I never clubbed in my life - the dressing room at Fillmore is a totally different reality - so I don't really understand the why, either. Not judging it, and it's fascinating to me. But I need to get some handle on it, if I'm going to do these books any justice.

Of course, I've never dated, either, so it's probably just as well I don't try to write that.

Agent told me she had an immediate visual for Patrick Ormand, the Kinkaid detective, in her head, and tracked it down.

Change the hairline, and she's got a good eye.

Oh, that's not my Patrick.

I haven't actually cast him in my mind, but that's not how I think he looks.

See? This is why books are better than movies--you get to make up the characters' appearances yourself!

Bev, what does your Patrick look like? I like Kate's take on him, but I see him as very lean. Kate says this guy is, basically, but he looks a bit chunkier because he's squatting.

I love hearing how readers see a character. I mean, I know precisely what JP looks like in my head - he's a real-life meld of Nice Piano and Nice Piano's Best Buddy John C - and Bree is pretty clear, as well. But the immediate take on Patrick is that he looks guarded, somehow.

Bev, what does your Patrick look like?

Not Bev, but my Patrick looks kind of like John Constantine - comic, obviously. Not Keanu. Specifically, Constantine as we meet him in Sandman's Preludes & Nocturnes. Can't find a good scan of it, though.

I had an immediate flash of recognition to Kate's Patrick -- he's a little better looking in my head, and he doesn't have such a prominent widow's peak, but I was like, Oh, yeah, there he is.

And I think (along with a writer friend of ours) that there's a solid flash of Robert Patrick in there, both in his X-Files persona and his Terminator persona.

I just saw that! (And nodded -- I see him as a tiny bit sturdier, but Robert Patrick is actually pretty dead-on for me.)

Cross Robert Patrick with Callum Keith Rennie, and that's the Patrick in my head.

Yep - a definite Robert Patrick consensus.

I think Patrick Ormand's predator moments, the ones where JP wants to deck him, have That Look about them: Robert Patrick as Terminator 2 'bot, implacable and cold.

edit: More Like this....

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