Young Writers Society

Dear Writers.

Why? Why do we do it?

In every book there is a character that has green eyes, or red hair, or a killer body. A supermodel or a black-haired guy with pale skin would stand out in a crowd. Why are our characters so distinctive? Why can't we have 'average characters'?

In a school there will be more people who are left-handed than people with actual green eyes. Some might say their eyes are green but most of the time it's just a trick of the light performed on blue-grey eyes. So why is this feature used so much in our stories and books?

Let's all describe an average character and then our own characters. Let's see how different they are. Let's!

~Durrie

Why are our characters so distinctive? Why can't we have 'average characters'?

I found you answered those questions with this:

would stand out in a crowd.

Oftentimes, we want our characters to stand out. If everybody blended in, then why would there be anything "special" about them? A lot of authors tend to make their characters "special" in one way or another; looks is one of those ways.

There's also reader empathy. How many of us have seen ourselves in the beautiful MC who gets every girl/guy who comes their way? And how often have we found ourselves wanting a not so good looking character to win despite it all? With average-looking characters, there runs the risk of readers not empathizing with them. Yes, that can be overcome if there's not much focus on the characters' looks and/or if there's good writing around looks, but that's pretty rare in my opinion.

~Rosey

Not a huge fan of protagonists who look like lingerie models. It's unrealistic, shameless wish-fulfilment and horribly overdone, and it also feeds into the teeth-grating Beauty Equals Goodness theme: ugly people are bad and only beautiful people deserve our sympathy. I particularly hate a common twist - protagonists who don't know just how stunningly beautiful they are until someone tells them. It's a transparent attempt to create reader sympathy through the protagonist's low self-esteem.

Not that I'm ranting.

You have a point, I do this as well but I guess it's because the character has to have a reason to stand out, to make the story and usually the best way to allow them to stand out is making their appearance more distinct. Usually the only time you have average characters is when the writers wants them to be average, like your kind of teenage girls diaries books.

So yeah, interesting point but I think there is a reason why everyone (including me) does it.

~Lydia

Lydia1995 wrote:You have a point, I do this as well but I guess it's because the character has to have a reason to stand out, to make the story and usually the best way to allow them to stand out is making their appearance more distinct. Usually the only time you have average characters is when the writers wants them to be average, like your kind of teenage girls diaries books.

So yeah, interesting point but I think there is a reason why everyone (including me) does it.

I respect your opinion, but I disagree with you so strongly, I'm going to need a list to ennumate all the ways.

1. When all protagonists are beautiful, a beautiful protagonist does not stand out.
2. Being beautiful is not in itself an admirable, protagonist-worthy quality. It's a trick of genetics. Luck.
3. Being beautiful is not in itself an interesting quality. All sorts of people and things can be beautiful. Dolls can be beautiful - but they're also lifeless, characterless and boring.
4. There are about seventeen thousand more interesting ways protagonists could stand out. How about their personality? They could be witty or smart or devious or brave or compassionate or honest. Or their experiences? They could say, think or do things that are spectacular and amazing.
5. It takes about two words to tell us that a protagonist is beautiful, but it takes real skill to show a compelling personality.
6. A story which is more interested in characters' looks than personalities tells a great deal about the author's values, none of it flattering.

I could go on for a while.

Go Karsten xD

I'm not saying that no one has ever had characters that stand out, I myself do. But I also have reasons for their standing out eg. they are a demigod or an elf or they have to be standy-outish for the personality traits I need. (I love making up words )Other than them I try to keep my characters average.

~Durrie

Durriedog wrote:I'm not saying that no one has ever had characters that stand out, I myself do. But I also have reasons for their standing out eg. they are a demigod or an elf or they have to be standy-outish for the personality traits I need. (I love making up words )Other than them I try to keep my characters average.

Well, standing out because of a different genetically inherited trait is only marginally less problematic. I'm not a fan of characters being born special in general.

(I am an untrustworthy friend in a debate. You never know when I might turn on you. )

edit: Let me rephrase. Being born special can be a useful and/or interesting aspect to a character. I just don't think it should be the only, or even the most important, aspect of their character. A well-drawn character is a bundle of thoughts and feelings, values and morals, experiences and perceptions. A badly-drawn character is just a label or two: their looks, their species (in your example), etc.

Durriedog wrote:In every book there is a character that has green eyes, or red hair, or a killer body.

What's wrong with green eyes (I assume by green, you mean bright green and not teal or hazel) and red hair?

But I do agree. I never really describe my characters much besides general hair/eye color, build, etc. Depending on the reader's imagination, they could be beautiful or butt-ugly.

I do think beauty can be a well-done character trait if it accents the rest of the character's personality--who would Six from Battlestar Galactica be if she wasn't drop-dead gorgeous? But that's not her defining trait; it just helps build her manipulative seductress image.

Making characters beautiful simply because they "stand out," or if it's wish-fulfillment, or worse, their only trait, is rarely a good thing. Of course, making all your characters butt ugly won't fix this; what's wrong with having book characters reflect reality, in which physical appearance is a contiuum with most of us in the middle?

In romance novels, I suppose that physical appearances might matter more, since it does tend to be a factor attracting people to each other. It gets unealistic and tiresome whn the love interest is a perfect god/goddess and the attraction is based only on appearances (coughTwilightcoug), but having characters like little physical quirks about one another is perfectly all right and builds the relationship more realisically than "what a handsome marble Adonis" does.

I am mostly in agreement. Characters do not have to possess remarkable beauty or stunning defining qualities to stand out and, while I would never condemn every character with some defining feature with laziness on the writer's part, it is certainly not necessary. I do not think there is a problem with characters whose appearances stick out; I think the problem is when the character and the character's impact rely on that departure from the other, normal-looking characters.

My main gripe with characters who are gorgeous or extremely distinct physically is when that is the primary way they are distinct.

I admit... I like to make my beautiful women complete biatches. It's a bad habit of mine. But it's remarkably fun to write!

Hahahaha

You see, I believe God has a plan for all of us and so our genetic makeup (our looks, how well we manage anger, etc) is how it is so we will grow up individually. You ever hear how people look their personality sometimes? Well I think it is because they are partly how they are because of what they look like. Well, for example, when I was little I had to have glasses and wear a patch over one eye because one eye's sight was so much better than the other. As you can imagine, I got teased for it real bad. Now I'm a tough boot to chew and very paranoid cautious. And we always hear of snappy, crabby spectacle-wearing peeps. I also have a large nose, dark brows almost always frowned with thought or anger and eyes that seem to change colour although I'm told they're grey. What's your guy's take on this?

~Durrie

I haven't got green eyes.

Well, not many people do and it's not like we care online. Online you're the awesome and pleasant plauge of the forums ^^

~Durrie

Green eyes are actually more common among certain ethnic groups, like Celtic, Germanic, and Icelandic peoples.