posted
Should the physical characteristics of a person be described if they are mostly irrelevant to the story?
I have four characters - three men and one woman, Caucasian x 2, African-American, and Middle Eastern descent, respectively. Their race/ethnicity has nothing to do with the story - that's just the way I imagined them looking.
Should their descriptions include characteristics like skin color or "foreign" accent in order to make the reader visualize them the way I see them or should I just allow the reader to know certain traits (e.g., height/build) and fill in the rest on their own?
Some of their characteristics _are_ important to the story - the woman has tatoos covering most of her arms, which allows her to blend in with a particular group from which they need information, so I have included that in descriptions/observations of her.
posted
I find myself asking that very question sometimes. So let me know what you decide, lol.
One way I like to play it out, which is also the easy/wussy way, is to only add physical descriptions when it's relevant. I mean if you really DID want a detailed description of a main character, I'm still at a loss for how you do that.
As Bob looked in the mirror, he admired his [insert paragraph long description of Bob], the same way he looked every single day, and yet every single day, Bob apparently took the time to examine every aspect of his appearance, in case anyone who is listening inside his head didn't know what he looked like...
So... yeah if it's important, then it would flow naturally with the story. "Luckily, Jane's tattoo-covered body let her fit into the crowd naturally" for a [bad] example.
So if it matters that one of my MCs is short, then it will come up. If it matters that one of them is black, or hispanic, or middle-eastern, then it will come up. But if it doesn't come up... *shrug* I figure the reader can bring what they want to the description.
posted
Same here. I have a character that in my mind is black, but I haven't mentioned it because it's only the way I see him. Other's may see him differently.
I used to go into detailed decritptions of people - usually through the eyes of another charater - but now barely bother with it unless it is important to the story. I may mention hair colour, I may mention hieght, but not often nowadays. So I would say, mention it if it is important, say for example, his/hers background is important to the story and that in itself would involve thier race etc, otherwise, don't go into detail.
Obviously your description of the woman with tatoos is important so that should be explained, but say only what's needed.
posted
Sorry, KPKilburn, I don't have an answer. I have a further complication of the issue specific to my WIP, and I'm going to piggyback it onto your question if I may.
I have an even bigger difficulty with my WIP...One of the themes that emerged in the first draft that I want to try to clarify in the rewrite is that race is not a reason for people to hate each other, just an excuse. In this future world I'm writing about, "the race problem" has been solved and nobody cares what race a person is anymore, but they've just found other excuses for hatred and shifted their hatred to different groups (in this case, physical and mental handicaps).
So, it is important that the reader understands that some of these characters are different races so that it is clear that characters are not noticing each other's races. It is hard, though, to tell the reader what race the characters are, when none of the point of view characters ever notice the race of other characters.
quote:Their race/ethnicity has nothing to do with the story - that's just the way I imagined them looking.
They might not have much to do with the plot of the story, but their race and ethnicity would have a lot to do with the characters in the story. Part of the richness of the story isn't just the plot, but how different characters with different attributes respond to the story in different ways. If you don't develop these features, they could wind up being too flat. If a character's ethnicity isn't important to that character, I would expect it to be a very shallow character.
wetwilly:
quote:So, it is important that the reader understands that some of these characters are different races so that it is clear that characters are not noticing each other's races.
To develop a theme where race and ethnicity has no longer become an excuse for hate, I think it is all the more important to show race and ethnicity. Showing the differences and how characters react to these differences without hate is imperative to getting that theme across. I think it would be a mistake to try to homogenize them. If you have no differences except skin color and genetics, you really haven't dealt with the ethnicity problem--you have obliterated ethnicity. Plus, that would make your characters much less interesting.
posted
I would only put in that which was relevant to the story. I am not in favor of elaborate descriptions as the reader will fill in the blanks. If you need a detail that the woman has loads of tattoo's because later it's a key plot point, then just work it in.
"Why are you scratching?" "I had a new tattoo done on friday and it's itchin' like mad." "I am suprised you have any surface area left, Donna, to put one on." "Well, my contract with the circus says that if I want to keep the title as The Tattooed Lady, I have to get a new one done at least once a year." "That's a little harsh."
Obviously avoid the mirror trick.
quote:So, it is important that the reader understands that some of these characters are different races so that it is clear that characters are not noticing each other's races. It is hard, though, to tell the reader what race the characters are, when none of the point of view characters ever notice the race of other characters.
