Interesting Questions

[jpskewedthrone]

So, I was browsing the old LJ friendslist and wldhrsjen3 posted the following questions:

"How much character description do you like? Do you prefer an author to keep things rather vague so you can form your own mental pictures, or do you like a clear picture of the people in the book?

And what is the best way to slip description in without interrupting the flow of dialogue or the pacing of a scene?"

I ended up leaving a rather long comment (for a comment) and I thought everyone might be interested in it. So here's my response:

OK, I generally leave the majority of the description of characters and places and whatnot up to the reader. I always find it annoying (and generally just skip ahead when reading) when a writer goes into some kind of heavy-duty description of a character in a novel. Unless something in that description is important to the plot or to the character (such as eye color because later on that's how they identify the thief, or a scar whose back story gives the character added dimension) I don't think it should be included. So I skip it. Or I give a rather vague description of the character. . . . Although now that I think about it, my "vague" descriptions are usually used to show something about the character. For example, I describe Varis at one point in The Skewed Throne, but the information I give the reader paints a picture about her world: her small form (due to starvation), her torn and tattered clothing, her matted and dirt-smeared hair. All of those details give you an idea of how she lives, but I dind't tell you about her cheek bones or the color of her eyebrows, etc. Such details didn't add anything to the story, IMO.

Others might not agree. That's just what I think about character descriptions and how I use them in a story.

No good suggestion on how to work them in. Like everything else, it should flow. I try to mix the descriptions into the other aspects of the story, such as the dialogue. You can mention how a character's long hair obscures their vision by having another character who cares for her reach out and brush the hair out of the way during a conversation. Things like that. But you can also do a more blatant description. For the above description of Varis, I actually had her think, "I don't know what he saw when he looked back--an eleven-year-old girl who looked as if she were eight, with tattered clothes, dirt-smeared skin, matted hair, cowering against the alley wall." Something like that anyway. I know that in the Throne novels, I made a conscious decision to describe things with a BAM! BAM! BAM! approach. So the basic structure was detail-detail-detail, then back to the story as quick as possible. That worked for Varis. But the new novel can't use that structure because it's got a different voice. So a single answer on how to work in the descriptions just doesn't work, because it depends on the novel and its voice.

Feel free to comment here or, better yet, over at wldhrsjen3's original post--or both!

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

It depends on the type of story. I tend to prefer heavy characterization because most of my favorite stories are character-driven; they're about what happens to a particular person that the author has made me care about -- sometimes with as little as a single phrase.

Some stories are mileu stories, about a setting that the author has made me want to visit as much as possible. I'd like some character description -- especially as regards the ways in which the setting has created people who belong there -- but it doesn't need to be as much. I'm not following the characters so much as I'm ogling the landscape.

Then there are stories of idea or plot. They're not about people, really; the characters are just whomever happens to get swept up in what's happening. That could be anybody. So the only characterization needed is 1) enough to tell them apart, and 2) stuff that's actually going to impact the story. Stories of idea are svelte, elegant things compared to character-driven fiction. Stories of plot can be intricate contraptions where you just want to lie there and watch the gears whiz. Neither of them benefit from show-stealing characters.

Some of the best fiction balances those elements and creates a unique situation that could only emerge from a specific character in a specific setting. Those demand rich characterization, rich background description, and robust plotting. They're challenging to write, but they sure are worth it!

Re: Thoughts

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was making a distinction between characterization and character descriptions. To me, characterization is essential. I'm not going to be interested in the story much at all unless there are characters involved that I care about. So there's no way (not even in an "idea" driven novel) that I'm going to read something without some good characterization in it.

However, when I refer to character description, I mean things like eye color, hair color, weight, height, clothing, etc. In general, unless it relates to the story or tells me something about their emotional character, I'm not all that interested. I form a picture of the character in my head on my own and don't need the author to flesh out those details. Because of this, as an author I generally leave all the descriptions up to the reader as well. Unless it relates to the plot or characterization in some way.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

To me, character description (physical) is an aspect of characterization (all types of development). I tend to want more of it where I want more characterization total, and care less about it in stories where characterization in general isn't crucial. So I wasn't exactly conflating them mentally, but the lines follow the same trajectory.

