Author C. J. Cherryh on how to write: “framed by” stops her cold. Alternatives?

Cafe Society
1

I know there are some writers who don’t believe in describing physical appearances at all but “show, don’t tell” can only take you so far. My preference is that at least a small amount of effort should be made by the author to help the reader visualise a character and how the hair looks is a fairly important detail.

The Cherryh objection to “framed by” is about a third of the way down the page linked here.

www.sfwa.org

She also disapproves of “set off by” and “revealed by” in a fashion context, but these expressions are rarely, if ever used in stories.

If I’ve ever encountered the term in the past it probably didn’t register, but I thought of Cherryh while browsing through “Berserker Prime” where on page 38 Saberhagen writes:

“Luon was of average height and slight build. Fair, curly hair surrounded a face that fell way short of startling beauty—” etc.

To me it just seemed like a deliberate and clumsy way of avoiding the use of: “framed”, which would have been the better choice.

Can anyone think of any reasonable alternatives to “framed by” when describing a character’s hair-face-appearance? Other than having the character fool about with her hair to provide an opportunity to describe it. I can’t think of a satisfactory alternative.

2

Think carefully about why you need to describe the character’s hair color. It may or may not be important. For a lot of novels, it just doesn’t freaking matter if the protagonist is a blonde or a brunette, whether her hair is curly or butch-cut. If it does matter, get the info in in some other way … “Sabrina ran her hand through her crewcut, sighed, and reloaded.” Blonde or brunette crewcut? Doesn’t matter – let the reader imagine it whatever way the reader wants to imagine it.

twicks, professional [nonfiction] editor

3

I was thinking about a few of the main characters and only a very basic physical description, perhaps including some details of facial structure and hair style. It would only need to be done once for the most important characters.

I’ve never liked stories where absolutely no hint is given as to the character’s physical characteristics or appearance. If a character suddenly performs an act only a gymnast could perform halfway through a story and you’ve visualised that character up to that point as a typical unfit person, I don’t find that satisfying at all.

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[QUOTE=Aquila Be]
I’ve never liked stories where absolutely no hint is given as to the character’s physical characteristics or appearance. If a character suddenly performs an act only a gymnast could perform halfway through a story and you’ve visualised that character up to that point as a typical unfit person, I don’t find that satisfying at all.
[/QUOTE]

There’s a hell of a lot of room between “absolutely no hint” and a detailed physical description. This goes back to the “show, don’t tell” point you mentioned in your OP. If the story is going well, we’ve got some idea whether the character is in shape or not – by what he or she has been eating (drinking, smoking), whether he or she climbs the stairs or takes the elevator, etc. There’s all kinds of ways to get that information across.

Blue eyes or brown? Can’t see that it matters a whole lot.

5

Not that he’s the pinnacle of writing or anything, but Stephen King knows how to tell a heck of an entertaining story and he’s surprisingly vague on details (which sometimes makes me wonder what all those words are doing in his books!). I never realized it until the TV version of The Tommyknockers, which annoyed me no end. I was so disappointed in how they made the aliens look, as they were NOTHING like described in the book. Wrong size, wrong textures, wrong colors…and I remembered a very detailed description in the book, down to the one large, claw-like toe that fit their oddly shaped ladder.

I went back and reread the book about a year later, and there’s like one paragraph where he alludes to the toe thing, but the whole rest of the description of their physical appearance I made up. Totally. In Stephen King-esque language, no less. I would have reported under oath that certain paragraphs were there, only I was reading the same physical copy and no pages had changed! It was vague enough that the TV version fit perfectly, as did mine, even though they were nothing alike.

And, of course, it’s a big part of why I found the book so scary and the movie so blah. MY scary monster alien (or heroine, or ideal farmhouse or set of china) is very different than yours. Any five year old can describe a person. A skilled writer makes you fill in the gaps with your own ideal without you ever realizing it.

[QUOTE=Aquila Be]
I’ve never liked stories where absolutely no hint is given as to the character’s physical characteristics or appearance. If a character suddenly performs an act only a gymnast could perform halfway through a story and you’ve visualised that character up to that point as a typical unfit person, I don’t find that satisfying at all.
[/QUOTE]

Because that’s bad writing. It’s like introducing the Phlebotnum thirty seconds before it’s the only device that can save Sunnydale. If it’s important to the plot, you bring it in gradually, so that people don’t know…but they also don’t get surprised. Like **twickster **says, tell us how he acts that would ease us into it.

Hair? Can’t say as it’s ever really important, except maybe in O. Henry. If it is important, it better not be important for only one critical piece, or it’s bad writing. And if you really just want it known that your heroine is blonde, get it in there early, 'cause I find it really annoying when my ideal redhead turns into a blonde in chapter 43. If her long hair gets ripped off in a piece of industrial equipment in chapter 10, tell me about her antique hair pin collection in chapter 2.

6

I agree that spoon feeding the reading with a detailed description, as espoused by a tatty and very old “How to Write Porn” guide I happen to own would be taking things to extremes. That guide puts everything into a kind of flow chart with various boxed optioins for
(1) face-eyes
(2) various hair styles - coronet braid, imperious bun, coiffured, covered with silky etc.
3) then the description boxes move to other areas where things start to get pear contoured. But I won’t go there.

