Is it alright not to beat around the bush when describing characters' ethnicities?

Missus Akasha

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I know it's important to describe a character's physical features for the reader to get a good picture, but is it lazy writing to just tell the reader straightforward that the character is, for example, a black guy? Or that a character is Latinx or Chinese or white? This has been bugging me for a while and I would really like some opinions about this. And if you're writing a story in third-person limited, is it alright if a minor character's ethnicity (like Filipino or Japanese) is explicitly told to the reader even though the main character probably have no clue what that minor character's ethnicity may be?
 

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I don't think it's wrong. For good or for ill, race or ethnicity (whether perceived or actual) is probably the first thing we notice about other people except for gender.

How you'd go about presenting this will be a function of narrative viewpoint, imo. If you are writing in a character pov (first or limited third), the viewpoint character's own norms and biases will drive how someone is described. One white person from the US may see someone of East Asian descent and think of them as "a Chinese guy," another might think of them as "Asian." (or even, if in my mom's generation, as "Oriental,") and another might try hard to avoid using a racial marker at all, even within their own head.

It is challenging, though, because if your pov character is someone who would refer to a person of East Asian descent as "oriental," even though that's offensive, some readers may assume it's the writer's bias, not the character's. And some people will look at a person of another race and see nothing but the race and not their individual traits. That's why it's important to make it pretty clear where the narrative is coming from.

If you've got an omniscient narrator, you can be more neutral in how you describe someone's ethnicity. Then it will come off as pretty lazy if someone is only described by their race. One mistake some (white) writers do with omniscient is to assume that whiteness is the neutral norm and to only mention the race or racial features of PoC.

It gets more complex, of course, if you're writing speculative fiction set in a universe where the countries and continents we use to designate ethnicity don't exist. Saying someone looks like she is of "Esuvian" heritage doesn't tell a reader anything.

There are some blogs and websites that discuss techniques writers can use to describe racial characteristics without being cliched or offensive.

http://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/Navigation

http://www.mitaliblog.com/2008/10/ten-tips-about-writing-race-in-novels.html

http://nkjemisin.com/2010/02/describing-characters-of-color-3-oppoc/
 
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LJD

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I don't think it's wrong. For good or for ill, race or ethnicity (whether perceived or actual) is probably the first thing we notice about other people except for gender.

Yeah, this.

This becomes particularly obvious when your appearance is racially ambiguous, like mine. When they meet me in person, some people truly seem troubled by the fact that they can't slot me into a box right away and one of the first questions they must ask me is where I'm from, often followed up by "where are you REALLY from?" or "where are your parents from?" (when I tell them that I'm from Toronto) Like it or not, it's often one of the first things we notice.

So, as a writer, I often just state it outright. Also, if you're not completely clear about it, some readers will just simply see them as white.

But this has to be filtered through the POV character. You could say, "He looks East Asian, maybe Chinese..." But if the POV character can't tell if the other character is Japanese or Korean, they can't confidently state that she's Korean, for example.


ETA: When we meet someone, our observation of race isn't usually...this is his skin color, this is the color and texture of his hair, this is the color and shape of his eyes, this is how prominent his brow ridge is...and then making a determination. We usually make a quick judgment without consciously going through all of that. Which is why I think it's perfectly reasonable to just state it. As best the POV character can tell.
 
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Snitchcat

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I would suggest just using the POV character's filters to describe the character. If the POV character would say something like, "He/she looks Chinese / Korean / Japanese / Filipino", etc., then that's what the narrative should use. Just be aware of being unintentionally *and unnecessarily) racist or antagonistic.
 

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I think this is perfectly reasonable, but also requires heavy self-monitoring. For instance, the suggestion that someone "looks Latinx" seems to play into stereotypes; Latin-Americans can appear anywhere from fully white to fully black, oftentimes set apart from other ethnicities only by their accent or clothing. If the narrator isn't omniscient and lacks background information of the person being described, you will probably want to stick closely with how they come to their decision. (Alternatively, if your narrator is omniscient, this won't be an issue at all.)
 

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I actually much prefer a straightforward "an athletic Asian girl walked into the room" as opposed to "an athletic girl with olive skin, black hair..."

I really appreciated that in The Maze Runner. It was so refreshing, and such a relief not to read any descriptions of the Asian character's eyes. I wouldn't explicitly tell the reader what specific ethnicity the character is, though. Not unless the POV character knows. If the POV character doesn't know, I'd just stick with "Asian", and then have it come up later through dialogue or something.
 
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Kithica

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Yeah, this.

This becomes particularly obvious when your appearance is racially ambiguous, like mine. When they meet me in person, some people truly seem troubled by the fact that they can't slot me into a box right away and one of the first questions they must ask me is where I'm from, often followed up by "where are you REALLY from?" or "where are your parents from?" (when I tell them that I'm from Toronto) Like it or not, it's often one of the first things we notice.

