The problem with Central Casting? There's only two chairs in the waiting room.
I'm one of those writers who likes (okay, prefers...or requires) to use actors as physical models for my characters. I usually stick to one or two roles said actor/actress has done in order to avoid any conflicts with their real life personalities. A character that is a character(s) will have a certain look and traits that I find intriguing, and that I can use as a base to help establish my own fictional citizen of the universe. Or, that character(s) will be incorporated with elements carved into stone that I came up with for my Alternate Universe cast members. Melding and weaving each strange melange usually produces a fully-rounded individual that matches what I had in mind on some level. It's not always a perfect process, but it gives me good results most of the time, so I continue to utilize it as my only method of not-real-people formation.
This isn't foolproof, of course. Like when you want to use one actor as the model for two separate characters that *aren't* related to each other. Not even in the "illegitimate daughter of the father's uncle's ninth cousin" way. This is my problem during the ongoing construction of my Star Wars alternate universe. One character is someone's mother (a canon Significant Someone, in fact). The other character is one of my OC's. The OC was created before I decided to use the Canon doppelganger. This shouldn't be a problem if I choose to keep the names of the actors I'm using as muses hidden. I can give physical descriptions in bios, not provide pictures, and that would be all well and dandy. But I want to do something a little more...specific. I'm working on bios for both the Star Wars Fanon Wiki, and my own website that will act as a repository for all the goings-on in the Leiamoody version of the GFFA. I want these background pieces to have three-dimensions, so the reader will get to know these people better, and not just through reading between the lines in pages of narrative.
It's something I have to think about, and possibly forget.
This isn't foolproof, of course. Like when you want to use one actor as the model for two separate characters that *aren't* related to each other. Not even in the "illegitimate daughter of the father's uncle's ninth cousin" way. This is my problem during the ongoing construction of my Star Wars alternate universe. One character is someone's mother (a canon Significant Someone, in fact). The other character is one of my OC's. The OC was created before I decided to use the Canon doppelganger. This shouldn't be a problem if I choose to keep the names of the actors I'm using as muses hidden. I can give physical descriptions in bios, not provide pictures, and that would be all well and dandy. But I want to do something a little more...specific. I'm working on bios for both the Star Wars Fanon Wiki, and my own website that will act as a repository for all the goings-on in the Leiamoody version of the GFFA. I want these background pieces to have three-dimensions, so the reader will get to know these people better, and not just through reading between the lines in pages of narrative.
It's something I have to think about, and possibly forget.