Fan fiction taught me everything I need to know about writing. (Except this: character description.)

[rsadelle]

ceciliatan says that writing fan fiction teaches you how to do everything except rewrite. I think there's another exception: physical description of characters.

I first noticed this when I read "Houseplants For Beginners." I enjoyed the story, but I had a terrible time picturing the characters because I don't know anything about bandom. I found the same thing again recently when I read "In Production" - I liked much of the story, but I don't know the fandom and I couldn't picture any of the characters in my head. I don't think this is really that much of a problem for fan fiction. The intended audience, after all, is other members of the fandom, who you expect to already know your characters and their world. If, however, you're trying to convert your mad fan fic skillz to original writing, this does become a problem. When my high school football RPS AU turned original novel (to be known as "football.txt" from here on out - at least until it gets a title) was fan fic, it didn't matter that I didn't tell you what the characters looked like because they were people you already knew - or could google if you didn't. But Jake and Tony (Look! I came up with new names for them!) aren't people you know, and you can't google them. (Well, you could, but the real people with the same names are not the same people I'm writing about.)

This presents me with quite the writing challenge. I have no freakin idea how to describe people. (I'm even pretty iffy on describing inanimate objects.) It probably doesn't help that I get irritated reading excessive and excessively gushing description, which is the only time I really notice it.

The Ask: Help me learn how to describe people.
Do you have any good advice (your own or someone else's) to share about how to describe people? Is there anyone you know of (fan or professionally published) who writes really great descriptions that I could read for examples? How else might I go about learning about how to describe people?

Comments

[meacoustic.livejournal.com]

I am no help, because I'm having the same problem with my novel, now that I think about it. I was all excited to work on it pretending it was a bandom AU, but it was because then I was already familiar with the people I was basing my characters on, as opposed to continuing to develop the characters from scratch. Fortunately there's some scenes that I can only think about with the actual characters, but the bandom counterparts are helpful when it comes to writing the porn.

[rsadelle]

This is hard for us fan fic writers!

[meacoustic.livejournal.com]

But I also get irritated with fiction that has a lot of character description, too. Which could be because I'm so used to reading fanfic.

[rsadelle]

You're jumping ahead! (I have that entry mostly written. It's later in this series of entries.)

[eleanor-lavish.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have very little advice, but I think you are going to get a lot of "GOD ME TOO" answers! I think that I've mastered a lot in the last seven years (world building, dialogue, non-accidentally-hilarious sex scenes), but I can't tell you what someone looks like! Frank Iero is... really short? Dark-haired? Covered in ridiculous tattoos? All true! But none of that gets across how truly beautiful he is, the manic energy under his skin, the way a room actually lights up when he laughs. Ugh.

[rsadelle]

Gah! I know! It's terrible! The room lighting up would be a good thing for dedalvs' suggestion below of having someone else say it, which, I think, is actually a good way to do character description - things take on a different weight when they're said by another character with emotional involvement than if they're said by the author/narrator. (Of course, this also causes problems. I want the reader to know what Thomas looks like, but given that the novel is third person limited to Jake, is it really plausible that Jake's going to notice the sun glinting off of Thomas's golden blond curls? [This sounds much dumber in an LJ comment than it does in the novel.])

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

In Invisible Man (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_kalusa.php?word=Invisible%20Man), not only do you never get a description of the main character, you never even get his name. In Paradise (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_kalusa.php?word=Paradise) (which is terrible), Toni Morrison's thing was that the reader wasn't supposed to be able to figure out which of the characters was black or white (or, at least not until the end). In Dictionary of the Khazars (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_kalusa.php?word=Dictionary%20of%20the%20Khazars), the main characters are "described", but mostly in ways that are non-sensical: He had a wrinkle on his forehead forged of silent memory. She wore a glove on her left hand with which she would separate dreams into their components parts, storing them for later use. Half his mustache was gray, and half red, like half of him had seen death and yearned to describe it to the other half. Etc. In short, I think character description is only important if you make it important.

For a good description in print, I think Goncharov's description of Oblomov in his book Oblomov (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_kalusa.php?word=Oblomov) is a good one, but something by Tom Robbins (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_english.php?word=Robbins,%20Tom) might be more up your alley. Ever read anything by him?

[rsadelle]

Your examples are all things where the lack of description is a gimmick/part of the story! In your average novel (which is what I want to write) you find out what the characters look like.

I haven't read anything by Tom Robbins, but you're not the first person to recommend him to me, so he might have to go on my list of things to read.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

My favorite Robbins books are Skinny Legs and All (his best), Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (a relatively new one, but solid), and Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (a sentimental favorite written in second person).

[rsadelle]

I'm willing to give it a try! I put in a hold request for Skinny Legs and All (my local branch's copy is overdue, so I'll have to wait for a copy from Durham).

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

Oh, one more idea, this one from Cervantes: If you don't know what to say, have a character say it. That is, have one character describe another to another. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote an entire book (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_kalusa.php?word=The%20Great%20Gatsby) that way.

[rsadelle]

Sadly, I'm not sure that works with my novel. The pov is third person Jake, and he's not going to talk to anyone about Tony, much less everyone else who he's known for years.