I have had that conversation SO many times. (I'm also from Toronto - is it a Toronto thing?) I've also had men ARGUE with me about my own heritage, after we've done the rounds of 'no, where are your parents from.'
In the end, I just started collecting the countries people would guess - so far the area covers everything from Portugal through Iran.
 

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Yeah, this.

This becomes particularly obvious when your appearance is racially ambiguous, like mine. When they meet me in person, some people truly seem troubled by the fact that they can't slot me into a box right away and one of the first questions they must ask me is where I'm from, often followed up by "where are you REALLY from?" or "where are your parents from?" (when I tell them that I'm from Toronto) Like it or not, it's often one of the first things we notice.

Yeah very much this. It's like some people have a NEED to know and they can't cope without being able to fit you into a box.

Sidenot, I never know what olive skin describes. To me that makes me think of either Olive Oil from Popeye, or else someone coloured like an olive (pale green). If a character has any reasonable scope to guess, then yes I'd rather have it on the table and clear cut.

An example of where they might not have scope to guess; a historical novel where someone who doens't know about China (for example) encounters a Chinese person. But in that kind of set up they'd be much more intrigued and have license to discuss appearance in narrative detail.
 

Atlantic12

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Count me in as one of those people everyone thinks is from somewhere I'm not based on how I look. Apparently, I'm from at least half a dozen different countries. Whatever.

As for characters, yes, I think it's ok to say ethnicity outright if it's needed at all. I totally get wanting to avoid the descriptions of Asian eyes or variations on skin color. That gets really old.

That said, if you're filtering through the POV character who notices a person who is ethnically/physically "out of place" in the setting, you could go with unique description. I did something like that when a German character sees an Algerian-born Frenchman for the first time in a setting where this was very unusual. The POV character couldn't slot the Frenchman into his opinion of what the French are, and so his physical description added up to a person new to him, and hostile, since the Frenchman held power over him.

I guess I'm saying keep it simple if ethnicity is just something you want to point out, or you're writing in a diverse world anyway. But if it's something unusual in the story world or deeply important to the POV character, you can dig down more.
 

shadow2

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I don't think it's wrong. For good or for ill, race or ethnicity (whether perceived or actual) is probably the first thing we notice about other people except for gender.

How you'd go about presenting this will be a function of narrative viewpoint, imo. If you are writing in a character pov (first or limited third), the viewpoint character's own norms and biases will drive how someone is described. One white person from the US may see someone of East Asian descent and think of them as "a Chinese guy," another might think of them as "Asian." (or even, if in my mom's generation, as "Oriental,") and another might try hard to avoid using a racial marker at all, even within their own head.

This is an interesting idea... because then you're sort of subtly developing your protaganist's character at the same time, just based on how they perceive people.
 

shadow2

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Yeah, this.

This becomes particularly obvious when your appearance is racially ambiguous, like mine. When they meet me in person, some people truly seem troubled by the fact that they can't slot me into a box right away and one of the first questions they must ask me is where I'm from, often followed up by "where are you REALLY from?" or "where are your parents from?" (when I tell them that I'm from Toronto) Like it or not, it's often one of the first things we notice.

So, where are you REALLY from?
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sidenot, I never know what olive skin describes. To me that makes me think of either Olive Oil from Popeye, or else someone coloured like an olive (pale green). If a character has any reasonable scope to guess, then yes I'd rather have it on the table and clear cut.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

As a Lebanese-WASP hybrid, I've been told all my life that I've got olive skin. Pale olive. Dad had the full dose. In case you really want to know, it refers to the yellowish brown coloring of people from...well, a whole lot of places. And speaking as someone with a degree in art...yes, there is a faint tinge of green in that yellow. More like olive oil than olives fruits.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Harlequin

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I've been told that too (olive complexion) and I can't see it in myself. I'm very pale without sun and very brown with sun, but mostly pale (living in UK).

Olive oil--right, that makes more sense.

Still... I remember reading Jane Eyre as a child, where Miss Ingram is described as having an olive complexion and just picturing her as lurid green. I still do
 

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Still... I remember reading Jane Eyre as a child, where Miss Ingram is described as having an olive complexion and just picturing her as lurid green. I still do

Glad I wasn't the only one to imagine this!

I still snort at the image "olive complexion" creates, especially when applied to fantasy and contemporary. I often see walking, talking olives... I'm not sure the authors intended for that to happen.

Further to my earlier post (somewhere above), if describing skin colour, I'd prefer it if the narrative just stated the nationality and any particular features of note; my imagination will take it from there. :)
 
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