How do you choose character appearance?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by w176, Oct 24, 2010.

  1. w176

    w176 Contributor Contributor

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    Going against expectation is also a way of using expectations, and can be just at cliché and upholding biases.

    Like all ugly duckling stories when someone unpopular, becomes beautiful and gets the prince is still saying that the most important thing is to get the prince and be pretty. Or the "She was a women but she was still very strong and capable"-stories done wrong stresses that in generally women is less capable and she an exception.
     
  2. k.little90

    k.little90 Active Member

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    I like to use people I've seen in real life. It's amazing how many fun character's you can come up with when your sitting on a park bench on campus :)
     
  3. InkDream

    InkDream Active Member

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    I usually have an image in my head, at least vaguely. I go for "interesting." Sometimes I will look for pictures online of actors or something that can serve as my mental image. One of my characters is (as far as his looks) based off Edward James Olmos. He has what I find to be visually interesting characteristics (largish nose, pockmarks, etc.) I like variety in my characters. How boring would it be if they were all blond haired, blue eyed and gorgeous? That isn't realistic.
     
  4. S-wo

    S-wo Active Member

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    Usually my appearances of my characters are inspired by other characters or real life people. Mostly fictional characters.
     
  5. cressida_tt

    cressida_tt New Member

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    I think of what the character is like and then fit them to a real person in my mind's eye. That way they become easier to describe physically. A consultant who once worked at my husbands company years ago would be very surprised to find that he was the template for an arch villain in one of my stories. He wasn't like the character himself of course, I just used his physical description and some of his mannerisms.
     
  6. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    I have no idea lol

    One of my characters six foot two, athletic. dark neat hair blue eyes arrived fully formed.

    The others just seems to suit them long blonde hair, six foot ten and built like a behemoth was Angus. I only really describe main characters.

    The one that was the hardest work was my spy character he has an ability to hide his real appearance and uses things like brightly coloured eye patches and hats, despite being a major character in my first book I knew nothing about him for my second lol Needed to find the real him. Somehow tall, dark, gold rim glasses with bird like facial features just suited him.
     
  7. Agent Vatani

    Agent Vatani Active Member

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    This is good:Nicole look in the water at herself, her long dark blond hair over her shoulder. Her blue eyes glow, her narrow face was sad. She ocean blue eyes watered up, a tear fall across her tan cheek into the water.

    (I'm not good with appearances? So good or bad?)
     
  8. jo spumoni

    jo spumoni Active Member

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    When I first started writing, I had trouble with that. I would describe things like hair and eye color and think my work was done. But being a little more advanced now, I try to be...interesting, I guess. I get into odd details, like the shape of the cheeks or the pointedness of the chin. I like little touches that reveal things about the character, like funny little mannerisms (one of my characters' mouth twitches when she's nervous) or clothing.

    I know that supposedly every detail should reveal something about the character, but honestly sometimes I just add little touches that I feel enhance the realism. It doesn't matter especially, for instance, that one of my characters has horn-rimmed glasses which are perpetually slipping from the bridge of his nose. I guess if you wanted to get metaphysical, you could argue that that would effect his world view or his self-image, but if so, that's not really my intention. I'm just trying to populate my little fantasy world with interesting-looking as well as ordinary-looking people.

    That's a good question, because I'm sure there's a lot of ways of describing people, and there's probably not one right way.
     
  9. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

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    She's not fat, just short and sat, like many indigenous South Americans (although that sets her apart from the modern beauty ideal). The actress is a knock-out in real life.
     
  10. w176

    w176 Contributor Contributor

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    Quite bad. Beginners romatizied appearance babble. Acceptable in some genres but you didn't even do it good.
     
  11. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    Find a reason for her to be checking herself like a birthday, she has been dumped by someone etc. One of mine I ended up standing him in a mirror looking at his brother the comparison is stark between the two so he would notice hair colour and eye colour. If you can't weave it into the story then it is better for it to be a straight to the point description early on then move on. At least that is how I like to read it.

    It's Ok but not grabbing because it confuses the issue. I am now seeing water and Nicole.
     
  12. Melzaar the Almighty

    Melzaar the Almighty Contributor Contributor

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    I would never give poetical descriptions of a character through their own eyes. It's just egotistical. The one time I did, it was because I was writing an incredibly self-obsessed guy. And I played up to that, and made it clear he thought he was the prettiest thing on the planet.

    So, if you WERE determined on using this way of framing the descriptions, then you can't have her looking and seeing "ocean blue eyes".

    It CAN be done well, when you have a character look at their reflection, and I've seen it be done in a way that isn't nauseating. But it's so easy to get it wrong, that, honestly, I'd avoid it until you were sure of what you were doing.
     
  13. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    However she could refer to the ex that dumped her and made her cry and how he loved her 'ocean blue eyes.'
     
  14. Gypsy88

    Gypsy88 New Member

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    I've never really thought that hard about how the characters appearances are. When I'm working on a story and I get a little stuck or distracted I tend to write character descriptions. Very little of those descriptions actually make it into the story or are ever really physically descriptive. Some characters are just a mish-mosh of people that I've noticed and some appear almost like shadows in my head. I don't know about a particular physical description until it arrives.
     
  15. Agent Vatani

    Agent Vatani Active Member

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    Well I'm not good at appearances.... Then.
    I can seen it in my head but can't put it down...
    I helped with this problem, I see it but how do you put it down?
     
  16. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Yes, she's quite beautiful.

    I think it is generally good to avoid placing such value judgments on a character as an author. It's fine if you are giving the judgments of other characters, but I've seen it done outside of that, where the author is simply inserting the judgment into the story (beautiful, ugly, etc.). Better in most cases to provide a bit of description about the character and let the reader decide.
     

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