On “casting” while you write. Or not.

[lagilman]

At Writer. Editor. Tired Person.

When I first started out in this biz, I heard a lot of writers talking about “casting” their books, and researching for visuals (typically actors, but not always) as part of their research prep.

And this struck me as strange (then again, I don’t create playlists for projects, either.  So I may be an outlier.)

Y’see, I don’t ‘cast’ my books before/while I’m writing them – or even after, honestly*.  It’s not because it wouldn’t be fun, or because I don’t think about what my characters look like… it’s just that I have to wait until they tell me what they look like.

Crossposted to BookView Cafe, if you prefer to comment there.

Comments

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

I'm a mixed bag on casting: in my crappy trunk novels, I do cast in a way, but should I ever be lucky enough to get published, I wouldn't share my visions, b/c, as a reader, I want to do the casting/picturing of characters myself. And if my vision doesn't match the author's, it takes away from the experience.

As for playlists, my habit is to listen to CD's over and over again. I never even make them for myself.

[madrobins]

Yes this. Even after I've written I have a hard time playing the "who would play your characters in the movie" game (aside from the notion that all of them should be played by Emma Thompson or Alan Rickman, because sigh), because they all look like they look.

I don't do playlists either. In contradiction to the modern notion, I very very rarely listen to music while I write. It tends to distract me from what I'm doing, and I am, God knows, too distractible to start with.