When I was first experimenting with AI to create realistic photos of the characters in my stories, I often generated many different images of a single character to get a sampling of looks from which to choose. The consequence is that now I have hundreds of template images that aren’t attached to specific characters. To create a photo of Claire Belmonte’s best friend from childhood, Josephine Carter (aka Jodie Newcombe), I took a look through the images generated for Charlotte Sanger to see if one would be suitable to modify to create Jodie. I chose the one above, which had been a strong contender for Charlotte.
Jodie is a very important supporting character in the Expanded Universe of Fictional Atlanta, even though she hasn’t been featured in a story of her own. She’s Christine Messner’s best friend throughout school, who shields Christine in her home after Christine escapes from James Frederick in the story “Phoenix” from Fables of the New South. Later, Jodie drives Christine to Macon to continue her journey toward becoming Claire Belmonte.
Jodie has faced her own triumphs and tragedies throughout her life. In conversation with Claire in an upcoming story, she mentions her son, Patrick, who Jodie lost when she and her husband, Giles Carter were starting their family and lets Claire know about some good news she recently received.
While there are no immediate plans to send Jodie on an adventure of her own, she and Claire remain good friends, so she will always be a vital part of the Expanded Universe. Jodie works as a counselor at a school in Perry, Georgia in Houston County, where she’s lived most of her life.
