Meme - Day 27

Almost forgot ...

27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.

Appearances used to be important to me because I felt that it helped me with characterization. All of my early work I was very detailed with descriptions, even if they didn't make it into the final product. Since then I've found that it's better to just give the basics in look - hair colour, eye colour, any unique characteristics - but let the reader fill in the blanks when it comes to what the character looks like. My favourite part of reading is imagining the character, and if I knew exactly who the author had in mind, it might disrupt my own vision.

But for myself, I always have a clear vision, even to the point of casting the role with actors or models so I have physical references.