[dynastic-queen.livejournal.com]

I pretty much share your view on this subject (no kidding, well isn't that a surprise, hardee-har-har :)

I really like it when the description is worked in throughout the scene. I absolutely HATE when the action is stopped for a paragraph (running grocery list) of a character's description, while I'm sitting there in limbo, waiting. *shudder* I have a critique mate who's made a career out of doing just that, and more and more, I find myself skimming whatever page it is and moving on.

That's just me.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if there's going to be some description necessary, it has to be worked in. I'm reading a book right now where once a new person or place is introduced, there's a long paragraph where they describe that person or place in detail . . . and I just skip it. Or rather, I skim it, just in case there's something in that paragraph that's important. So far, I haven't found anything that's important that I would have missed.

So work it in so it isn't obvious. That's my motto. And only then when it's necessary for the plot or characterization overall.

visuals

[wortschmiedin.livejournal.com]

I find it hard. I usually don't hang on to visuals in writing. I mean I don't really care if the heroine/hero is dark or fair but I hate it, when that fact is sprung on me after I have built a picture in my head.
I find myself in the position occasionally that some readers dislike that I don't deliver visuals. That is not only a matter taste. IMO the most challenging is to write without a visual in a way that the lack of visual is not felt so intensly by those readers.

What I try to do, is using, for example, the concept of foreshadowing. I have a dark haired, dark eyed MC. I introduce him in a dark setting. Thus, the reader associates the darkness. If he wasn't dark himself, it would be something *special* to be pointed out.

I have another story the very tall, very young MC burries his foster father in the first scene. I get across the fact that he is in good physical shape by the lengthy procedure and his dealing with it. I let his really big, broad hand do something in a gesture of weariness indicating that he is a tall person. His thoughts about his father portrait his youth. So, there really is no need for an actual visual. And yet you get one.

I am still finding it hard. It helps that I actually do have a visual reference in my head. Even it it doesn't make it explicitely into the scene. And sometimes I simply fail miserable and have to do some serious editing :(
Brooke

Re: visuals

[hominysnark.livejournal.com]

I hate it, when that fact is sprung on me after I have built a picture in my head

Word. I always cast characters in my head, and while I don't need enough info to be able to pick them out of a lineup, I would like to know if I need to go with, say, a Liam Neeson type versus a Billy Barty type.

Re: visuals

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

It doesn't bother me at all when a writer reveals something that doesn't jibe with my own version of the character. I usually just ignore it and assume the writer was wrong. *grin*

Re: visuals

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

That's a good technique. And in general that's what I try to do: work it in so that the reader gets an idea of the physical description without needing me to say, "This character is thin with brown hair and green eyes." Although I don't think I've used the "dark setting=dark physique" technique at all. I'll have to keep that one in mind.

I'm also don't hang on to visuals when I'm reading. If it's important that a character have green eyes for a huge plot revelation later on . . . I'm going to totally miss that. Because the writer may mention green eyes repeatedly, but a paragraph later I'm not going to remember that. Because I'll already have a picture in my head and I'm happy with that, and in most books my picture works just fine, thank you. *grin*

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I know celli complains that I don't describe my characters enough in the early drafts of my stories. I'm trying to be better about that, though I'm never going to be one to sit someone down in front of a mirror (yuck!) and rattle off a list of their features. When I remember to, I try to pick a characteristic that has something to do with the plot or theme of the story, and let the reader build on that. Especially with short stories, I figure anything more is just going to weigh it down.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Oh, the mirror trick just sucks. My estimation of a writer who uses such a trick drops immediately when they pull that one out of the hat. The closest I came to the mirror trick in one of my novels was when Varis leans over a barrel to wash her face and catches her reflection. And then I ended up describing how haggard and weary she looked, rather than things like hair. . . . Oh and I used the same barrel trick in a dream sequence so that Varis could realize it wasn't herself she was dreaming about.

But yeah, only bring up things that relate to plot and characterization and you're usually pretty well set for descriptions.

[suelder.livejournal.com]

AS with everything else, I think it depends. I acutally just wrote a "laundry list", but the hero is considering courting her. He goes through her physical qualities and decides she'll do. Of course, that's only a superficial description, but that's the point.

She's not the one for him and when he thinks about the girl he does marry, he thinks about *her*, not what she looks like.

Suelder

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you used the description for a purpose other than just pure description. That's when I think descriptions of characters are relevant. So yay! for character description! But if you'd just stopped and described her for a paragraph without it revealing something about the guy (he's being superficial) then it wasn't worth the wasted paragraph. IMO.

