A Fanfic Question...Readers please chime in

[aiyokusama]

I have a question and I'm looking for opinions.  There is no right or wrong answer here.  Rather, I'm tryign to get a feel for what readers think as I want to avoid using things that throw them out of teh story

Comments

[dragonbat2006]

Well, anime's not my thing, but though I'm not in the fandom, I used to be a Jem and the Holograms watcher as a kid. And thinking about how I'd describe them? I probably wouldn't refer to them by hair-color unless I was doing it from the POV of someone who didn't know their names. I'd try to work it into the story as:

"Aja twirled a lock of blue hair around her index finger absent-mindedly."

"Shayna dragged a hairbrush through her tangled lavender curls."

"I don't know, Jem," Kimber said. "I think you should try red hair for a change. When I look at all that pink, I just think 'cotton candy.'!"

If it is a POV piece from the POV of someone who doesn't know them, I'd prefer "blue-haired singer/girl/guitarist/soprano" over bluenette, etc.

[aiyokusama]

*nodnod* Okay, good to know. And DAMN, kudos for referencing a piece of my childhood :)

[pawpawpaku]

I don't see any problem with using words like that. I've seen bluenet used to describe Grimmjow quite a lot, and it's always made sense to me. Context I suppose, though it's not exactly a difficult term to understand. Brunet...bluenet...

As for writing about hair colour myself, I tend to do exactly what dragonbat2006 just mentioned. When I describe my characters, I don't write a solid paragraphs on their features etc. etc. I try to incorporate their appearance and habits into the way they talk and act.

And as for the actual colour of the character's hair... Well when I write Ichigo I tend to either call him 'ginger' or just 'orange-haired' - he is orange-haired after all. Very occasionally he's a 'red-head' but I usually reserve that term for Renji. I don't think I've ever actually written Grimmjow, but running with how I write for Ichigo, he'd probably be 'blue-haired' instead of 'bluenet' :)

[aiyokusama]

Calling Ichigo a redhead DOES throw me out of stories, I totally agree that it should be saved for Renji.

And thanks for the input :)

[silv_magiccraft]

I'm not really into the Bleach fandom, but I agree with dragonbat2006 and pawpawpaku on using -haired. I just don't care for the made up words for hair color. When I'm reading Naruto fanfiction at that use pinkette for Sakura I just want to bang my head on my desk. So it does pop me out of the scene. 'Cause there's slang, and then there are words that were probably originally thought up by 10-12 year-olds, and those ones make me cry for the English language.

-Silv

[aiyokusama]

*laughs* Okay, noted :)

[pierreuse]

Not gonna lie, it's weird in any fandom, and it does throw me off. It's been years since I read a lot of fanfic, and even longer since I read fic for series with crazy-haired characters, but honestly, it would not be remiss to call Ichigo a redhead. His hair isn't quite Renji's red, but it's still red enough for this reader. The trouble with yaoi is that you can't fall back on feminine and masculine pronouns to give the reader an idea of who's being described, so you have to use A LOT of description words unless you really do just want to be THAT annoying and use nothing but their names. That said, I guess there's very little way to get around these made-up words, so if they're in a fic, I'll probably still read all of it.

[aiyokusama]

Thanks for speaking up :)

And yeah, a pet peeve of mine is when names are over used. I LIKE description to differenentate between characters. But I really don't want to put off my readers.