Describing POC

judes said:

I don't think there is ever any reason to mention someone's skin color, especially if the person is already known to the narrator. When you see your friend would you think of them as "the black girl"? The only exception I guess is if your narrator is pointing them out to someone and having to distinguish them everybody else, but that would happen rarely.

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I agree that it's often awkward when characters start detailing the appearance of people they're familiar with--but to say there's only one exception, ever, isn't true. There are a hundred ways to weave skin color into the text naturally. As long as it's true to the context, it works, whether that's by making it relevant to a scene or by making it true to the voice (like a chatty first-person PoV).

JimmyB27 said:

Yup, exactly like that. Which is why I don't.

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A lot of writers don't do any physical description and that works for them, but it always feels odd to me. Isn't the visual component a large part of writing?

JimmyB27 said:

That's their hang up, not mine.

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Cyia said:

Dismissive, much? It's not a hang-up. It's a verified cultural phenomenon.

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Agreed. If writers don't work it into the book, they can't complain that it's the readers' fault if they see something other than what was meant. And since it's been proven that people raised in majority-white environments will almost always default to seeing characters as white unless stated otherwise--and sometimes even then!--I feel that's something writers should take into account.

And if someone cares about portraying diversity, they should make sure that's what they're actually, textually, doing, IMO. I don't care for the Dumbledore route of "only in interviews!" whether it's with sexual orientation or race or anything else.

I don't think that describing the outside of a person is any more important that describing the inside. Race and culture are very important to me, but skin color is not all-important. I grew up in a black neighborhood, but we were so different from each other. We literally ranged in color from white to dark, dark brown. And it wasn't unusual at all for kids to have different features than their parents. My dad identified as black, but he didn't have typical features—he was light tan with freckles and had strange, wiry/curly hair. His mom was white in color with red hair. My mom was medium brown, and her dad was deep dark brown. I'm a goofy mix of all that—but we're all just "black." And although we were raised to thoroughly enjoy black culture, we didn't place any great importance on appearance. We really couldn't, not in a neighborhood with such a wide range of black people.

Now, some black people will say that their experience was the opposite of mine. But that's part of the fun of it all. We're not all the same any more than white people are. And I can only suspect that people in other ethnic groups can claim to have communities made up of people with widely divergent attitude and ideals, too, even if their physical appearances might suggest otherwise.

I've always felt that writers who are so unimaginative that they have to categorize people in a simplistic manner in order to "understand" them do themselves and their readers a disservice. Plus it can be considered lazy writing—dependent, of course, on the situation.

I am a descriptive writer by nature,so I love descriptions of characters,place and everything else.

I have a friend who is SO concerned with offending POC that she uses makeup descriptions and then runs them by me. I was like,girl,calm down,lol. But I adore her for trying her best to be inclusive and do it right.

I don't mind food references. I used to have quite the issue with them,then I realized that I am the exact color of caramel. No harm done,since that is my skin color. So, I use food descriptions for POC all the time in many of my books. But here's where it can get a tad tricky. Many POC are offended when someone else does it. Double standards and all of that. This is one of those situations where you can't please everyone. I suggest to a non POC writer not to go on and on about skin color descriptions. When this is done,it makes it seem either like a fetish or you are describing POC as so "othering" that you cannot stop talking about their skin color,the strange thing! Make it quick,clear and then it's a wrap.

We used to joke White writers had disturbing cannibal type tendencies that came out in their writing when they described POC.

Kitty27 said:

... I don't mind food references - I realized that I am the exact color of caramel.

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I'm fine with it too - My complexion is the exact color of a pecan (or a pee-can as we say in the South).

I suggest to a non POC writer not to go on and on about skin color descriptions. Make it quick, clear and then it's a wrap.

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Ditto.

Food analogies never quite work for me, because for some reason I assume that the person should taste like the food to which they're being compared, too, and I get distracted by thoughts of licking them and being disappointed they don't taste like I expected.

I reserve my food analogies for sex scenes, for when I actually want to describe taste.

