Welcome to Tuesday Book Chat. This is where we encourage book lovers to answer our bookish question of the week.
Today’s question is:
What kind of character descriptions do you find puzzling or off-putting?
We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Please join in the conversation by commenting on this post or on the blog post shared in our Australasian Christian Writers Facebook Group.
Let’s chat!
Again not sure, I guess when a character is described one way in the blurb but in the book are totally different. Then again it could be the character type like spoilt socialite. I find them hard to warm to cos its so far from own experience. Hopefully you will help me with some ideas.
Your turn.
I look forward to reading your comments here or at the FB group. Remember all comments go into the monthly drawer for a gift voucher.
I like descriptions that are believable. No “perfect” people please as I can’t relate at all. I also like to have minimal info so that I can get to know the character through the writing, and not be left thinking “that doesn’t fit the description!” I think we all have our own way of relating to others.
I agree Penny, I find the super thin flawless heroines so hard to relate to. Or the ones who are always watching what they eat and at the gym etc. They lead to the narrative you cant be attractive to a man if you are not super thin and fit. I also agree with less is more. Even having authors show who a character is based on I often don’t read the info in newsletters etc as I prefer my own imagination.
When they waffle on about how someone looks. Just give me a short point or two and get on with it.
I fully understand like every time the hero is mentioned we get told about his Cobalt blue eyes. tell me once or twice but by the end of the book if I have no idea of the eye colour etc I don’t care cos I have a picture in my mind. I don’t need it hammered in.
I hope readers will forgive my protagonist, Amelia, for being spoilt and vain at the beginning of my coming novel, Amelia’s Island. She’s been in an unusual situation and the novel gives her an opportunity to change a lot. You’ll have to read it when it is out, to see how she progresses!
Hint: I always give some form of happy or redemptive ending.
Jeanette that is just me and its more the spoilt socialite who thinks the world revolves around them and doesn’t change at all.
When the characters are in a potentially life-or-death situation but they pause to contemplate his firmly muscled chest or her beguiling lips, that can trigger an eye roll.
An exception might be if the female is holding a pad against a bleeding chest wound or the male is offering her a tissue to mop up the blood from the cut on her lip. (He does get true-gentleman points for that.) But I don’t know any men who would consider that beguiling, so it needs a different adjective.
I realize there’s pressure to add lots of those elements in a romance, but they shouldn’t come when the romantic pair’s mortal existence could be at risk at that moment. My husband and I listen to CF romantic suspense when on long trips, and he often comments on how unrealistic that is.
Carol I burst out laughing at your first sentence. I agree
I tend to skim over some of those eye rolling as if that would happen moments.
Like when I told a counselor I didn’t get what the minds eye was. she said close your eyes and picture this. you are walking to an intersections with traffic lights and someone is coming walking a dog. What sort of dog is it? To which I said I don’t know. She then said normally if you can visualize with your minds eye you would see the colour and size and type of dog. I actually said my first thought was is it on a lead, is it going to get near me but I know it was a black and white dog. But having a fear of dogs my mind went to is it going to get me. not what was it. We all will see different things and sometimes an author not giving all the details we fill what we need to in for ourselves. (the counselor really should have said a cat then I would have told her)