At this point in our process we have most of the preliminary work done, and are simply filling in details as we get ramped up for the actual Writing of the First Draft (cue fanfare of harps). We have our cast of characters, all of whom have fantastic names, and we just need to agree about their physical descriptions so we can both write effectively.

We could just say “Mary has blue eyes and brown hair. She’s tall.” But that leaves too much room for interpretation. We could say, “Mary is pretty,” but, again, that’s too open ended. Both Cate Blanchett and Reese Witherspoon are pretty and blonde, but they don’t look much alike.

Google image search to the rescue! We like to scour the internet to find pictures of people who resemble our characters. It’s not procrastination, honest! Sometimes there’s one person who is a good match, and sometimes we have to make our own Franken-celebrity, combining body parts from several different people to make the perfect inspiration. It’s not as creepy as it sounds.

Once we have some example photos, we are able to envision the character the same way, and describe them consistently. And of course we don’t just say, “Mary looked like Scarlett Johansson,” because that would be cheating.