Dramatis Personae
On visualizing my characters
As many of you probably know, one of the biggest inspirations for the Guardians of Dawn series are the shoujo manga of my youth, including but not limited to: Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Fushigi Yuugi, and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. But what some of you probably don’t know is that for a very, very brief period of time in high school, I wanted to be a mangaka.1
Alas, I went with storytelling via words instead of images, although I still periodically dabble in visual art, especially when I’m procrastinating from drafting (cough, not that this has any, uh, relevance right now or anything). When I draw, I don’t really think of the figures I’m sketching to be a 1:1 representation of the characters in my head; what I try to capture are things like silhouette, distinguishing characteristics, and vibe. This often helps me in the writing process going forward as well, as I am notoriously terrible at physically describing things in the first draft.
People have often asked me if I had any people I would cast for a live-action adaptation of any of my work, and as I’ve mentioned before, I’m bad at this sort of thing. I’m also less interested in a film or TV adaptation of my work than other mediums like dance,2 theater, or animation. I do think Guardians of Dawn would be more suited to animation than live-action, considering the tone. (Some of the characters could even have transformation sequences!)
It’s funny being a visual person who actually doesn’t think visually while they write. I’m envious of people who say their books play out like movies in my head because for me, I can only experience what the POV character is experiencing—what they see, smell, hear, taste, and touch is the only way I can imagine the broader world around them. Dialogue is usually the first part of a book to come to me, but perhaps that’s because I still think of writing as an aural medium. Voices come first, then images, sort of like a blurry snapshot that only grows clearer the more time I spend with it. But as to what the characters themselves look like, that is almost always the last part of a book that comes to me, and it’s frequently where I get stuck. What is hair? Clothing? Accessories? I don’t know because I don’t see my characters; instead, they exist in a three-dimensional space around me, as though I were the passenger of a spaceship looking out at the stars of my characters rather than part of the ether. It’s also probably why I struggle so hard with action as well. What do you mean they have to move? In physical space?
Anyway, if any of y’all have tips with visualization let me know because, uh, your friend needs help.
A manga artist
Incidentally, if anyone knows Matthew Bourne and wants to ask him if he’s interested in doing a goth ballet adaptation of Wintersong, THE RIGHTS ARE AVAILABLE!!!!!