I’m getting ready to edit my latest book after a couple of weeks off. Time is passing and it’s starting to niggle at me to crack on and get it polished. One of the things that I’ve wanted to get a handle on before beginning is who are the multitude of characters sprinkled throughout.

So last night, I sat down and started pulling together photos of gorgeous men and women to populate this tale. I now have 21 photos, organised into who is allied with whom and have a bird’s-eye view of names and looks.

As a result, I’ve noticed I have a number of characters whose names begin with J, a couple of Ls and my three main characters all have names ending with an -en sound. So there are things to fix so this has proved useful already. I find coming up with new names a lot of fun, especially when I have to stretch myself to choose something different.

Looking over the men, I see there’s a definite type. I tried to find a variety but it proved harder than I thought so maybe some will need to change. A majority of them have short, brown hair, most are white and there’s just a general similarity between them.

I wonder if this is because of my own attraction to a particular type, a general lacking in diversity in famous men’s appearance or a combination of both. Either way, they’re all dead sexy haha. Henry Cavill, Bernardo Velasco and Chris Hemsworth are some of the main guys.

The women on the other hand are a more diverse. Here are some of the names: Cher, Julianne Moore, Christina Ricci, Naomi Watts, Halle Berry and Tilda Swinton. They’re going to be a bit easier to describe than the men.

This does raise the question (for me at least): do most writers pick characters they’re attracted to physically? (And I’m not saying I’m only attracted to white guys with brown hair.) Are they aware of a type they write and if so, do they consciously work to go against it?

So if you’re a writer, are you aware of a character type that you continuously draw on? Do you try and do something different?

And if you’re a reader, do you seek out a particular type of character in the books you buy? Would you welcome a greater diversity or do you think characters are diverse enough already?