When I wrote The Apsinthion Protocol I put brief descriptions of some of the main characters — Anwei, Ashely, Moira, and Nanetta in particular — into the script.  This practice probably wasn’t good screenwriting, so I left it out of Study Abroad. But the fact of my leaving it out might leave a reader wondering what mental images to associate with the principal characters.

Well, probably the right answer to the question is “any images that work for you.”  But I’ll offer the images that work for me, the images I have of the characters in my mind’s eye as I write.

• Bridget is a natural redhead who looks a little bit like Clara Bow.
• Cleo is an elegant African-American woman the mental image of whom I take from Dorothy Dandridge (see right).
• Jill is muscular and athletic (she is, in fact, an athlete, a fact which will be relevant in later stories), who looks a little bit like a young Giulietta Masina, but with more of an athlete’s build.
• Iris resembles Hedy Lamarr. but is a little bit more voluptuous (no, I am not just ogling that image in my mind, that too will have future plot relevance) and has a little bit more of a steely gleam in her eyes.

A little side note:  a Google image search on Dorothy Dandridge produces what strikes me as less of a yield than the other four searches.  I think this is sort of a shame, and not only becuase, IMHO, Dorothy Dandridge is the most gorgeous of the four…