1) No, it's not. 2) There are hundreds of people who write first person. I think I'll be fine. 3) Saying "I had flaming red hair" is not showing -- it's telling. 4) Go get more coffee, and when you get back, make a joke out of someone else's post because I'm not interested.
Have you done an intro post, @Denegroth? You're making a lot of authoritative statements in your posts and they make me curious about your background. I didn't see a post... if you have one, could you link it? And if not, maybe you could write one?
I disagree with the vast majority of this. Flaming red hair is a fairly standard descriptive phrase. Nothing wrong with it, but it's far from a grabber. First person is a bit harder to do well than third person. It's not like walking across a mine field. It might be, oh, like walking across sand--a little more care required, a little more strategy, a little harder to look graceful, than walking across firm ground. I don't even know what "the entire purpose of writing is to SHOW" means. To you, writing is about visuals and nothing but visuals? In that case, wouldn't you be better off drawing or painting? If on the other hand you mean that "show/tell" thing, red hair isn't really on either side of that. Maybe with more coffee you could try fewer decrees and more nuanced arguments.
LOL. What? Did I date myself with that one? Jokes...no nuance...you're the ones putting personal preference up as fact. Sorry. A straight up punchy intro is no-nonsense. It's writing to inform, not to impress. Those who harbor a convoluted idea of how real writing is burying information in an ocean of flowery prose waxing eloquently with the adjectives I know might have some trouble with what I said. However, it was said as an editor, not as a writer. Pride of authorship is a real thing.
Since no one in this thread has advocated anything like that, perhaps you're confused about which thread you're in?
Have a guy pour a bucket of water on the characters head. "I'm sorry, I've never seen hair like yours before, thought you were on fire."
Hello Lea, I don't know what your story is about (besides what basic info you've given), so I'll just give an example of something I might do. Let's say you have a love story subplot, you could have the characters flirt with each other and have love character tell the main character that her red hair is a very attractive feature. This will accomplish two things: Reader gets some detail about what your character looks like, and in reveals what your love character finds attractive about the main character. Just an idea.
Hi. Been a while since I responded to anything. I think as a rule, this isn't something you need to worry about. It's subtlety is its strength and as long as you aren't bringing the story to a stop to mention it. Your fine. Your probably gonna mention tons of details that aren't really important, slide it in with those and your golden. Ya know? I know as a writer you can be more paranoid because yoy know it is important but to a reader. I doubt her hair color is gonna pop out as this truly shining scene until a second read when they know the context.
'What's with the red hair, are you Irish?' That's what the little fucker said to me. 'Are you Irish?' No you little fucker, that's orange. That's a carrot top. Redheads aren't red. My hair is red, get it? It's red red. You can't get more red. Irish? What a dick. Or something like that.
Hi! I have been... well I have certainly been! lol. A bit of a down batch, but ya know, part of the whole adult package lol. No need to worry about me. Note to self, tomorrow I need to change my avatar, Lisa has been given far to much screen time! lol Edit to add: How have you been! Still writing strong I see!
