Physical Traits

[thecollector]

My question is:
How do you get a variety of looks in your characters. I've been trying to limit some of the featrues... like not use all brown hair or eyes on characters. ...Does that make sense?

[Iridescence]

Erm...what do you mean? Your characters look the way they look. If you imagine them with brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin, whatever, that's how they look. It's up to you. Your characters shouldn't look too similar, because no two humans look alike. Still, rephrase the question. Maybe I can help you better.

[Midsummernightsdream]

Just be imaginative-- your characters can be diverse, or the same- they are your characters.

[thecollector]

Okay, I think that Midsummer is sort of getting it. What I mean is I'll introduce characters into the book, but they'll look too similar to other characters. I was wondering if there was a way to prevent that.

[Mercy]

The way the characters look shouldn't matter too much. But if you plan to have to characters that are opposites/are parallel (foil characters?), it might be better to have their looks be completely different. Or, if a character symbolizes a trait or something or other, try to make their looks personify that.

Or just randomize. See what you've already got and try to do something different, if you're going to try and diversify. If you want, make all the characters look the same. It is your story, after all.

[thecollector]

The way the characters look shouldn't matter too much. But if you plan to have to characters that are opposites/are parallel (foil characters?), it might be better to have their looks be completely different. Or, if a character symbolizes a trait or something or other, try to make their looks personify that.

Or just randomize. See what you've already got and try to do something different, if you're going to try and diversify. If you want, make all the characters look the same. It is your story, after all.

Thank you for your advice. I have been trying to make them not look the same by picking random traits instead of the ones I have already used. Some times, the characters happen to look alike so it makes it complicated. I love to read stories by authors like James Patterson and Thomas Harris. Sometimes, their characters start looking the same and I want to shy away from that. Thank you, though.

[pfkingsley]

Personally, I go really in depth with my characters looks because I think it helps to characterize them. A tip I have is to go loosely off of people you have seen or that you know.

I know what you mean, though; how many times can you be like "she had an upturned nose, light freckles, and auburn hair..." It gets old.

[Bowie20049]

I go the opposite way. I just name basic features, and just focus on their emotions (or try to). Whenever I read, I find myself imagining the character...differently than others. (for lack of a better word)

[Soleil]

I get what you mean. I think a way to prevent this would be, if two of your characters both had brown hair and brown eyes, you could say, 'While a pale, firm pink line was John's mouth, with almond, chocolate brown eyes, betraying his true self, the dark orbs belonging to Alan Smith held nothing, showed nothing, and the slightly tilted down head only added to his arcane appearance.' You could do that. The colouring might be the same, but the features could be completely different. One person might have aristocratic features while another of the same colouring might have a spotty complexion and round cheeks. :D

[noelsr]

Personally I don't believe in limiting your characters. What I usually do is more than focus on their physical features, I try (not always successfully) to create a round character by describing the emotional response to everything around him, her or it. People, I believe, can relate more to a character if they reach a certain degree of empathy, in the case of the main character or downright hatred if its a villain. Ultimately the reader connects with the emotions the character displays more than with the physical description of such character.
Again my opinion only.

[Rose]

As for me, whenever an ide occurs to me about a certain story,I just try to imagine the number of the charactres,their role in the story and I build their personalities,and I then draw how they might look like according to their personalities...(Ex: Cool 17 year old guy with a great sense of humor ;careless,and hot...You might picture him as a tall high school guy with dark brown hair and blue eyes having a great body structure...That's actually one of my characters "Seiji",my friends and I were writing a story involving him and of course other characters...
Hope I helped :)