I think the reason I find food references odd is that I've never looked at someone and thought "her skin is the color of cocoa" so if the book is written in a close POV, this just seems weird to me. Now maybe other people think this way, but I never do. When I write, I generally just give the race (as it appears/or is known by the POV character) because when I see someone IRL, various characteristics quickly combine for me to make some sort of assumption about race. But I don't focus on the individual characteristics that cause me to think that, if that makes sense. I think "she looks Asian" but I don't notice individually the various things that lead me there, don't notice eyelid folds, lack of pronounced eyebrow ridge, or things like that. Not consciously. Always pay attention to hair, though. (I think I have mild faceblindness, and depend heavily on things like hair to tell people apart because I cannot remember faces unless I have seen someone many, many times. Some movies are a nightmare for me to watch as a result.) Now, for a love interest, I might pay more attention to details.

Earlier this year I read a book in which the heroine was described thus: The glossy fall of raven-black hair and the almond-shaped eyes...and I was wondering if I was supposed to gather from this that she was Asian or maybe half-Asian (she was unmarried, and her last name was Jones) because of the hair color and "almond shaped eyes" being such a cliché for Asians. But nowhere in the book was her race mentioned, so I figured it was more likely she was white. It did confuse me though.

slhuang said:

Yeah, don't use any of those. With the exception of "olive," which is an actual skin tone rather than carrying the literal denotation of "skin the color of an olive," these would all make me wince. And "tanned" sounds weird to me because it sounds like something active happened to "tan" the person's skin, rather than it being that color naturally -- if someone says "tanned," I think, "tanned by the sun."

Part of the problem is that none of these (again with the exception of "olive") are skin tones, so they don't work very well to describe an actual human being. Skin is generally skin-colored (no matter what color it is . . . if that makes sense!). See my note upthread about comparing white people to eggnog, or Kim's about comparing white people to ham -- it feels weird, doesn't it?

Well, what kinds of words do you use to describe your white characters?

I'm not being flippant (or at least I'm not trying to be). How descriptive are you trying to get here? How finely do you separate the skin tones of your white characters? If the furthest you go in differentiating them is calling someone "very pale" or something like that, then you shouldn't need anything more descriptive than "very dark" to differentiate your characters with more melanin. If you get crazy with all your characters' skin tones, on the other hand, give us some examples of the descriptors you use and maybe we can help you brainstorm equivalent ones for your POC that aren't offensive. To me it really does depend on your prose, and I like it to be consistent across the board -- for example, if you're going super poetic and you describe your white characters with comparisons like, "skin the delicate pink of the inside of a conch shell," it wouldn't sound so weird (to me) to describe another character as having "skin the rich deep color of the forest loam" (or something). But if you do that with all your POC and your white characters are just sort of . . . there, it DOES feel weird -- at least to me.

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Well my problem with description is that I have so many different characters, that I try to make each one as distinguished from one another as possible. There can only be so many brunettes, blondes, raven haired, ivory skinned, bronze tanned skin, etc with everyone. Similarly only so many brown eyes, blue eyes, etc. So I do get fairly descriptive with any of the important characters. I try to describe the exact coloring of the eyes (without simply saying brown or blue) as well as skintones (if possible without just saying brown).

Two of my POC characters are important, so as with all important characters - I give more description for them.

I guess if worse comes to worse I could just say the mother has warm, brown skin -- but that's doesn't sound well enough as there are all kinds of shades of brown. I need a reference point to some shade of brown of something or other. The same with the guy with "caramel" skin - I need something to parallel the skintone to describe it as.
With white characters I always use terms such as cream colored skin, ivory skin, or porcelain - accurately for those that are paler. Pink skinned or ruddy for those colorings. And those that are darker via fake tan - then sunkissed tanned skin. If it looks the shade of naturally tanned, I will say that or else olive or lightly bronzed skin, etc.

Minor characters regardless of coloring, don't get much attention with description from me, unless it's pertinent to the scene and it rarely is.

Corinne Duyvis said:

I tried to stay away from food or other exoticizing descriptions in the fantasy world I built, as well, and it wasn't too hard. It's a good way to make you stretch for descriptions instead of going with the most obvious one, too.