I still notice if paper is black or white. It doesn't mean I hate any one due to the color of their skin, but noticing something would seem natural, like seeing someone has blond or dark hair.
For something to become invisible it would have to be the same. So through diverse sexual relations, everyone ends up a similar shade, no-one is really dark or light. Besides, presumably they know history, so they could talk about the pre-homogenised era or something.
What you are saying is, is how can the reader notice something that the POV character doesn't--yet make it obvious the POV character is 'blind' to it? Search me!
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited November 26, 2007).]
posted
It really depends. I think you can minimize the physical description a lot. But then that's just IMHO
Posts: 1210 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I read an interview with one of the guys that did the "Left Behind" series. He says there's a computer genius (or something like that, haven't read the books) that his editor wanted him to describe further. His response was that the character wasn't important and that describing him as a computer geek was everything that was needed. He didn't want to give undo attention to someone who was only a minor character.
The way I do describe people, if important, is usually to give them a once over when we meet them. He stood six-foot tall, with dark hair and brilliant green eyes. Hey, that's me, never mind. Or I compare them to a character the reader already knows. She was slightly taller than her, with light hair, just a bit longer than her own. Something like that.
Or you have the LeGuin approach. She didn't mention that the MC in Legend of Earthsea had dark skin until further into the book. She did this on purpose because she wanted the reader to develop emotions for the character that weren't biased based on skin color.
quote:Should their descriptions include characteristics like skin color or "foreign" accent in order to make the reader visualize them the way I see them or should I just allow the reader to know certain traits (e.g., height/build) and fill in the rest on their own?
First off, race does not equal nationality--therefore, you would not necessarily have foreign accents.
Secondly, I would argue, how are traits such as height and build less important than race?
I think it's impossible to separate ethnicity (I hate the word "race") from one's identity, and any world that doesn't take on, at least on some level, the issue of ethnicity, I find lacks dimension.
As others pointed out, noticing differences, and actually acting/ thinking on them, are two separate issues. So, one should not be afraid of making note of physical differences.
However, should one make a point of describing different ethnic characteristics? Ethnicity does convey milieu, and, as I said earlier, ethnic identity is pretty integral to most people's identity. I would argue that in most cases, ethnicity, or "race", if you will, is important to the story. Maybe the characters don't make a decision relevant to the plot depending on their ethnicity, but surely it has an influence on who they are, and hence on the story.
One could also draw interesting similarities between race and Dumbledore's gayness, and some of the posts in that thread. I am in no way advocating rekindling those flames! I only want to point out a possible effect of keeping out information about a character from the reader. It worked for some, it didn't work for others.
[This message has been edited by annepin (edited November 26, 2007).]
posted
OSC has pointed out that if you don't describe the characters more than necessary for the story, the readers will put their own images in, and many times, the descriptions the readers come up with look a lot like themselves (especially if they identify closely with a particular character).
The thing to be concerned about is to not put something in later that messes with the reader's image of the character, because that will usually throw the reader right out of the story, and do it so permanently that you'll never get them as involved or interested again.
If you are going to provide a detailed description, do it as soon after you introduce the character as possible, or don't do it at all.
It's just a word. And it's okay that people are different, and it's okay to notice those differences.
I had a diversity training at my last job. The guy running it was a big, black man. At one point he said, "I bet when you all saw me, you didn't think I was Chinese. It's okay to notice that someone is black, or white, or asian, or whatever. That's what your race is.
People get upset and think, why does this character have to be black, or white, or whatever. When I started my WiP, my first thought for a hero was a guy. At an early point I thought, why can't it be a woman? With that in mind, I made the MC/hero a woman. And I like it so much better for it.
You may think, why can't this character be black, or asian, or an alien? If you think that, then why not write a story with that in mind? A large part of speculative fiction is asking: Why not? or What if? or That's cool, but how about this?
But don't get hung up on race. It's just what you are. Replacing it with a synonym with ethnicity doesn't change what it is. What has to change is our attitudes. Remember Mark Twain's Huck Finn? It's banned in a lot of schools because Twain uses the 'N' word to refer to Huck's black friend. Sure, we find it offensive today, but then it was just a common word. What people miss is how Huck treats him. He doesn't treat him like a slave or an underclass. He treats him like an equal, like a friend. So don't get caught up on words, look to the intention. (Though in today's world, anyone using the 'N' word has a specific intention.)
posted
The reason I hate the word race is because I find it woefully inaccurate and inadequate. It's a personal preference, and "ethnicity" is not synonymous with "race", again, in my opinion.
