her stuff.

I need a tiny house just for writing in my big back yard!!