Some descriptions I used:
"the way her nose pinched between her eyes, then flared wide"; "skin was the near-black of soaked wood"
"shallow eyes"; "tan skin"
"Most were [race] workers, sun-freckled, flat-faced, broad-shouldered"
"yellow-brown skin"; "frizzed hair and crooked nose"
"sandy skin"; "the standard beige of her palms"
"in this dark, her skin—though dark for an [race] like her—practically glowed"
"pink-skinned and pale-eyed, with hair like fire"
"tall and unapologetic and dark"
"his normal even brown"

I tried to avoid harping on about skin skin skin (not that you'd notice from that list!), but at the same time, I wanted to make sure readers had a good idea of what the people in this world looked like--partially for world-building purposes, partially so that there is no way readers will default to white. I mean... except for the actual white characters in this world... there it's okay. I suppose.

The more you think about this, the more you notice it in other books, as well. I cringe at every food-related description of skin I encounter. Same with almond eyes. Which always makes me think of this, anyway: http://clairelight.typepad.com/seelight/2006/09/almond_eyes.html

I can't remember who said this or where I read this (I thought maybe Nisi Shawl?) but there's an extra dimension of iffiness to describing black people as having coffee or chocolate-colored skin, given how many black people worked on coffee plantations, etc., as slaves.

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Well those are great descriptions, while being neither bland nor offensive. Love it.

I describe the skintones and other coloring and overall looks of all of my most important characters regardless of race/ethnicity. I usually only do the description once though upon their intro and then not mention it again, unless it was a small aspect of like the sunlight highlighting someone's eyes or a shade tint in their hair or something or other - just a passing mention of appearance. I am not one to harp on about even my protag's appearance.

Caramel, BTW, as does Honey comes in a variety of colors, but then I'm just being a food geek. You can ignore me.

I still favor KISS. Light brown, dark brown, medium brown, and if I have to venture: mahogany, grade A amber, etc. You can get fairly far.

Hi roses, I am in Indiana, too.

For all my characters I am the same way, will give a mention of how they look (skin, hair, eyes) during introduction but then rarely mention looks again.

But I did learn about food-descriptions here, and thank God I have a sequel to make things right haha. And also thank God I think I only used that twice in the whole book.

Corinne Duyvis said:

A lot of writers don't do any physical description and that works for them, but it always feels odd to me. Isn't the visual component a large part of writing?

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As i said before, unless it's plot-relevant, who cares what the characters look like? I'll sometimes drop in clues, when they become relevant. For example, one of my characters is a bit of an arrogant git, so i had him flexing his muscles at the FMC. We now know he's muscly, but I never directly described it.

Agreed. If writers don't work it into the book, they can't complain that it's the readers' fault if they see something other than what was meant. And since it's been proven that people raised in majority-white environments will almost always default to seeing characters as white unless stated otherwise--and sometimes even then!--I feel that's something writers should take into account.

And if someone cares about portraying diversity, they should make sure that's what they're actually, textually, doing, IMO. I don't care for the Dumbledore route of "only in interviews!" whether it's with sexual orientation or race or anything else.

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I might have to concede this point. I don't agree, but I'm not sure I can entirely articulate exactly why.
I think the main reason is that describing characters in the name of portraying diversity, without plot or character relevant reasons feels like an exercise in box-ticking. Got the black character? Check. Got the gay character? Check.

rosesindec said:

Well my problem with description is that I have so many different characters, that I try to make each one as distinguished from one another as possible.

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Far better to distinguish characters via characterization than physical description.

As a reader, I'm not going to differentiate them by how they look anyway.

JimmyB27 said:

As i said before, unless it's plot-relevant, who cares what the characters look like?

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::raises hand:: As a reader, I do.

I personally hate it when books provide little to no physical description. Sure, yes, I could come up with imaginary appearances myself, but it feels like a less immersive reading experience, as if the author has set me adrift and is making me work to come up with what the world looks like. I'm not saying I need every detail described; that would be painful!, but having a few small physical descriptors (skin color, hair color, height, build . . .) will make a full character pop into existence in my brain. I'm a visual person, and not being able to "see" the characters impedes my enjoyment of a story.

And when authors don't describe, I come up with my own visual appearances, and then it bugs me no end if the book contradicts those imaginary appearances halfway through. For me as a reader, it would therefore be a problem if a writer decided only to get to description when it became plot-relevant.

