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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2012 20:03:24 GMT -5
Physically my female character is similar to me...well me at one point in my life. Personality-wise not so much. I think all my female characters will be short, for some reason I can imagine a lot of things, but seeing the world for higher than 5' I just can't seem to manage.  |
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Post by Ximena on Jun 29, 2012 21:21:53 GMT -5
Lol. I think that's interesting. I often make my female characters much shorter than me, like 5', or much taller, like 5'10". (I'm 5'5".) I guess maybe part of it is imagining something totally different.
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Post by Valkyrja on Jun 29, 2012 22:11:15 GMT -5
My female characters were never as taller as I am... they were usually not more than 5'5".... not the same color hair, not the same eyes... like I told before... they were def not like me at all (at least physically speaking)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2012 7:59:33 GMT -5
One of the reasons I love STTS is that the female is tall, I'm really tall and it is rare for fiction to have the lead woman tall. (Sorry about this post, I seem to be setting the world record as to how many times you can say TALL in one post)
I sometimes think it is a cope out (from purely my own point of view as a reader) when in romances the females have to be drop dead beautiful. I engage better when they are more "normal" looking but the guy sees them as beautiful to him.
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Post by Ximena on Jun 30, 2012 8:36:02 GMT -5
lol then I think youl'll like UnConventional.  That's actually part of the MC's conflict; she's not drop-dead gorgeous, she's average looking, but can't understand why anyone would find her attractive. |
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Post by devogirl on Jun 30, 2012 8:43:49 GMT -5
I sometimes think it is a cope out (from purely my own point of view as a reader) when in romances the females have to be drop dead beautiful. I engage better when they are more "normal" looking but the guy sees them as beautiful to him. I agree! I hate it when the hero and heroine are described so they look like models out of a clothes catalog. So boring. In the worst romances, every single character is perfectly stunning. Please. Conversely I also hate the girl with a scar or some other disfigurement who is convinced she is hideous and no man will ever love her. This shows up in so many blind-guy romances. |
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Post by Ximena on Jun 30, 2012 8:59:53 GMT -5
lol bc only the blind guy could love a face like that!! sigh. LOL.
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Post by devogirl on Jun 30, 2012 9:23:27 GMT -5
Yes! It's ridiculous how often that shows up. I just read two examples almost back to back. So these authors, in addition to never doing any research, also clearly have not read any other novels with blind characters. So they come up with these totally cliched plots and think they are being original.
Oh and while we're on the subject, another romance cliche I really hate is the "wounded hero" whose tragic, insurmountable disability is a scar on his face that actually makes him more handsome, he just doesn't realize it. He thinks he's a hideous monster until the right woman comes along etc etc. Yawn.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2012 10:17:42 GMT -5
Well, I completely agree with you; however, I think that these books have specific target, mainly those bored housewives, looking for entertainment and gushing over perfect bodies and a specific type of women who don't really know real life (aka, haven't met too many men). I know we're practically forced to read that because let's face it, they're the only stories with imperfect heroes (haven't read any stories with blind guy because when I was going through my blind faze - pretty much in the 5th through 12th grade, I had no access to those). So I guess - just my humble opinion, I might be wrong - that everyone is so perfect psychically because they have to be appealing for the masses.
That being said, with all mentioned about how some here make their characters resemble them, I couldn't stop at that. I actually spent about a year (well, from time to time, wasn't obsessing about it) looking up pics of women on the internet - under the radar actresses so I don't define them by a certain role - trying to find the perfect girl in my story. When I found her, I completely changed the pace, going from writing here and there, a few words two or three months apart, to half a story in a couple of days.
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Post by Valkyrja on Jun 30, 2012 13:53:09 GMT -5
I really think that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I like to describe how one see the other, and how hot and/or beautiful is one character to the other. what's beauty for one is not beauty for another.
About tall character, Taby... I like to tell about long legs but I think I could never make the female character as tall as me just because I want my character to be different from me.
Some months ago, Cristabell, I tried to do what you did... I was looking on internet some guy who looks like the one of the character but I couldn´t find him... it´s because I have a strong picture of my characters on my mind...
And I totally concur with DG... the wounded here is very cliche! LOL
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Post by devogirl on Jul 1, 2012 21:28:23 GMT -5
Well, I completely agree with you; however, I think that these books have specific target, mainly those bored housewives, looking for entertainment and gushing over perfect bodies and a specific type of women who don't really know real life (aka, haven't met too many men). I know we're practically forced to read that because let's face it, they're the only stories with imperfect heroes (haven't read any stories with blind guy because when I was going through my blind faze - pretty much in the 5th through 12th grade, I had no access to those). So I guess - just my humble opinion, I might be wrong - that everyone is so perfect psychically because they have to be appealing for the masses. That being said, with all mentioned about how some here make their characters resemble them, I couldn't stop at that. I actually spent about a year (well, from time to time, wasn't obsessing about it) looking up pics of women on the internet - under the radar actresses so I don't define them by a certain role - trying to find the perfect girl in my story. When I found her, I completely changed the pace, going from writing here and there, a few words two or three months apart, to half a story in a couple of days. You are so right Cristabell! I am definitely not in the main demographic for romance, which is why I get so frustrated with them. What kills me is not just that the characters are uniformly attractive, but that they are so bland. I can imagine the author looking at a Sears catalog as she was writing, especially the older ones. There seems to be a little more variation now in some of the newer ones. And I agree, it's important to have a model in your mind for what your characters look like, it really helps the writing be more vivid. I don't usually search online, but sometimes I scan faces of strangers when I am at a cafe or something, if certain features jump out at me I will use them. Or I use some of my friends or acquaintances for secondary characters. |
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Post by Ximena on Jul 1, 2012 21:50:43 GMT -5
DG - I think bland characters is a problem in a lo of genre fiction - and I think in romances the female characters are often very one-dimensional bc the author wants them to be an empty shell for the reader to put herself in place of. Personally, I think that's just lazy writing. I can enjoy a book and a romance even if the characters are well fleshed out and nothing like me. That's one reason I like Megan Hart, bc her books are well written, with complex, dynamic characters.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2012 2:38:33 GMT -5
My personal problem with these characters isn't really how they look like, but more their perfection personality wise. To put it shortly, they're Mary Sues. for example, i'm finally reading A Man Like Mac. (a bit of a spoiler alert) Of course she has to be the most virtuous person ever. At 27 she's only slept with one man and is otherwise a perfect human being, as is he. The guy in these novels never lose their temper- except for the times they're angry and mean in exposition and they get rwscued by love. I love it when a character has faults. It makes him or her a real person.
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Post by Ximena on Jul 2, 2012 7:03:48 GMT -5
Exactly. And it's impossible to have a dynamic character if they don't have any flaws to overcome!
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Post by ruthmadison on Jul 5, 2012 14:35:54 GMT -5
Crista, I will have to try that picture trick! Sounds like a great way to get yourself inspired. I also dislike classic romance novels. And it's so funny because I am supposedly a romance writer.  I go my own way with it! |
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That's actually part of the MC's conflict; she's not drop-dead gorgeous, she's average looking, but can't understand why anyone would find her attractive.
I go my own way with it!