Thoughts on heterochromia for purely cosmetic purposes?

Then again, if dismissing irrelevant details leaves a manuscript looking thin, it's possible the plot could use some fleshing out. That would be my guess, anyway.

One thing that throws people off in a forum like this is that what might be irrelevant in one genre might not be in another. Fantasy and science fiction both end up very heavy on setting, which requires the description of otherwise irrelevant details. Think about when Stallone comes out of the bathroom complaining about the three sea shells in Demolition Man. Is this relevant? Yes, it is. In contrast, describing your particular brand of toilet tissue in a work set in our own, very mundane world is probably a waste of everyone's time.

Don't let that kind of thing throw you off. Writers usually know what is and isn't relevant to their story. That's why we come on these forums to ask these questions: if the OP didn't have a feeling this was an iffy decision, this thread wouldn't be here.

If it's borderline, cut it the fuck out. If you should have left it in, you'll know later on, and you can always put it back.

 

I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying that sometimes things that may appear to have importance for some people are actually just basic descriptions that say something about the personality of someone, and are important in that respect. Even if the proverbial gun is not ever going to go off.

 

That's not quite what I mean.

There's reasons to have details that aren't plot related; as you say to build the world or establish mood or time or to let us understand a character better. It's ok to take the time to do that. We need the reader to invest in the characters and so we have to take the time to build them. In a narrative sense it doesn't really matter why the characters make the choices they do, only that they make them. But it matters a huge amount to the characters. A book cannot live by plot alone. And in building complete characters we often need to include details that are somewhat irrelevant. Those irrelevant details make a character human. So we do need some. The question is how to make them feel like description of a character and not a critical detail that the reader needs to take note of instead of a theme that is supposed to wash over them.

 

Yes, but I felt that focusing so specifically on plot was counterproductive, and I interpreted that word to mean "story," which I felt was clear when I brought up elements like setting. Sorry.

 

I think, though, that when you're reading a story, any unusual detail will strike you as important. If you talk to an American policeman who is wearing a gun, that's not Chekov's gun, because American police wear guns. A gun is just part of his gear. If, however, you walk into a little old lady's house (maybe your retired English teacher) and find her loading a gun and setting it next to a vase of flowers on the dining room table, THAT is Checkov's gun. There had better be some story reason for this unusual action, because the reader will be looking for it.

If you give a character some very unusual personal characteristic, it's very likely that the reader will expect it to matter.

 

That made me laugh, because I grew up in the south, and where I was, we call that Tuesday - and it would just be a part of who she was. I had a great aunt that was 4' something, chewed tobacco, and carried a shotgun that was taller than her (and loaded) everywhere she went (and she was a librarian if that matters). And that's even during my lifetime (she passed away in '03). And I don't mean that to be argumentative, it's not at all, and I get what you're saying. I'm just saying it's not always true.

 

I agree with this, and that's why in my original post I talked about narrative space.

If the old lady is interacting with the gun, sure, it should be used. But what if there's a shotgun propped up in the corner of her living room as set dressing. Does that need to be brought into the story? Or does it just work as characterization?

I don't think things, even unusual things, need to come into play all the time. It really boils down to how much attention you (the author) give it.

 

Chekhov's point is that the world is filled with details we ignore all day long, but that writing is filled with only those details which the writer deemed important. This means that all details in a story are unusual, even if only in the sense that the writer chose to waste your time with them. For this reason, including a lot of detail no one cares about weakens your writing.

Edit: in other words, the fact that you don't describe granny's gun is not evidence that granny hasn't got a gun--it's evidence that the gun is not relevant to the story.

 

I think that's where beta readers come in. If they say 'but what about that shotgun in her living room?' then you know they noticed it, and were wondering about it all through the story. Probably because it seemed out of character. (My definition of 'unusual' in this context.) If they don't notice or don't wonder, then you've successfully made it a background issue and it won't matter..

 

I find myself trying to reply to too many people in one message.

So, as I mentioned, the fact that granny's gun is not mentioned in the text is not evidence that granny doesn't have a gun--it's just evidence that the gun is not relevant to the story. If the gun is used to characterize granny, then the gun is relevant to the story. I don't imagine that these are even remotely controversial questions, and I'm not clear why they're being raised here.

The point is that there is a pretty obvious boundary between items that are used by the author for some purpose and are therefore valuable to the story and items that are not, and we all know what that is; it's just we don't like it sometimes.

 

I'd say any time your reader ends up frustrated because they thought something was important that turned out not to be, you've screwed up. Unless, of course, you're writing a mystery or something, and it's a deliberate red herring which they'll forgive you for. Maybe.

 

Getting into example isn't all that helpful to be honest. Each one needs to be judged on a case by case basis.

