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denna
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Quote: youngun, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 18:47Quote: denna, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 17:00One of my favorite authors, Patricia Cornwell, tends to give a fairly detailed description for each character as they are introduced and for me it works, but works for her, not for everyone. Slightly off-topic and you are probably more familar with her work. But I have felt that Cornwell has got steadily worse as a writer, becoming almost indigestible in later books. Whether this (perceived) decline has coincided with her quest to try and prove that the painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper I don't know. But she bought about 30 of his paintings and has been accused of destroying at least one in a random effort to find DNA. You are right, she has gotten much worse, not better. I should have said, she used to be one of my favorites. I haven't bought anything by her for several years now. The last one, can't even remember the name, was nothing but recaps over all the rest of her Scarpetta novels. Really irked me. I haven't heard about the Walter Sickert/Jack the Ripper thing, but nothing much surprises me anymore.
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notleyab
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I've just been through another glut of pple looking at themselves in mirrors in the past week..... Anyone got a hammer?
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clairewhatley
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David, I just thought I should let you know that in my latest upload I have not one but TWO mirrors. In neither case does a character look at themselves purely to give me an opportunity to describe them. The first one, in particular, makes an observation as she looks at herself that is central to the plot. Nevertheless, I wanted to let you know so that should you be assigned the story, you can pass on it rather than endure any more (apparently) idle vanity.
nil desperandum
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notleyab
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Quote: clairewhatley, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 12:05David, I just thought I should let you know that in my latest upload I have not one but TWO mirrors. In neither case does a character look at themselves purely to give me an opportunity to describe them. The first one, in particular, makes an observation as she looks at herself that is central to the plot. Nevertheless, I wanted to let you know so that should you be assigned the story, you can pass on it rather than endure any more (apparently) idle vanity.  I don't mind if the mirror is used for another purpose - it wd make a pleasant change. Seriously, it's become a sort of YWO cliché. I must have read at least a dozen excerpts now where the same ploy is used.
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clairewhatley
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I suppose in the end it all depends on whether the reader notices the mirror and feels it's an authorial ploy (whether as an excuse to cram in some physical description, or for any other reason). If they do, the writer has failed. Hopefully you'll have a run of mirror-free assignments now...
nil desperandum
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youngun
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I find descriptions of characters' appearance really irritating, except perhaps for the colour of Heloise's eyes in one of the Ripley novels.
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clairewhatley
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It's very much a matter of personal taste. In 4 years on YWO I've probably received a greater number of reviews suggesting more physical description of characters, than ones saying it should be cut down or eliminated. And of course it depends on how and why it's done. And on the genre. In children's fiction, for instance, it's the norm to include some description as it does help a child reader to identify/distinguish the different characters.
nil desperandum
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rosalindwinter
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Children's fiction and teen fiction generally seem to require quite a lot of physical description of characters, and I would say the same is often true of Fantasy - especially where a character doesn't have the conventional number of heads/eyes/limbs.  It's presumably also important in Romance and Chicklit; but largely irrelevant in SciFi.
This post was last edited by rosalindwinter, 30 May 2012, 19:33
******************************************************************************** Scias te fortasse Romanum esse si ... discrimen apud te recentissimum tumultus fuerit servilis (Henricus Barbatus)
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ChuckBuckner
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I often receive requests for more physical description of characters. I largely ignore them. I see it this way. If one cannot visualize my characters, I have failed, but not in the way they may think. What I have failed to do is stimulate the mind of the reader in a way so they see the characters without my having to give them more details.
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Majordave
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I suppose the art is to drop in a bit of discription here and there. He stroked his moustache. She batted her blue eyes etc. until the reader has built there own mental image of the character. Some say you should never describe, just allow the reader to use his/her imagination. I can see my characters (one of them has statues all over France) and I kind of want people to see the same person I see when I invent one. So long as we don't describe them from head to toe and everything in between in one paragraph, it shouldn't matter that much. If the story is good enough around it, most people probably wouldnt care.
-------------------------------------------- Know not what you know and know nothing in return. (Confuseus)
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