Been thinking of doing this thread for quite a while finally decided to take the time to do it now while I'm procrastinating.
Many months ago I wrote a story about a short, fat wizard. At first I thought about placing in the Now but as I wrote decided to place it in Yesterday,
A week to a month after I finish it I saw a medium tall, fat guy while I was driving to work. He wore a long leather jacket and carried a walking stick. Except for his height he was my character as if I had written him in our time period. Long leather jackets is what wizards wear in a lot of UF and the stick could be a staff.
Wrote another story where the bad guy--sort of bad-- was bald with a long goatee. Saw a guy at the grocery store like that.
Wrote another story about a rash young woman who was a rock star and rode a motorcycle on a sidewalk in the opening. At the gym soon after, I watched a rider ride a motorcycle up the sidewalk and park it right next to the doors. The person got off and took off their helmet. It was a young woman. I had the urge to ask her if she played the guitar.
And just in case I wrote that out too real sounding I know those were coincidences but still interesting. The guy with the goatee is normal in some areas of the town I live in. That was the only time I've seen a woman ride a cycle up to the gym's doors... a guy has done it a few times since.
I wondered if anyone else have seen any of your characters in real life. Or someone that looked like their characters anyway.
posted
Can't say that I've ever had this happen to me.
But hey, if it's happening for you you should capitalize on it, maybe by writing steamy romances featuring a main character suspiciously similar to yourself ^^.
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I saw a guy on the Staten Island Ferry once who looked just like one of the main characters in my WIP novel. I was working on a completely different version then. It was odd because my character does not have a typical look. Very slight of build, androgynous with elfin features. This guy even had the haircut almost, striaght long hair just above the shoulders in a sort of bob or pageboy.
Also, one of my friends used to critique me for using the name 'Jan' for a guy in my book. He'd been in publishing and was a bit of a know-it-all. He kept telling me that if it was published it would have to be changed. I went to an SF conference and one of the organizers was a guy named 'Jan' not 'Yan' but Jan as a woman whose real name is Janet might shorten it. I told him that he validated me, and he was tickled.
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Can't say I've ever seen any of my characters walking around...I've seen some guys who resembled them, once in awhile, but nobody who was them to the life. 'Course I don't know either that well...
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posted
Since I've never meant any of the people I mention I can't say they are exactly like my characters but even the resembling part is... interesting.
Especially the fat guy who was dressed in the wrong time period for my character and a little too tall.
But that reminds me A certain writer invented a multi-dimensional business, with an usual name He said he kinda felt like freaking out when while driving a back country highway he saw a truck with the name of the business on it. Turned out to be a local company in the area he was driving through.
quote: Please never write an end-of-the-world story.
Spoil sport.
[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited July 01, 2011).]
Well, one turned out to be from another writer not me. Saw a girl with short hair and I thought hey it's NA in New Mage, except the hair color. But a while later I thought no, hair isn't right after all- it's Laura Anne Gilman's character from "Hard Magic".
Today at B&N I saw NA again. This time the hair was a whole lot closer. A girl with a Mohawk- a little on the tail side and a bit too skinny but hey it's her. Of course NA would have had to dye her hair a natural color but that's possible.
Her Mohawk was made up though. I mean instead of straight up it looked combed and kinda wavy. Actually NA might do that come to think of it.
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Happened to me once. Had been working on this tomboy character Nellie (who was interviewed here at Hatrack) and the went to pick my son up from scout camp. They lined up the adult volunteers and the teenage counselors went down the line shaking hands. There was this girl explorer scout who *swaggered* down the line like she owned the place, shot her hand out and probably tried to crush a few hands.
I instantly recognized this as the girl I'd been imagining; short, but larger-than-life; not pretty, but athletic and charismatic. Long, straight brown hair, high cheekbones, prominent nose -- all there. One of the first pieces of physical description I did on Nellie was to describe her grin as crooked, toothy, and a little too wide for her face, and there *that* was too.
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Forgot something from my trip to B&N though. She wasn't my character but she is most probably someone's. A female vampire, most be from one of those books where sunlight doesn't kill vamps though.
Of course come to think of it she could have been a goblin in Lisa Shearin's universe. The females have cute fangs.
Not kidding, I saw a girl headed my way and she had fangs. That is until she opened her mouth. The fangs were long pieces of metal hooked to her lower lip. She noticed me staying at her and from her expression it seemed like she didn't know why. But I would think she would get a lot of stares.
As I said, she wasn't one of my characters but she might be in the future. Some day I might do a vamp story and I would love to do a story in Shearin's universe.
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The weirdest thing I've ever seen at a B & N is when I saw one woman at the checkout line, on a cellphone, talking to another woman, at the other end of the checkout line.
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There's this cafe in Harvard Square in Cambridge in the basement of an ramshackle house around the corner from the old Roman Catholic church. It's called "The Cafe Pamplona". I discovered it a little over thirty years ago when I was walking the dark streets very late on enight. A patch of light spilling out of a window near my knee caught my eye. My gaze was drawn down the stairway to a to the subterranean cafe.
Entering, I found a cramped, crypt-like room. I had to stoop; the ceiling was less than six feet tall. The walls I think are supposed to be stucco; but I suppose you might call the decorative style "Spackle gothic". Standing, exposed beams cut the lurid glare of the bare incandescent bulbs, but the glossy yellowing white paint on the irregular walls cast an unhealthy pallor upon the patrons.
Anyhow, the most striking thing about the Pamplona were the waiters. They were clearly undead. The uninform was black pants with button shirt, white as a surplice, but their livid complexions made their shirts dingy by comparison.
I understand that pressure to be politically correct has force the Pamplona to hiring living wait staff recently.
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