How much description do we really need?

[Jo Zebedee]

I've just finished thoroughly enjoyed Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.
In it, there is a character - de Carabas for those who've read it - who is very intriguing. In his first intro to the reader he unravels himself from rags to a person dressed in a frock-coat and rags, rangy-like. I immediately visualised a Russell Brand type and read on happily.

On revisiting that scene, Gaiman very clearly describes him as very dark-skinned with white teeth and eyes - not at all like Brand.

Revisualising the character is no problem for me, I like the character not his appearance, which could be any race, sex, or species and make no difference to me.

So, my question is - does all this description matter? Did the rangy, raggedy manner mean more than the detail? Do we prescribe too much? Thoughts....

 

[barrett1987]

Just depends on the style, i skim a lot of description when reading. I prefer the character actions to create the image in my mind.

 

[Mouse]

I read Neverwhere at the same time as I was watching the TV show, so I knew how they all looked.

Maybe you pictured a white man cos you're white? Like, that's what automatically comes into (white) people's heads until they're told otherwise? I dunno.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I read Neverwhere at the same time as I was watching the TV show, so I knew how they all looked.

Maybe you pictured a white man cos you're white? Like, that's what automatically comes into (white) people's heads until they're told otherwise? I dunno.

No, I think it was the description of the clothes - which came before the description of the face - that threw me. I've read loads of other books with non-white characters who I see as the writer intended.

 

[Mouse]

Well blame Russell Brand. I read it before he was on the scene.

 

[lonewolfwanderer]

Like barret said: I think the amount of description depends on style. I've read a few books where the authors go into intricate detail about things (painting the picture with words so to speak), whereas others have given just enough detail to give you a basic image.

Also, our minds all perceive and register things differently. Perhaps you read the description and only a few things "stuck", but reading it again, you registered those other things, helping you paint the "true" picture... Our minds also tend to "link" things we know together, which is why for some, a description will paint one picture, and for someone else it will paint something completely different.

Human minds are curious and complicated things which is why, despite all the research, we've only skimmed the surface of how the brain actually operates. 'Tis truly fascinating.

 

[Null_Zone]

Probably my "Privilage" but frock coats and black don't go together in my imagine. But if my mental image of any character was Russel Brand I'd put the book down straight away.

Depending on the author I can can a fully functional mental image within a couple of lines, others I will still be mentally calling the wrong name three books later.

 

[alchemist]

In terms of character description, the most important thing is that they have something memorable to help me distinguish them from everybody else. Otherwise, unless its relevant to the plot (like a third arm), I don't need that much. I cringe when I read of the shape of a character's nose.

 

[Hex]

Me too. I like minimal character description, and I like odd details, like the shape of someone's hands, maybe. I hate it when there's a list of everything. Who cares?

I like Patricia McKillip's description of her characters. There's one in Ombria in Shadow -- a main character -- and all I know about her is that she has beautiful long hair (and that detail is relevant and used, and wonderful).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

McKillip can get extremely detailed in her descriptions of places, though, but not so often with her characters. With her characters, she's usually able to paint remarkably vivid pictures with only a sentence ... or less.

When I read The Riddlemaster of Hed, I knew exactly what Raederle looked like and she hadn't even made an appearance in the story. It was all from Morgon's memory of her:

a pale, high-boned face full of unexpected expressions, shaking itself free of a a long, fine mass of red hair

Or a minor character:

a shock of hair grey as a grindstone and a body like a sack of grain

So much is implied in both descriptions, what more could you need? But that's McKillip's style, not to mention her inimitable gift with words. Someone else would need a paragraph to tell as much.

 

[tinkerdan]

I would side with those who think that the reader will end up deciding more of the characters appearance than you might expect. Even describing the nose down to the cute little button or the flaring nostrils will still end up with people that don't look half as much like the writer expected.

But I think on the other hand the description of what they do, how they move and how they speak or how they think will stick a bit better, because those things are not that often being blatantly displayed as much as they are being shown into the very fabric of the narrative.

 

[Mouse]

It depends though, how the POV character views the character you're describing. I hardly ever describe characters, but in TBM (that's The Beautiful Man, so it's partly about looks) the MC is obsessed with a guy, so he's described in loving detail. In his POV, she's described, but in a less attractive way (he notices she needs her roots doing), he also notices that her mother is more attractive. The other two POV characters are barely described, because nobody's interested in how they look.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Varies a lot. I see pace and description as two kids on a see-saw. You can have a fair amount of both, or a lot of one.

I think your POV point is a good one.

 

[Nick B]

Personally I like to have minimalist description other than rough size, colour skin and so on, the basics, then fill in the details myself. That is also how I try to write, size, skin colour or striking features then let the reader fill in the gas and have their own idea of how the characters look. The initial details though are important so that readers don;t have to turn around and re-imagine characters.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I've met more than one person be annoyed that Malfoy in the Potter movies is blond - despite JK Rowling describes him as blond in the books.

Angus taught me more than anybody that readers will make their own assumptions about the characters and I can write until I am blue in the face but it won't change their views of him. I never did convince anyone he was ugly or unattractive.

All my beta readers imagined another character, Iris, as black. It was never in the description. It came from "This ain't the bloody Carribean you know." Which was something my gran had said. Up until that point in my head she'd been made up from my gran and her sisters but made more common (for which they would have shot me lol)

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

How much do we really need? Three things described for a single object or person if it's important. If it's not, maybe one.

A shot in the dark though, the purpose of that first bit of description had almost nothing to do with the way he looked, at least not directly.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

That's probably a good point - the way the character carries himself is probably much more important than his physical appearance in this case - so it makes sense that comes first.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Somewhere in the Workshop there is an old exercise ... ah, here it is http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/42026-the-challenge-physical-description-as-a-key-to.html ... where the challenge is to describe a character's physical features, dress, etc. in such a way that much is revealed about their personality at the same time.

There is also an exercise about describing places. http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/41734-describe-an-imaginary-place.html

It will probably surprise no one, knowing my liking for such things, that I started both threads, but we did have fun with them, and it might be amusing to revive them.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Having read the book I wasn't in the least surprised when he turned out to be black. It didn't bother me either. The important thing was that the actor lived up to the description in terms of behaviour, attitude etc, and he did that perfectly. Arrogance, attitude, intolerance of fools and a fair chunk of mystery while dressed up and acting as some sort of strange beggar lord.

But the whole book is like that. The series too. Vast chunks of it are not explained, questions are never even asked let alone answered. How can there be two worlds and the people of London above never notice those of London below? How can you just be there in front of people you know and still be unseen? How does London below extend to the rooftops. And returning to the character in question, how can you just have a spare life safely stored away?

None of it makes sense. None of it is really explained. The very logic of the fabric of his world is twisted. And yet it doesn't matter. You get enough of the world and its people through the MC's eyes that you understand the story. Which somewhat emphasises the importance of plot and characterisation over world building.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Kissmequick]

Probably my "Privilage" but frock coats and black don't go together in my imagine.

So you never heard of Alexandre Dumas Senior, general of the French army and rival to Napoleon. .
Ot the chevalier (de St Georges, they were both noblemen) who was at times his mentor, and the best swordsman in europe...who was black

Or Queen Phillipa

or the herds of black people around..

or..

This one

This one St George!

I could go on

quite lengthily. Because POC where all over the place. mean, did you not consider the Moors and their descendants?They just didn't get written about (in much the same way women didn't, even when they did great things)

Just because history was written by the victors does no mean the rest did not take part.

What you think you know based on what you learnt at school or whatever is often not the case