For those unfamiliar with the condition, it's when your brain can't differentiate between faces. I can see faces in front of me and could describe basic elements if I had to, but none of that is "stored" in my memory. Something like this is really difficult for me to make out who's who, only the facial hair is something I can use as a clue. If someone asked you to look at a bunch of zebras or penguins and pick out a specific individual, you can tell they're different but none of those patterns mean anything to you and you cannot describe them.
So, writing! I just...cannot describe faces at all. I could throw in things that I've read other people use about cheekbones or eye shapes or whatever, but I have no idea what any of that would actually look like, if it would make a face that looks decent or weird, if it would imply that a character was a certain race or ethnicity. I don't like using words/phrases that I don't know what they mean, so it doesn't feel write to just go off what I've read in other people's books. I always describe things like hair, eye color, skin tone, the sort of things that I can (usually) see/picture, and having lots of non-human characters helps a lot.
But I'm worried that some editor or agent will say "why is he not describing what his characters look like at all?" I can describe what things would look like if you could see ultraviolet light through research and imagination, but I am just not able to imagine or picture faces. I can't make every character/narrator faceblind or of a species that doesn't notice the differences in human faces (like we can't with animal faces). I'm just running off "I hope no one notices or asks me about this, ever," but that's not really a longterm plan. I can't come up with a solution to this other than "make someone else come up with it and write it for me," and it feels really bad that I am incapable of doing something that feels so basic.
Is this a thing that (publishing) gatekeepers are going to notice and will it work against me? Is there some solution I'm just not thinking about? Is anyone else faceblind and have experience in this? The only other person I know who has this is my sister and she doesn't have any solutions.
So, writing! I just...cannot describe faces at all. I could throw in things that I've read other people use about cheekbones or eye shapes or whatever, but I have no idea what any of that would actually look like, if it would make a face that looks decent or weird, if it would imply that a character was a certain race or ethnicity. I don't like using words/phrases that I don't know what they mean, so it doesn't feel write to just go off what I've read in other people's books. I always describe things like hair, eye color, skin tone, the sort of things that I can (usually) see/picture, and having lots of non-human characters helps a lot.
But I'm worried that some editor or agent will say "why is he not describing what his characters look like at all?" I can describe what things would look like if you could see ultraviolet light through research and imagination, but I am just not able to imagine or picture faces. I can't make every character/narrator faceblind or of a species that doesn't notice the differences in human faces (like we can't with animal faces). I'm just running off "I hope no one notices or asks me about this, ever," but that's not really a longterm plan. I can't come up with a solution to this other than "make someone else come up with it and write it for me," and it feels really bad that I am incapable of doing something that feels so basic.
Is this a thing that (publishing) gatekeepers are going to notice and will it work against me? Is there some solution I'm just not thinking about? Is anyone else faceblind and have experience in this? The only other person I know who has this is my sister and she doesn't have any solutions.