Character Inspiration, Part 1

We all know that reality is the best place to find characters for fiction, but what to do as a writer when you spend most of your day sitting at home glued to a computer? When your only human contact in a day may consist of "do you want fries with that?" and "sign here, please", you can spot your protagonist, villain or other supporting characters in photo blogs on the web. I will post some interesting resources in this next series of posts starting with:

The Sartorialist I am an armchair fashionista - like many a football fan, I partake from the sidelines having neither the physical attributes nor the stamina (or bank account) to actually participate. The Sartorialist, a fashion photo blog meant to "showcase the wonderful and varied sartorial tastes of real people", fills my fashion cravings with photos of real people, gives me vague hopes of fashion redemption, and provides interesting people to turn into characters. Yes, many of the people are young, pretty, thin adults (many make me think of Scott Westerfield's character, Tally). But there are also those who are older, have intriguing faces or are even (gasp!) pleasingly plump. They may not be kids, but with every person I look at, I wonder what they do for a living, why they wear what they wear, and how they would relate to a child. As of August 2009, Scott Schuman (he who IS the blog) had a book published, so you can thumb though and have a copy for your writing reference shelf.