For every little old lady with a shotgun that you could reasonably argue needs to be used there's another little old lady who is crazy (or paranoid or whatever) where her shotgun is characterizing her and doesn't need to be used, even though it's clearly unusual. Some characters are unusual and are characterized in unusual ways, and that will of course stand out to the reader, but what matters is how you treat that element. A gun is an unsually dynamic object but if you put it in a different light and instead she is sitting there with a fish, because she's crazy and all, would we expect her to hit someone with the fish? There is complexity here.

On a more philosophical level; the thing with Chekhov's gun is that it's about theater, originally anyway. And while the principle is still applicable elsewhere, theater is a different medium. In a theater where there is a stage, typically with very minimal props and stage dressing, then things really stand out. There isn't a whole vibrant world in front of us. In a book there's rather more space for things that aren't strictly meaningful. That doesn't mean that you should just go nuts with whatever you want, but at the same time you can be a bit more liberal with building characters and creating meaning through means other than actions and dialogue. You put meaning into objects by, well, giving them meaning. Giving them more words and more prominence and building them to have that sense of value and meaning. When you do give things that sense of largeness then it's reasonable that they are going to get used and the reader will be annoyed if they aren't paid off. But when it's not then they don't and that's ok.

 

I've looked at this, like, fifteen times, and I still can't see the difference...

(Is there a joke I'm not getting?)

 

Bowie (as in bow tie) vs Bowie (as in bow down). Because no-one could ever quite say his name right. I don't even know which is the right one.

 

Don't forget boo-ey, wherever that one came from.

 

This. I personally would avoid heterochromia at all costs, because to me it feels like a gimmick used to make characters stand out, rather than serving some purpose. It's that way in many forms of media, which is unfortunate, since it's really neat and adds flavor to personality and character. But if you feel like you can pull it off in a meaningful way without just using it to make your character "special K" then by all means, give it a shot. Just make sure you make the character as interesting as they appear to be. I'd like to be impressed by an actual good usage of the condition.

 

1/ Here, the shotgun is part of who she is, it's part of her character, so not Chekhov's gun.

2/ One of my grandmothers and one of her sons had heterochromia, arising out of Waardenburg syndrome. Several of my relatives on that side of the family had one or more of the indicators of the syndrome.

3/ My vote is don't mention it in description unless you'd also mention everybody else's eye colour.

4/ It would have been so much simpler if David Bowie hadn't changed his name from David Jones.

 

1/ Well, that was my point, that the gun can be useful even if it doesn't go off. I'm having a pretty shitty week though, so I am apparently wording things wrong and people think I'm arguing when I'm not.

2/ I had never heard of this, but 2 of the 3 people I know with heterochromia have other markers for this - so I learned something new. Thank you.

4/ Yes.

 

There are also real people who are naturally talented at many different things, have multiple people madly in love with them, and get through life with supreme ease. But those are still Mary Sue characters.

Unusual eyes and eye colours are the #1 physical marker of a Mary Sue.

 

Yeah, but I don't like those people. Just kidding (sorta), and it's a whole other conversation, but those people don't actually exist. Everyone has problems, even if you don't see them on surface.

 

Some of them just happen to be ".01st" world problems.

 

It's probably a little late to be adding some detail to the original post but I'll go ahead anyway. The character in question is from the fantasy genre. He's a nephilim which is a being that is half angel and half human. I could certainly play this condition off as being a physical manifestation of his two bloodlines. This isn't a physical trait inherent in other nephilim though, so it would still make him "special" to an extent. At the same time he strives to seem and act more human than the others of his species. Having the two different eye colors would be a reminder that he can never be fully human.

In the novel it would be typical for those who don't know his name to refer to him as the "Odd-eyed nephilim or the odd-eyed man" which further solidifies that he doesn't really fit.

But it seems like it walks the border of being a pretty cheesy metaphor. Thoughts?

 

Hm, in that case I'm more shaky on it. When it's a special thing that marks someone as different, I tend to think it's more of a cliche thing. If he was just a regular person, with a fluke that regular people have, I'd be more on board, but I shy away from using things like heterochromia, albinism, vitiligo, etc to visually indicate a person is 'other'.

 

The responses seem pretty split on this point (if I am actually interpreting it right) because it seems like some want a pay off if a character is going to have an odd physical trait and others think it's okay simply for the sake of normalizing the trait.

 

Yeah, there really hasn't been much of a consensus, eh? I can only say that I'm in the camp that considers uncommon traits to not be guns so to speak, and as a reader I wouldn't feel cheated if one isn't fired. To me it's a bit more interesting if something like that isn't portrayed as 'special', just because it's less frequently the case - and in the flipside, uncommon quirk = special character is more of a cliche imo.