Thirty Days of Writing Questions-Day 27
Ganked from zekkass
Here's the list
I'm not doing a great job of keeping up with these. I'm just not that inspired by a lot of the questions. Sorry.
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
I feel like we covered a lot of this in Question 9.
The short answer being that I "cast" the characters either as celebrities or people I know and that determines the descriptions.
As for writing descriptions of characters in fanfic, allow me to take a minute for a rant that I like to call "Cerulean Orbs."
Generally, there is no reason for detailed descriptions of canon characters in fanfiction unless you happen to be writing a first meeting fic and you want to describe one characters first impression of another one. Otherwise, we're dealing with characters who know each other. We know what they look like and the other characters know what they look like.
But with no physical description at all, it can feel a bit empty, so the answer is to find moments where certain physical attributes seem to be relevant in the context of the story, and not just the proverbial, blood-engorged, throbbing, eight-inch you know what. One can drop a brief description of a certain smile, or delicate fingers or perhaps a specific glint in a pair of eyes. For example, Wilson might take a look at House's eyes trying to assess his mood or level of inebriation. (NO, you can not have them be lust-filled. That's the smut cliche demon in action.)
Whatever you want to say about House's eyes, or specifically what I want to say about House's or Jack's or Jools' or Neal's or anyone else's...even if they are some insanely gorgeous shade of (possibly enhanced) blue, they cannot be called, "cerulean orbs."
To me "cerulean orbs" or anything that even smacks of it for any character with any color eyes, means I'm taking the Purple Prose brick road and I must be stopped.It's hard to write physical descriptions without veering in that direction and it's another aspect of my writing where I am very dependent on my betas to save me from myself.
Wilson's melting chocolate brown eyes are a big no-no as well.
tl;dr-watch out for purple prose in physical descriptions.
Here's the list
I'm not doing a great job of keeping up with these. I'm just not that inspired by a lot of the questions. Sorry.
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
I feel like we covered a lot of this in Question 9.
The short answer being that I "cast" the characters either as celebrities or people I know and that determines the descriptions.
As for writing descriptions of characters in fanfic, allow me to take a minute for a rant that I like to call "Cerulean Orbs."
Generally, there is no reason for detailed descriptions of canon characters in fanfiction unless you happen to be writing a first meeting fic and you want to describe one characters first impression of another one. Otherwise, we're dealing with characters who know each other. We know what they look like and the other characters know what they look like.
But with no physical description at all, it can feel a bit empty, so the answer is to find moments where certain physical attributes seem to be relevant in the context of the story, and not just the proverbial, blood-engorged, throbbing, eight-inch you know what. One can drop a brief description of a certain smile, or delicate fingers or perhaps a specific glint in a pair of eyes. For example, Wilson might take a look at House's eyes trying to assess his mood or level of inebriation. (NO, you can not have them be lust-filled. That's the smut cliche demon in action.)
Whatever you want to say about House's eyes, or specifically what I want to say about House's or Jack's or Jools' or Neal's or anyone else's...even if they are some insanely gorgeous shade of (possibly enhanced) blue, they cannot be called, "cerulean orbs."
To me "cerulean orbs" or anything that even smacks of it for any character with any color eyes, means I'm taking the Purple Prose brick road and I must be stopped.It's hard to write physical descriptions without veering in that direction and it's another aspect of my writing where I am very dependent on my betas to save me from myself.
Wilson's melting chocolate brown eyes are a big no-no as well.
tl;dr-watch out for purple prose in physical descriptions.