What do you do with that cosplay idea you’ve had forever and you know you’ll probably never actually use? Write it into the novel you’re working on.
I’m a cosplayer, or costumer, whichever term you prefer, and I’ve long thought it would be fun to spend a whole convention cosplaying Shadow’s wife Laura from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, starting out all neat and pretty and gradually decaying to the walking dead through the weekend. It would be fun to keep up the incremental changes (and answer to my own name). But it was unlikely to ever happen, for a variety of reasons.
- I tend to go to more anime, sci-fi, and gaming conventions, where other sources are more prevalent
- I tend to wear one costume per day, rather than perpetuating a character through three or four days of con, often with friends who would be unlikely to complete the cast of American Gods characters
- I tend to wear more technical costumes, and while dead-Laura would be a great “Sunday costume,” or a simpler wear for the final day, it wouldn’t be my typical choice.
So since I wasn’t likely to ever use the costume myself, I gave it to a character in Con Job. No idea wasted!
Of course, seeing how that turned out, maybe I’m glad I didn’t play Laura myself after all….