YMMV, of course. Some people like sparse description. But it drives me nuts.

Back to race:

I think the main reason is that describing characters in the name of portraying diversity, without plot or character relevant reasons feels like an exercise in box-ticking. Got the black character? Check. Got the gay character? Check.

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Except what Corinne is talking about (I believe; since I feel the same way!) is better representation, not tokenism.

Having more positive characters in media whom people in marginalized demographics can look at and say, "that character looks like me" is a very good thing, especially for children. (There's a heartbreaking story about a little girl who watched Avatar: The Last Airbender and was SO excited to find a character who looked like her and realize that princesses didn't have to have blonde hair and blue eyes. And then the live action movie came along.) It's also a positive thing for shaping everyone's attitudes towards race, because when there isn't media with black people, gay people, etc. in positive roles, it contributes to real-life institutionally racist (or homophobic, or sexist) attitudes. Having more more diverse heroes -- indisputably, described-in-text diverse heroes; non-stereotyped diverse heroes -- helps push back against those attitudes.

Media affects us. It's powerful. Which is one of the wonderful things about it.

If you hate description as a writer and are writing for readers who also hate it, however, one easy shorthand to include diversity without describing is names. Names can indicate you have a diverse cast even if you don't choose to show their skin colors, and your characters have to have names, right?

Ditto-ing slhuang on the description. I have zero attention span so I don't like physical descriptions that run too long, since I drift off, but a few well-placed details can work wonders. Sometimes, when I realize I have no idea what a character look like, I'll leaf back to see if I missed anything, which really takes me out of the book.

Description doesn't necessarily have to be the holy trifecta of skin/eyes/hair (which can sometimes read like you're rattling off a list--though I do think skin is important, linking back to the point of representation). But a certain tic, an oddly-shaped nose, a habit of wearing colorful clothes, lip piercings, size or build, a detail of deep-set eyes or protruding teeth or a forehead lined with zits...Description can really help ground a scene.

I guess that's getting away from the main point of representation, though. But yes. Character appearances. I'm a fan.

slhuang said:

Except what Corinne is talking about (I believe; since I feel the same way!) is better representation, not tokenism.

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Yep.

slhuang said:

(There's a heartbreaking story about a little girl who watched Avatar: The Last Airbender and was SO excited to find a character who looked like her and realize that princesses didn't have to have blonde hair and blue eyes. And then the live action movie came along.)

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I believe that was the daughter of the movie's director.

Yeeaahhh.


Relevant to the thread: I read a Tumblr post on describing Black characters semi-recently and a friend found it for me yesterday--here it is: http://pfdiva.tumblr.com/post/46311832427/i-am-so-angry-i-could-kick-something

Obviously, everyone prefers different approaches, and a lot of descriptions will depend on the setting and the PoV it's filtered through, but I think it's an excellent post that might help people see description from a different perspective. I ended up tweaking a couple of mine after reading this.

I'm another one who needs to briefly describe all the main characters because I have a lot of diversity in my WIP AND it's a fantasy where things like African-American/Asian/White/Whatever or being able to guess that someone looks a certain way because of their surnames does not exist. I definitely DO NOT want my readers defaulting to white, I'm not a huge fan of all-white books and am certainly not trying to contribute yet another all-white book into the vast ocean of all-white YA books out there. I would much rather annoy my readers with 'she has brown skin! her skin is brown! did I mention brown? BROWNBROWNBROWN!' rather than have the "But isn't Rue white??" stuff happen to me. It might not be important to the plot but it's important to readers and writers who want diversity.

lolchemist said:

I'm another one who needs to briefly describe all the main characters because I have a lot of diversity in my WIP AND it's a fantasy where things like African-American/Asian/White/Whatever or being able to guess that someone looks a certain way because of their surnames does not exist. I definitely DO NOT want my readers defaulting to white, I'm not a huge fan of all-white books and am certainly not trying to contribute yet another all-white book into the vast ocean of all-white YA books out there. I would much rather annoy my readers with 'she has brown skin! her skin is brown! did I mention brown? BROWNBROWNBROWN!' rather than have the "But isn't Rue white??" stuff happen to me. It might not be important to the plot but it's important to readers and writers who want diversity.

