(Untitled)

[chicasumi]

I have a question. How stylistically correct is it to use "[adjective] male" when speaking of a man in prose written in English? Instead of using the character's name, I mean. I've been running into that a lot lately, and it bothers me

Comments

[slewinca]

Hmm, well, take this with a grain of salt since I've never taken a writing class, and that I'm an American who writes in American English, but, in my writing, I tend not to refer to male characters as, well, "male." I usually use man, boy, woman, girl, etc. "Male" feels too stiff and formal to me, and yeah, like a Discovery Channel documentary on the animals of the Serengeti. xD
Plus, I tend to use the character's name to refer to them most of the time, after their name's been revealed, anyway.
(I try not to refer to them by their hair color too often, either; it's sort of a fanfiction cliche ^^')
I don't know if it's necessarily WRONG to do it like I do, or like you do, though. It's probably a matter of personal preference. As for me, I prefer to use words other than male/female.
(Which is a good thing, because my story has a transgender Xion, so a clinical gender reference like that...wouldn't work. :s)

[chicasumi]

Yeah, using the character's name when referring to them seems to be the best way to go about it, I think. It's better than to use a truckload of epithets that break the general style of the prose. I guess it's something writers learn with time?

(How is that going? There are so many different words people use to label themselves *_* I saw a masterpost on tumblr a couple of weeks ago regarding all the words that fell under "trans*" and their significance. It was quite an impressive list.)

[yeopard]

Personally, I've never seen that expression in English prose. Granted, I come at it from an American English viewpoint, but stylistically I believe it's a poor choice. I have seen [adjective] man used a few times. "The dark-haired man could be seen running through the crowd..." or whatever. That I don't mind if it's not overused. I agree with you though, having 'male' used the way your describing does seem more in tune with a nature documentary. It's very impersonal and just ... off.

[chicasumi]

Wua. It seems that it's mostly inexperienced writers who use it then. I've encountered this expression in fanfics, and fanfic writers are known to use certain expressions that aren't conventional, like using the word "orbs" to describe eyes or coming up with up with words to describe a character via his/her hair color(bluenette, silverette etc.).
I just want to cry when I come across words like "bluenette", and that's mainly because writers usually use it to describe a male character that I read about, and when I see "bluenette" I can only think of what I learned in French, which means that "bluenette" for me is a description of a woman with blue hair.

Anyway, I think style is something that most people don't think about when they write. I didn't start to actively think about style in written text until it was brought up as an important aspect of translation, and that was like two years ago. I'm still learning.

[chicasumi]

Eeep, long time no see! :D How are you?

I don't think that's something that disrupts the flow of the story as long as it's not overused. Epithets can be really useful and add to the story, I think, but sometimes it backfires.