[suelder.livejournal.com]

oh, okay. I can agree with that. :-)

[jeanhuets.livejournal.com]

I love reading physical descriptions of characters and places. Maybe it goes with a love of travel. I want to see things that I wouldn't come up with myself, the author's pictures. I'm a visual person, anyway; I like looking at paintings and am a graphic artist. Not just visuals, though, but the quality of a character's voice, their body odor or perfume, the smell of a place--bring it on!

No, descriptions don't usually work if they're cutting into action, and if they get too elaborate, they drag. But a few well placed sentences or even a paragraph's worth can set up a whole character / place.

For example, the physical appearance of Patrick O'Brian's characters plays into their relationships and their personalities. In the first scene of his entire series, he describes Jack's physique as almost extinguishing the gilt chair he's sitting in. In just a few sentences, not only do you see this larger than life man, but you get the whole room, the milieu, everything. Throughout the series, O'Brian repeatedly mentions Jack's ample physique, his long blond hair, his ruddy sea-tanned face. He can also paint a seascape in just a few sentences. All of that immerses me in that world. Neil Gaimon is good at that, too.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

See, there's always at least one bad seed in the batch. *grin*

No, I realize that NOT describing the character in detail is probably going to annoy some of the readers out there. But hopefully I provide enough description--a tidbit there, and tidbit here--so that these readers don't just chuck the book across the room for lack of anyone having faces.

And I do try to describe characters in detail if those details are important for characterization, like your Patrick O'Brian example. He's using it to give us an idea of what the character is LIKE, emotionally, not just so we have an idea of what he looks like.

[jeanhuets.livejournal.com]

True about O'Brian, but I think (purely speculation) that he ALSO wanted us to know what his people and scenes look, smell, sound like. At least that's what I get out of it: not just the characterization but the sense experience. When I write, I'm seeing / smelling / hearing / touching pretty vividly in my imagination. True, it can carry me away and I have often to edit back descriptions.

It's a bent that certain writers and readers have. Ultimately, ya can't please 'em all.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

I am a characterization fan, and I prefer descriptions right at the beginning so I don't form an image that is contradicted later.

One of the things that bugged me about the last Wild Cards book I read is that they didn't bother with much physical description in the book because the book has a webpage with comic book style art, and that defined how the characters looked. If not for that, I wouldn't really have had a clear picture of anybody other than one. And it would've bugged me worse.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I try to bring in any relevant descriptions as soon as possible, so the reader doesn't run into any of those dreaded contradictions later on. And I usually give the reader SOME idea of what the character looks like so they aren't just blank faces, like what happened with your Wild Cards experience, it sounds. (Minus the art of course.)

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh, oh, characterization is a must. I can't read books without some good characterization, because otherwise I just don't care what happens to the characters involved. In this post, I was just talking about physical descriptions. So, I agree: characterization is essential, but the looks and such . . . those aren't as important overall. Which is why I don't tend to have just blatant character description paragraphs in my novels. (I don't think I have them anyway.)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I guess I like a little physical description, but not too much, and I don't like it to be mentioned explicitly on every other page. (Which is perverse of me, since I also don't remember things like hair and I colour very well from chapter to chapter...) I care about things like people's relative heights and sizes, and whether they're graceful or klutzy, flabby or musclebound or lanky or wiry, how their voices sound; I may sometimes care whether they're pretty or not, and that sort of thing, but mainly because that affects their self-image, their ideas about life, and what their life is like (why is Mary Bennet the way she is? Well, mostly because she's spent her whole life being told she's not as pretty as her sisters). The mirror trick irritates me. Stopping the narrative to describe someone's appearance (or, worse, their attire) makes me skip to the next paragraph. Long-winded descriptions of gowns and jewellery and such bore me.

Some of my favourite books are the novels of Jane Austen, which are almost devoid of specific physical description (she's fond instead of calling people "pretty" or "plain" or "stout" or "light" or "tall" or whatever, which works surprisingly well). My new theory is that Austen had the same handicap that I have -- an inability to visualize -- and therefore concentrated on other things. My other theory is that this is part of the reason I like her books so much ;^).

My own book's got descriptions of people (not everybody) that are sometimes as much as two sentences long, and this strikes me as too much, but then again I have got protags who shape-shift ...