I like to describe my characters as I see them in my head. They're a pretty weird looking bunch, so I give certain details - such as my MC has cherry-red hair, and one of my assassins only has half a face - the lower half is all skull.

I think its ok to do this, and give the reader a small notion to hang their imagination around. I hate reams and reams of descriptions, but a little is healthy. None at all, and you risk creating a faceless void, where a character could be anyone.

JB

I'd certainly reinforce the various opinions expressed here that any 'self description' either via a mirror or by narration ('I pushed my long brown hair back from my eyes' stands out as a bit obvious. I've seen two reasonable answers recently. One was to compare the character to another person, using the argument about whether they were similar or not as a vehicle to describe both: The other described the character in terms of the traits of his people - dark skinned, fair haired, etc.

I'm not entirely certain how important description is, and how far it should go. I think we'd all agree that it's possible to go too far but I'm not as convinced that not going far enough is so much of a problem. For me, the most important elements of a character are their behaviour, their mannerisms, their skills, outlook, etc., i.e. everything other than their actual appearance. I rarely describe my characters at all in terms of their physical appearance, unless it's important to the plot (for example someone with striking blond hair that's easily spotted in a crowd).

To drift briefly towards film scripting, it's a common error to see characters described in excruiciating detail, missing all the things that are really important.

To summarise this ramble, I'd go for broad strokes, filling in detail as and when and where required for plot points. And it doesn't all have to happen in the first paragraph

Jon

'I pushed my long brown hair back from my eyes'

doesn't work because that's isn't what any person would think. But I'd defend the proposition that it could be

'I pushed my hair out of my eyes and wished that it was any other colour than mouse. Mum would have said I should cut it. So of course I didn't.'

OK, sub Jacqueline Wilson it maybe, but not an info dump.

Emma

Hi there

Thought I would add a bit to this. Salman Rushdie in Midnight's Children has a first person MC and refers to inherited features (large cucumber nose and india stain shaped face) to describe him. He does it again in Moor's Last Sigh. I have often used nicknames to describe my MC's. Hope this helps.

I know it doesn't work, that's why I used it as an example

Jon

<Added>

To clarify: I was using it as an example for that very reason - it's not something anyone would say. However, I have seen exactly this sort of self-description in published works and frequently on WW.

Jon, yes, I know you knew it doesn't - which is why I used it as a starting point for how to make the same material work.

Emma

I suppose, just to be original in a fiction novel, you could always insert photographs and forget about descriptions entirely. I'm joking of course!

JB

JB,

Carol Shields did exactly that in 'The Stone Diaries'. (I didn't like it.)

Ashlinn

Emma, but did you know that I knew you knew?



J

I suppose, just to be original in a fiction novel, you could always insert photographs and forget about descriptions entirely. I'm joking of course!

(lets see if the box behaves this time)

I've described photographs that I've actually taken as being taken by characters, and it's very tempting to suggest putting them in. And I've often got photographs of places I've put in left over from research trips. I suppose if I was writing the kind of thing that sold so well it generated spinoffs, they'd make a nice little book for the Christmas arket. (can't do smileys or I would)

E


<Added>

Jon, yes I thought you knew I knew..... um.

Yes, I see it now. Good stuff.

I want my book to be a graphic novel at some point.

JB

A very interesting thread - and how it's turned into the relation between text and image. JB, you're into graphic novels and want to turn yours into one - I've felt the same tug, and I'm writing a novel at the moment which owes a lot to the style of Jarry and his 'pataphysics ... Pere Ubu ...but it's hard, trying to write theatrically and cartoon-like, with bold exaggerated outlines (fee fi fo fum), and not turn puerile, or mythic, which can be worse. The other approach - to turn your existing book into a graphic (which is coming onstream fast and fashionable, like Auster)always seems to me like illustration. This can be great and has a noble lineage (Tenniel, Cruickshank [sps?]), but it's not what we're after. Collaboration is the thing - find an artist (I can't draw for toffee)and work the whole thing out between you from the start. If you can find one. And you have to say - who needs the novelist at this point anyway? What is it we can bring to the party? Comic-book writers can handle everything we do. Except ...

Take a look at Helen Fielding's Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination - illustrations within, like the book-bound illustrated stories of my youth - or Alex Garland's The Beach (much the same) and the more developed follow-up-but-one (title forgotten ... guy in a coma) where his pappy Nicholas has done full-blown illustrations. I think maybe what we're living through is a crisis in representation - as if we were ever living through anything else!

I'm going back to trusting words.

Joe

I've sometimes thought of or seen a situation - particularly something comic or ironic - which depends on visual contrast or conjunction. I reach for my notebook, but there's no point - it's visual. Unless I've got a camera, or am making a film - or I suppose, a graphic novel - that moment's no use to me.

I've watched over the years how Posy Simmonds has developed from standard-sized comic strips, via children's (anyone else love the inimitable Fred?) to full-blown adult graphic novels. Not your usual manga territory, but they get better and better on re-reading, which for me is the test.

Emma

I always go back to the old adage of show don't tell. Who says the character has to be alone? They could get into a dialogue with other characters, and someone could pass comment, such as "Peroxide blonde isn't your colour." or "Why not try the green, it'll match your eyes." or even "Get that white hair camouflaged! This is the army, not a fashion parade!" This has the double advantage of starting in the heart of the action so the reader will be engaged from the first sentence.

For myself one of my favourite ploys is to give the MC a distinctive voice. A butler for example might have a rather pedantic and flowery turn of phrase.

Another way is to describe the MC's environment in terms of themselves. For example: The trouble with driving a Mini is I go deaf as a result of my knees being around my ears. or 'As I used to say down the pub, after the first six or seven pints had loosened my tongue a bit...'

Basically, the idea is to try and hide the description in the story by creating a recognisable prototypical outline, through the character's interactions with their world, which the reader can then colour in themselves