I have to ‘cast’ characters I write with actors I know, and honestly, it is a lot of fun.
Right now I’m mulling on a seekrit projekt, and one of the leads is played in my head by JR Bourne (he of Star Gate 1 and Teen Wolf fame):
RAWR!!!
It’s not just hot men, though. I have one character in Link in the Chain who I “cast” I long time ago with Claude Rains, and Dame Maggie Smith has turned up more than a few times in different stories — she’s an actress, she can play different roles, okay!?!?! One of the leads in Encyclopediaists of Mercy Jane was originally envisioned as Sidney Poitier (that’s changed, he’s more Don Cheadle now).
I have no idea when I first started doing this. Remember, I’ve been writing stories since I was old enough to write, and by the time I started in with the Star Wars fanfiction in about 1978 I had already been writing original stories for a couple of years. Which came first, the casting or the writing?
It could be a habit I picked up from Mother; one of our favorite games was to take a book we both had read and decide on a cast for it. We’d argue and cut out pictures from magazines (this was the 80s, by then) to plead our case. I remember one particularly unctus battle about Nicol Williamson, and damned if I can remember the book we were casting, but I was a huge fan of his and mother preferred Oliver Reed and we literally plastered each other’s doors with pictures of our preferred actor.
To this day, I will often “cast” books I read, but I most enjoy casting my own stories. I enjoy it because it gives me a framework to hang the character on, a way to “see” them in action. I don’t do this for all my characters, and not even for every lead character I write, but sometimes a character just won’t “gel” until I cast them.
I’ve seen the suggestion to cast characters you are writing both encouraged and discouraged — my bottom line is always, if it helps you get the writing done, then do it.