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YUP. The book in my sig is a fantasy as well, so I was faced with the same need to describe them physically. It was impossible to hint at their race with other cues. So, ditto-ing everything you said.

(I mean, I'm a very visual person--I always want to describe my characters anyway. But there's more need for it in certain circumstances.)

Whenever I read a secondary-world fantasy these days I try to go in completely blank instead of assuming white, but I'm never surprised when the text then actively supports that, yeah, actually, 's all white.

In my books I definitely don't want the default white assumption, since in one series everyone is multi-racial. Sometimes diversity is important to the plot, sometimes it isn't. Look at a bookshelf in any place that sells books and see all the white faces on the covers. . . right now we need to address our diversity, promote it, and send a message that readers want and need this.

I just think at least a basic character description for all my characters works best for me, as a reader and a writer, whatever the characters look like.

Corinne Duyvis said:

Description doesn't necessarily have to be the holy trifecta of skin/eyes/hair (which can sometimes read like you're rattling off a list--though I do think skin is important, linking back to the point of representation). But a certain tic, an oddly-shaped nose, a habit of wearing colorful clothes, lip piercings, size or build, a detail of deep-set eyes or protruding teeth or a forehead lined with zits...Description can really help ground a scene.

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I agree with some of this point, or at least the idea behind it. I think description, when relevant to the story, is important, but I think what turns me off is just mentioning the color of someone's skin off hand as an identifier. It is great that we have representation of all of the colors of the rainbow, but someone mentioned above already that they start to become "tokens" instead of "persons".

What I really appreciate with representation is I don't want a girl who is Asian, but who acts just like the main girl who is white. That's not what I'm interested in. I want to read about characters who had experiences that I remember. So instead of reading about someone's almond shaped eyes, I want to read about someone who had to suffer through Chinese school every Saturday morning and that was why she couldn't hang out with the MC. Or how the first time that she went to the guy's house, his mother plopped down an entire fish in front of them and that was the first time the MC has ever seen a full fish head.

Those kind of cultural details are more meaningful to me than "There's a girl who looks like me in this story, but I can't relate to her at all". I am happy though that there is more diversity in books, I'm not saying that I'm against mentioning physical descriptions entirely, only that I think we can continue to push for greater representation and understanding.

judes said:

I agree with some of this point, or at least the idea behind it. I think description, when relevant to the story, is important, but I think what turns me off is just mentioning the color of someone's skin off hand as an identifier. It is great that we have representation of all of the colors of the rainbow, but someone mentioned above already that they start to become "tokens" instead of "persons".

What I really appreciate with representation is I don't want a girl who is Asian, but who acts just like the main girl who is white. That's not what I'm interested in. I want to read about characters who had experiences that I remember. So instead of reading about someone's almond shaped eyes, I want to read about someone who had to suffer through Chinese school every Saturday morning and that was why she couldn't hang out with the MC. Or how the first time that she went to the guy's house, his mother plopped down an entire fish in front of them and that was the first time the MC has ever seen a full fish head.

Those kind of cultural details are more meaningful to me than "There's a girl who looks like me in this story, but I can't relate to her at all". I am happy though that there is more diversity in books, I'm not saying that I'm against mentioning physical descriptions entirely, only that I think we can continue to push for greater representation and understanding.

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Agreed. I aim for that when writing stories set in our world, too.

slhuang said:

And when authors don't describe, I come up with my own visual appearances, and then it bugs me no end if the book contradicts those imaginary appearances halfway through. For me as a reader, it would therefore be a problem if a writer decided only to get to description when it became plot-relevant.

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This is a good point. I think I will try to bear it in mind when I get to editing and consider taking any description that does come about at the point it becomes relevant and moving it back to that character's introduction.
Thanks.

Except what Corinne is talking about (I believe; since I feel the same way!) is better representation, not tokenism.

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But my point is precisely that describing someone as black, or gay, or whatever is tokenism, unless there's a reason behind giving that description.

lolchemist said:

I would much rather annoy my readers with 'she has brown skin! her skin is brown! did I mention brown? BROWNBROWNBROWN!' rather than have the "But isn't Rue white??" stuff happen to me. It might not be important to the plot but it's important to readers and writers who want diversity.

