I would see that as a huge distraction from the drama. I would want to wonder why she rolled her eyes, and the color description detracts from that.
For god's sake, does anyone out there have normal, green eyes anymore? Emeralds can be damn near any colour of the spectrum (there are red emeralds out there, it's a substance called Red Beryl and it's beautiful), and comparing eyes to gemstones is just annoying. It makes the eyes hard, and cold, and glittering- which isn't what you want when you're describing the tender, gentle heroine of a story. I also disagree with this concept- it breaks the flow of the sentence by adding three (in NZ english, anyway) extra syllables in a four-syllable sentence. Besides, since the character wouldn't think about her eye colour when she's rolling them, this is clearly the author showing up and breaking the flow to point out the character's sparkly eye colour. You wouldn't write "Hello friend," said the man from northern Kentucky, whose wife had just been killed by a meteor after going out to find a stray lamb. "Hi!" said his perky mechanic, a young girl by the name of Katie, whose life had been turned upside down a week ago after meeting the strange man from northern Kentucky. because it breaks the flow and ruins the audience's appreciation of the scene in favor of enriching their appreciation of the character's past. Don't harm the audience's enjoyment of an action by using it as a place to jam in some description.
When you hear "emerald," you think "green." Don't even pretend otherwise. I don't know about you, but to me, just saying "green" is kind of boring and doesn't stick in my mind. Sometimes I forget my own character's eye colors if I just say green or brown or blue. And this heroine is neither tender nor gentle; she is cold and hard, just like you said. Though I rather doubt that many people would get that symbolic impression just from my decision to say "emerald" rather than "green." No, I wouldn't write either of those examples. They're not the same, because you're telling the character's life story in an extremely awkward fashion. Quite different from sticking a single word into a single sentence. I only bother to mention the eye color when the MC's focus is already on the eyes, when it would make sense for him to notice the color. And I certainly don't do that all the time. Like I said, eye color in my story actually does play a minor role. I'm not going to force you to read it if it's simply that distracting for you.
LOL. That is a very good quote. People always say you can tell so much from a person just by looking into their eyes. No idea if that's true though, I don't think I've ever directly stared into someone's eyes. I always mention the eye colour if it's unusual, or if it's a main character. That way people have a better idea of what my character looks like. Also, I agree with what Kirvee said about it showing some underlying traits. I use that sometimes as well
Some people, the first thing you notice is their eyes. If it's their stand-out feature, it makes sense to mention it. Also, take into account the POV character. If he is a serial killer obsessed with watching life depart the eyes, he probably will describe people in terms of their eyes while neglecting other obvious attributes. As with any element of writing, what you leave out can be as telling as what you choose to include.
Exactly. Tyrion (from ASoIaF) had one green eye and one blue. I remember because it contributes to his freakish appearance, which is important to the story. And there's a part in the first book where Catelyn is appraising her husband's bastard, Jon, and resenting him for looking so much like her husband--more so than her own children do. It would make sense for eye colour to be mentioned there, too, though I can't remember if it was. Same here. . . from fiction or real life. I have no idea. But I can recall, in vivid detail, the lines on his face and how they animate with his various expressions. Again, no idea. His nose (broken twice and poorly set) is his most memorable feature, so that's what comes to mind. My last girlfriend had soft brown eyes. I remember because I used to help her with her contacts. Interesting questions.^ I wonder how many people could answer them all. Incidentally, I don't even know what my own eyes look like offhand. . . They're rather indistinct. My liscence says blue, but that's wrong. Specific colours are often more of an approximation, I find. Apart from my last girlfriend, I can only think of one other person whose eyes have been memorable: my nephew. They're an incredibly striking blue. But out of the thousands of people I've met, two pairs of eyes are statistically nill. I'm much more likely to note how their eyes (mis)behave. I'm sorry, but that's kind of what I was talking about. . It does seem pointless in an ordinary story, and it is needlessly distracting. But if it serves an actual purpose in your story, all well and good, I suppose. Though I'm not a big fan of the gemstone metaphor either. No offense intended, but I can't help noticing, I see it often in unpublished work, and then very rarely in published text. Virtually never in my favourite works. I think there's a reason for that. Anyway, it's definitely minutiae, as Wrey would say.
