#FirstDraft60 Day 9 — Your Characters’ Physical Descriptions including Character Casting
Today we’re going to get into what is, to me, one of the most fun parts of prep work—figuring out what our characters look like!
Part 1: Casting Your Characters
There is absolutely no point whatsoever in me repeating what I’ve posted before about casting your characters, so here are the links to the series:
Be Your Own Casting Director—Choosing and Using Real World Templates (RWTs) to Help with Character Development (Updated September 2014, originally published October/November 2006).
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Character Development for Visually Oriented Writers; or, Be Your Own Casting Director
Be Your Own Casting Director: 4 Methods of Character Casting
Be Your Own Casting Director: Creating a “Casting Book”
Be Your Own Casting Director: Using Real World Templates in Character Development
Be Your Own Casting Director: Isn’t This All Just a Big Waste of Time?
- Original Series:
Be Your Own Casting Director: Introduction
Be Your Own Casting Director: Real World Template Exercise
BYOCD: Creating a Casting Book
BYOCD: Collecting Images
BYOCD: Putting RWTs to Work for You
BYOCD: Guided Brainstorming with RWTs
- Other posts about using Real World Templates/Character Casting:
Virtual Barbies and Paper Dolls
Storyboard Examples
Part 2: Describing Your Characters
If you haven’t already done so, it’s time to put the full description of each of your main (POV) characters into your story bible, as well as any details you might know about your secondary characters. If you do already have some of this, go back and make sure you have all of it—and see if there are ways in which you can make your characters’ looks more unique.
Create a page/folder/section for each character so that the info isn’t running together and so that they’re easier to find.
Here’s what this part should include for each main/POV character:
Full Name:
Age:
Date of Birth:
Height:
Hair Color:
Eye Color:
Body type: (stocky, muscular, athletic, full-figured, slender, emaciated, etc.)—from the character’s viewpoint and in others’ opinions, if that’s important
Distinguishing marks/features:
Scars/deformities:
Body art/piercings/modifications:
Repetitive/habitual physical quirks: (i.e., biting fingernails, grinds teeth, pops knuckles, rolls neck when stressed, leg bounces/can’t sit still, etc.)
Include image(s) of the Real World Template for the character if you have them. If not, there’s no time like the present to cast your characters.
Here’s mine for my heroine, Alex, using OneNote (still needs some work):
Assignment: Add your characters’ physical description (using the above “chart” or something of your own making) to your Story Bible. Cast your characters, if desired.
That’s all for this part for today. Don’t do anything else other than look at your characters’ physicality. And have fun with it!
FOR DISCUSSION:
What did you learn about your character(s)’ physical appearance that you didn’t know before this exercise?
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KayeDacus.com 
I forgot to add a screen-grab of my “casting file” for one of my characters—rather than pin every single image I find to my Pinterest board for this story (though there are quite a few), I still go the route of saving as many of them as I can into a PowerPoint presentation so I have easy, offline access to them:
I’ve actually recast Alex since I started working on this story for FirstDraft60. She’s still a blonde plus-size model, but one I could find a whole lot more images of than the first one I picked. This is Valerie Lefkowitz, and there are even some videos of her out there, too:
She’s probably almost 10 years younger than my heroine is in the book (Alex is 44), but that doesn’t really matter when the template’s look and mannerisms are just right.
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The first character I cast in this book was the hero, Stone, whose template is Brandon Routh. He just seemed like a perfect fit for a former-FBI Agent turned Linguistics professor.
I’m doing something completely different, for me, in this book, in that Alex has an almost-21-year-old daughter (Illona, template: India Ennenga) and an ex-husband with whom she’s still quite good friends (Charlie, template: Paul McGillion).
I’ve also cast Alex’s parents and brothers; her personal assistant, Ross (who also happens to be married to Charlie); and Stone’s sister, LauraAnn.
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I actually started a lot of the work you’ve been posting Days 1-9 for the past year. So, I guess you could say I’m caught up. I look forward to the next 51 days!
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