If you read my post, you'll see we're not at odds. I, too, state that there is a difference between racism and noting racial differences, implying that there is nothing wrong with the latter.
Edit: I would also argue that words have every bit to do with shaping, describing, and understanding, our attitudes. How else can we accurately and precisely describe what we think and feel?
[This message has been edited by annepin (edited November 26, 2007).]
posted
It's hard to work skin color into a story without coming across as some kind of racist. It requires a tough mind, with a delicate hand. And it has to be relevant to the story, and in character for the POV character to say.
I'm not crazy about the term "race" to describe skin color, either---it doesn't quite fit. "Breed" is better---but we aren't talking about animals here. (Race: Human---but just try and put that on your census forms.)
There's the nasty tendency, in Hollywood and elsewhere, to make the assumption that if it doesn't come up, the race (or skin color) is automatically assumend to be white. The Le Guin issue came up---y'know, I read the three (then) books and didn't notice the reference.
*****
Sidebar on the "N" word: I just bought a copy of "Blazing Saddles" the other day 'cause I couldn't stand a commercial cable edited version that dropped every "N" word. There's a scene involving the main character and an elderly woman ("Good morning, ma'am, and isn't it a lovely day?") that has the elderly woman say three words, two of them a vulgarism and the the other the "N" word. When I saw the movie years ago on network TV, the vulgarism was changed to "Outta my way" and the "N" word left alone. In this more recent version, the vulgarism is back but the "N" word was gone.
What's the point in running it if everything of significance---and the "N" word was a very important part of the movie---is taken out?
(Imagine my surprise when I listened to Mel Brooks's commentary, and heard him say almost exactly the same thing.)
posted
[uote]There's the nasty tendency, in Hollywood and elsewhere, to make the assumption that if it doesn't come up, the race (or skin color) is automatically assumend to be white.[/quote]
I find this to be the case in most fantasy I read. Unless I'm given a distinct clue to the contrary, either in description, setting, or name, the character seems implied to be white. I wonder if this is part of Tolkien's legacy, too.
posted
A lot of Tolkien's descriptions, especially when you delve into the deep parts of his work, make it clear that the main on-stage characters are all white---there's a lot more to it than that, though, and considerable variation within those groups---and some of the people that come from the South and the East are not. (Strikes me as largely an historical analogy---Europe, invaded from the south and the east, by various groups of different skin colors.)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Luckily, Jane's tattoo-covered body let her fit into the crowd naturally" for a [bad] example was said earlier.
I'd think a more indirect way might be Jane's tatoos were denser and more varied. She'd been to a pricier tatoo parlor than most of the group. Crow noticed and wandered over to her. "South Boston. Henry's place, right?" he asked, identifying the artist correctly.
posted
Tolkien was writing a mythology which he intended for England. He said as much. England at the time was pretty much totally white so I see nothing to criticise about that in his work. It has nothing to do with what we do now. I don't write my stories for England. At the moment the people in my story are probably by the closest comparison Basque. However, I also don't put in a lot of physical description which leaves people free to make their own assumptions. The only time I have ever described a main character was in another novel when I emphasized a characters blonde braids. They were (oddly enough) an important plot point. lol
Posts: 1588 | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've been reading Charles deLint's "Tapping the Dream Tree", a collection of short stories set in his fictional town of Newford. In several of the stories there are characters of different races/creeds/breeds/ethnicities. He doesn't try to make a character seem 'black' or 'white' or whatever. They are simply characters that happen to be black or white. He's a white guy that writes characters of varying races.
There may be those that say, 'how can a white man understand a black lifestyle?' I answer it like this. Kelsey Grammer (from Cheers/Frasier) was the executive producer of a show about four black women called Girlfriends. I loved that show. It was very funny to me, and it did occasionally address the issues of black women in a white world. How did a white man get black issues? Perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he's just a man who understands people. All people have struggles in life. It's how we relate to them that make us who we are. All a white person has to do to understand how some people of differing races are treated in this world is to understand how anyone who is different can be treated. Are you too tall, to white, too black, too short, too skinny? Do you have freckles? Are you ugly, are you really attractive? Are you Christian? Atheist? Jewish? There are people in this world who will feel they are superior because someone else is different. Anyone who has been picked on has felt injustice.