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This is the Hunger Games thing, right? My answer to "But isn't Rue white?" would have been "No, fuck off", and I'd have been quite happy to lose the readers should they be offended.

judes said:

What I really appreciate with representation is I don't want a girl who is Asian, but who acts just like the main girl who is white. That's not what I'm interested in. I want to read about characters who had experiences that I remember. So instead of reading about someone's almond shaped eyes, I want to read about someone who had to suffer through Chinese school every Saturday morning and that was why she couldn't hang out with the MC. Or how the first time that she went to the guy's house, his mother plopped down an entire fish in front of them and that was the first time the MC has ever seen a full fish head.

Those kind of cultural details are more meaningful to me than "There's a girl who looks like me in this story, but I can't relate to her at all". I am happy though that there is more diversity in books, I'm not saying that I'm against mentioning physical descriptions entirely, only that I think we can continue to push for greater representation and understanding.

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Agree 100% with this.

lolchemist said:

I would much rather annoy my readers with 'she has brown skin! her skin is brown! did I mention brown? BROWNBROWNBROWN!' rather than have the "But isn't Rue white??" stuff happen to me.

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IMO, in some cases it's better to just mention race outright. Skin color isn't actually a very good indicator of race. Plenty of people are brown who aren't of African descent. Myself included.

JimmyB27 said:

But my point is precisely that describing someone as black, or gay, or whatever is tokenism, unless there's a reason behind giving that description.

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Tokenism is usually defined as someone only existing in the story for the pure purpose of 'diversity.' If a character is useless and just hangs around the story to make it look less white, or if all they do is gossip with the MC about her new hawt boyfriend and have zero story of their own, that's tokenism.

Having a well-rounded character who's an active participant in the plot and slipping in--whether via description, cultural details, or showing a dude kissing a dude--that they're not white or straight, that's just telling a story.

Those aspects are just as much a part of characters as them being insecure, or a good artist, or being an orphan. Even if it doesn't actively forward the plot, it served characterization and a fully rounded, populated world. Why shouldn't we mention these things? Particularly knowing that the majority of readers will assume the characters are straight/white if we don't? Particularly knowing that marginalized people crave good representation? Particularly knowing that literature, as with all media, does not feature nearly enough minority characters?

kuwisdelu said:

IMO, in some cases it's better to just mention race outright. Skin color isn't actually a very good indicator of race. Plenty of people are brown who aren't of African descent. Myself included.

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Yeah, though that doesn't work in every setting--like Hunger Games or secondary fantasy worlds.

Corinne Duyvis said:

Yeah, though that doesn't work in every setting--like Hunger Games or secondary fantasy worlds.

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On the the one hand, that's why I said "sometimes."

One the other hand, I'm not sure why it wouldn't work in Hunger Games since (it seems to me like) it's clearly supposed to be a future Earth scenario. I can't really see why ignoring explicit depictions of race in that case aren't possible.

And on the third hand, if it's a fantasy world that's totally separate from Earth, I'd assume there are other races, ethnicities, or factions, that would still stand-in for our own conceptions of "race." I'd expect these to be referenced as well.

To be honest, expecting someone to get that a character is of a different race or ethnicity based solely on a description of the color of their skin is just asking to be misunderstood. I have no sympathy for such authors if they later complain "but I described them as brown and clearly that meant 'they're black'!"

If you're writing about a character who's a PoC, have the balls to be explicit about it. If you actually expect us to infer their culture, race , ethnicity, etc., have the balls to be explicit about that, too.

There are Asian Americans that grow up in say a 100% Hispanic neighborhood, never learn their heritage's language and have parents that want them to blend in and pressure them to do so.

Just pointing that out. I think that story is also worthy to tell as much as the showing cultural exceptions, because no matter how that person tries to blend in, at the end of the day, they still have to remember that they are whatever ethnicity. And they still have to take the heat for being thought less than for their cultural labels by both their "in-group" for being "too white/whatever" and the mainstream group.

Which can be safely backgrounded as well without making it _the_ thing that defines them.