Inspiration for your characters

How do writers come up with the physical and emotional attributes of their characters?  Do we base our visions on movie stars or just random images that we find/collate from social media sites such as Pinterest?  Or is it a combination of both?

These past months I've been working on Book #2 in my School for Sophistication, featuring Lady Caro Ashford and the Dowager Lady Rutherford as the school's tutors.  Although they're not the main characters, they're the ones that carry the thread through the series.  And they both also featured in the Merry Widow series, a previous series.  I enjoyed these two intrepid ladies so much that I knew I had to incorporate them in the second series somehow, and the idea of the school seemed ideal.  Literally, they had taken on a life of their own, as often characters are want to do -- guiding the writer is so many little ways -- "No, not like that, dear.  I want to be more like this;" etc.  The writer starts out with an idea or two, sometimes vague, sometimes quite solid.  But over time, the character grows and detours begin.

So, let's look at the visuals that helped me create the first of the two ladies.  A little background first, though.  Lady Caroline Ashford has been married and widowed three times by the time The Viscount and the Virgin was written, which was not unusual for a well-endowed woman in the early 19th century.  Caro is quite attractive even in her fortieth decade -- witty and still somewhat lusty, a bit like the Wife of Bath, although much more elegant.

Ms. Hampshire as Molly in Monarch of the Glen

First British actress that helped shape Lady Caro is Susan Hampshire.  Ms. Hampshire has been in British movies and television series for quite some time, but still an attractive woman.  My favorite role is her Molly from Monarch of the Glen.  Molly is an intelligent, handsome woman in middle age, with a light, witty attitude toward life; she also can be a schemer.

from the First Churchills (1969)

I think these images convey a bit of how I envisioned Lady Caro.  But there's also a side to Caro that is frivolous, especially when it comes to the menfolk.  She's always falling in love or at least smitten by a handsome, experienced man.  And that's how her vulnerable side developed.  She fears growing old alone.  So, like a bee in a garden, she tends to flit from man to man, although she's also coming to realize that her husbands tend to die on her, so in the first romance of this new series, she's determined not to marry again. 

Brenda Blethyn in Pride & Prejudice (2005)

And so another British actress who inspired a bit of this side of Lady Caro is Brenda Blethyn.  I love Blethyn's talents as an actress -- from Vera, a toughened detective, to the silly but loving Mrs. Bennett of Pride & Prejudice (2005), Blethyn helped shape this aspect of Lady Caro.

Next week I'll post about the Dowager Lady Rutherford, Lady Caro's friend and business partner in The School for Sophistication series.  The dowager is a tough nut and often is a foil to the flirty Lady Caro, but she grows on you.  And in the second novel, Wicked Wagers, she'll play a vital role.  Stay tuned!