I honestly don't see how slipping in the character's eye color could possibly be distracting on any conceivable level, unless you're just trying to find something to distract you from the story. But I can sort of understand the hate for gemstone comparisons. "Emerald" was just the first word that came to mind, so I used it in my example. There are almost always better things to say, and sometimes "green" works just fine. But most of the time, I don't bother mentioning the color. Regarding people in the real world, eye color is one of the first things I notice about a person, and it's usually one of the last things I remember as that person fades from my memory. It's just the way I work.
It is true but the colour isn't part of that. Its the way someone moves their eyes, the expressions they use and how they hold a gaze that does it. The colour is irrelevant to who they are as a person. Which I believe is the argument that the OP was making. And with regard to the whole "emerald eyes" thing, it's a perfectly good way to describe them (say "emerald" to anyone and they think of green) but putting in a sentence about rolling said eyes does disrupt the flow. A far better place would be when someone was looking at the character's eyes because at that point they would be aware of it. But why I think it grates on some people is that it's purely superficial; barring supernatural influences no-one controls their eye colour, it means nothing about who they are as a person, there are no stereotypes of personality around eye colour. If someone describes a character's eye colour it feels like narcissism (technically not correct unless it's written in first person but you get what I mean). It's like describing exactly what a character was wearing in that in doesn't add anything useful. It just shows an author's attachment to the character which is usually not a good sign.
Best Friend (although I might be a bit too old for bfs by now) Green on the outside hazel on the inside. My boss has brown eyes - but then he tends to stare at you with a really deadpan expression so it's a good time to take a look. My lover's eyes are gray - he'd like to say they were blue, but he's lying Sorry, just fancied doing that for morbid satisfaction. Eye colour is something I tend to forget almost immediately in a novel because I'm never really seeing anything. However, as with Gormenghast and Titus' violet eyes, it helps hold together the aesthetic of the whole series. It's the best example I can think of, of unusual or 'soft' colours being put into a world that in tone seems mostly grey/black/meh and causing an odd, highly visual, semi-humorous undertone. Admittedly Gormenghast is remarkably visual but I think that, as I imagined Titus' appearance dulled down by time, ritual and dust, thus darkened, those violet eyes created a weird difference and unease in his character. Loved it.
The main problem I had with the "emerald eyes" example was the fact that it wasn't a good time for it- though the gemstone thing did tick me off somewhat. Characters should describe themselves- or, that is, the narrator or author should describe characters- only when they would think about it. That's why so many authors march their characters over to a mirror and have them meticulously describe their own appearances. The thing is, there's usually a better time for it. I (that is, me, personally) have recently gotten fit, so I tend to think about my body shape quite a bit more than I used to- so, today, when there was a friendly game of soccer, it would have been a great time for the narrator to point out that newfound fitness. Such is the case with all description- most people only think about themselves in terms of changes to their appearaces. Eye colour, being an unchanging constant, is difficult to fit into a narrative. People notice other people's eyes quite easily, and it's often the first thing they see (and thus the first thing to be described). However, it's difficult to think of a time you think about your own eye colour. Probably the best time would be when someone else points it out. "You know, you have some remarkable eyes..." If no-one points it out, it could be slipped in while he's looking toward someone else, hoping to catch their notice. However, I still think it can safely be skipped if it won't add something to the story.
For me, eye color is just another detail to a character portrait. For instance, I have a bad habit of describing the main character and eye color is generally slipped in once; from "his light-blue stare" to "her pale gray gaze". Speaking of eye color, I have this strange disdain for using brown on my main character. It might be because my iris is s greenish-blue, or I just feel brown is too common.
