Characteristics You Care About

What characteristics do you care most about when a writer describes something? And by “something” I mean mostly people, but also places and situations. A few examples should make it clear what I’m talking about.

For Walter Mosley, race as a defining construct reigns supreme. It’s not surprising then that he nearly always describes his characters’ skin tone before anything else. From “almond” through “onyx” his characters’ dermal hues clue us in not only to their ancestry, but even to their very souls. However, that’s not all. Sartorial details come next for Mosley, and these are perhaps even more telling. You’ve heard the cliche about “the clothes make the man?” Well, they also make “the woman” too, as his famous noir detective novel “Devil in a Blue Dress” illustrates right from the get-go.

Food is critical for some authors, both the cook-at-home variety, as well as restaurant fare. I’ve been reading Mike Lupica writing as Robert B. Parker in the Spenser series, and I now have a much greater appreciation for Boston’s fine dining – and dive bar – scene. Any number of private eyes coming home to their humble abode after a hard day catching bad guys first open the fridge and grab something cold to drink before they even sit down on their sofa or walk out on their deck overlooking the twinkling city lights below. Some of them next will throw together something in a pan on the stove, whether they’re dining alone, or more elaborately prepping for a soiree with that special significant other. Fact is, sometimes just reading about a character cooking makes me salivate, and that’s a good thing, at least as far as my enjoyment of the writing goes.

 

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When I say “characteristics,” the first thing most people think of is facial recognition, hair color, eye color, body build, and the like. And these are important, though perhaps they’re sometimes over-used. A lot of the male Private Eye protagonists I run across are always sizing up potential opponents like they’re spoiling for a fight: “He was three inches taller and probably had 40 pounds on me, but I still felt like I could take him.” Yawn. Next?

Then there are the police procedural details, like what kind of gun they carry, gang tattoos, and – very important – what’s on their rap sheet: Murder, robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon, all the way down to petty shoplifting and jaywalking (the dang scofflaw!). Oh, and let’s not forget the white collar stuff like embezzlement, forgery, and tax fraud. Clothes may make the man, but it never hurts to know if they’ve done time, where, and for what offenses.

 

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The reason I bring all this up is that, as a writer, I’m lousy at it. Not just inept, I’m terrible. Everybody in my stories is somebody I’ve got perfectly pictured in my mind before they even make an entrance, but somehow weaving all that with words into the flow of an existing plot with dialogue wrapped up inside a storyline is another matter entirely.

So let’s start with some pix of me and my better half, then see what you think the characteristics you care about should be. I’ll list a few things that jump out at me right off the top of my head, but you should detail whatever you think I’ve missed in the comments section. Oh, and btw, thanks in advance for your assistance here. It means the world to me. Hey, we all get by with a little help from our friends, donchaknow?