These are all things a writer can draw on to create a character that is different from themselves. I know of an author, who is white, who wrote an MC who is black. Some criticized her for writing a black character, but they're the same people who would criticize you for NOT having a racial mix.
Any good writer will take risks and will try to write something they haven't done before. OSC said he really pushed himself with Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide. It's what made the books better, to try to write a book in such a way that he may fail. You can't be afraid to take risks.
posted
When it's important, at least to me, I try to set out the character in contrast to another or in contrast to another feature. Darker-skinned than his brother, his white teeth gleamed against dark skin. That sort of thing. Then I also try to use names that indicate some sort of non-white heritage. I lived in Asia for a while in high school, and attended an international school. I have several high-school yearbooks to mine, since my classmates came from about 75 other countries. (and often had parents from two different countries/cultures.)
One of the things that is important to me in my near-term future sci-fi is to indicate how much of a melting pot the world will have had to become (in order to do things like build massive long-term orbiting residential space stations) - one way I can accomplish that is through names that mix cultures.
quote:First off, race does not equal nationality--therefore, you would not necessarily have foreign accents.
I didn't mean to suggest that it did, only that it's one more characteristic that may or may not matter.
quote:Secondly, I would argue, how are traits such as height and build less important than race?
If there is a fist fight, then it would be important to know the size/build of both opponents and what type (if any) of fighting skill they had (kung fu, boxing). Their race/ethnicity/skin color/hair color (though length may be important if someone tried to grab it) wouldn't matter much.
[This message has been edited by KPKilburn (edited November 27, 2007).]
posted
One thing I wanted to add on the fantasy / historical front.
Especially in a preindustrial society, odds are the vast majority of people in one geographic region are going to share the same race. Personally, if I were to read about a swords-and-sorcery type of fantasy with knights and castles, etc, and the kingdom was a veritable melting pot of ethnicities and races, I would want an explanation.
Skin color, like all other physical human attributes, evolved for a reason. In a broad, oversweeeping generalization, colder climates tend towards fair-skinned people and hotter climates tend towards darker-skinned people. In a fantasy land of a given climate, most of the population should have similar skin colors, unless there is a very specific reason why large masses of people have migrated to this region from alternate climates.
While I'm not saying that "everyone in a fantasy world has to be white," most of them should be the SAME. In a region where 90% of the people are black, it would be presumed from the POV of a black MC that everyone he/she meets is also black, which would lead to descriptions which might not bother pointing that out, whereas a visiting white man/woman from a far away land should be pointed out as being light-skinned. Similarly, in a region filled with mostly-white people, a darker skinned visitor would stand out.
Only when advances in transportation make it easy for distant populations to intermingle should there ever be a melting pot of ethnicities. I think that's why, often in fantasy worlds where such transportation is unavailable, writers tend to tackle racism between actually races, that is elves vs. dwarves vs. men, etc. instead of the racism based on skin color.
posted
Of course one of the difficulties of fantasy or science fiction is that the characters we encounter come from places or races we're unfamiliar with, because they're inventions of the writer and there's no way we can be familiar with them.
You can say a character is "Basque," to use a name mentioned above, and, for the savvy reader, a certain mental image is conjured up, and this image includes skin coloring. But a modern day fantasy is just as likely to come up with some something out of a private mythology, and even the most savvy reader, encountering the name, character, and person for the first time all at once, can't come up with anything other than what the writer provides.
posted
I tend to enjoy treading on politically correct toes (and oh, how fun they are to tread upon), but when it comes to describing race/ethnicity/descent/bunnies, I usually try and just mention a trait like that just once and have it just imprint itself on the reader's mind.
My biggest problem is coming up with a way to get it in there that doesn't make it seem significant. I can't just say:
"This is Bill. He's black."
I usually sneak it into a description, mentioning his "dark skin" or something along those lines, and then leave it. Usually I don't make a big deal out of it.
(My dad has this neat adjective he uses, though, that I hadn't really heard anywhere else: swarthy. Apparently describes a Mediterranean- or tropics-type person.)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