That kind of writing is pretty crude as well as being unintentionally funny. I suppose it boils down to a matter of preference. In my case, I like at least a small amount of help from the author to get some advance idea of what the character looks like. I don’t care if a walk on walk off character is left undescribed as they’re never with the reader for long.

7

The man I was framed by had brown hair.

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[QUOTE=Snooooopy]
The man I was framed by had brown hair.
[/QUOTE]

But was it long or short? Curly or straight? Was his hairline receding?

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[QUOTE=twickster]
But was it long or short? Curly or straight? Was his hairline receding?
[/QUOTE]

I think this thread is starting to devolve.

Oh well. I suppose it wasn’t much of a question in the first place. :frowning:

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[QUOTE=Aquila Be]
I think this thread is starting to devolve.

Oh well. I suppose it wasn’t much of a question in the first place. :frowning:
[/QUOTE]

No. It was a good question, and Cherryh’s advice is usable.

I like this one: “As a general rule, use a major or stand-out vocabulary word only once a paragraph, maybe twice a page, and if truly outre, only once per book. Parallels are clear and proper exceptions to this, and don’t vary your word choice to the point of silliness.”

Horror and fantasy writers constantly violate this rule.

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[QUOTE=Aquila Be]
I think this thread is starting to devolve.

Oh well. I suppose it wasn’t much of a question in the first place. :frowning:
[/QUOTE]

It was a fine question – you just don’t care for the answer you’ve gotten, which is: instead of trying to find some way to get around the rule that is creating problems for you, meditate on why she’s making that a rule. Several of us are suggesting that over-describing characters is unncecessary. Fine, you have a clear idea of what your character looks like – how much of the story hinges on that appearance? The elements of it are important (the comet-shaped birthmark that shows he’s related to the late duke; the athletic prowess that makes the escape in chapter 33 plausible; the “I don’t care what you think of me” haircut) can be worked into the story in other ways. The fact that her hair is shoulder-length or goes to the middle of her back – that it’s auburn or a true strawberry blonde – it probably doesn’t matter. Let go of your need to overdescribe and your writing will improve.

12

My favorite of her rules:

If it’s important to you and it works, tell us her heart shaped visage is framed by ringlets of gold. If it works, we’ll forgive you. If it doesn’t, well, then it probably should be stopped by the editor.

13

I have to say that I like ‘unimportant’ details of how the characters look, just because it helps me immerse myself in the story more. Sure, I have a great imagination, and I’m capable of coming up with the details myself, but a few tidbits from the author about what the characters look like helps that so much. It’s as if that way, my imagination doesn’t need to strain over the very basic details and thus can go into overdrive imagining facial tics and subtle expressions and reactions that DON’T get described. Hair color and style, eyes, facial details, skin tone, and finger length all seem especially evocative to me.

So they don’t bear on the plot - there’s more to storytelling than establishing a plot though. Of course, it’s definitely possible to go overboard too, and I’m not quite sure how to strike the right balance.

14

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
My favorite of her rules:
If it’s important to you and it works, tell us her heart shaped visage is framed by ringlets of gold. If it works, we’ll forgive you. If it doesn’t, well, then it probably should be stopped by the editor.
[/QUOTE]

And here the unspoken reason to limit bodily descriptors and the word “framed.” It leads the reader to expect a subsequent description of some hunk’s throbbing member. One suspects the phrase “dewey petals of her womanhood” is just round the corner.

If you’re writing a particularly lurid romance novel, frame away. Otherwise, you might want to reconsider both the why and the how in describing your heroine.

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[QUOTE=twickster]
It was a fine question – you just don’t care for the answer you’ve gotten, which is: instead of trying to find some way to get around the rule that is creating problems for you, meditate on why she’s making that a rule. Several of us are suggesting that over-describing characters is unncecessary. Fine, you have a clear idea of what your character looks like – how much of the story hinges on that appearance? The elements of it are important (the comet-shaped birthmark that shows he’s related to the late duke; the athletic prowess that makes the escape in chapter 33 plausible; the “I don’t care what you think of me” haircut) can be worked into the story in other ways. The fact that her hair is shoulder-length or goes to the middle of her back – that it’s auburn or a true strawberry blonde – it probably doesn’t matter. Let go of your need to overdescribe and your writing will improve.
[/QUOTE]

Personally, I like description. Plenty of it. But done poorly (as it often is) it can be boring as hell to read. Done correctly, and it makes for wonderful visualization.

The line between these is often blurry; I like The Lord of the Rings because of its descriptive passages, most of which are totally irrelevant to the story, but others cannot stand that very aspect of the books.

16

I think you need some basic outline of a physical description for your characters, at least. Yes, if you do it right, the readers will construct a visual image for themselves, but you might at least hand the poor so-and-sos some building blocks to work with …

Also, a lot of character’s appearances are determined by the way they choose to present themselves as people … if you describe one guy as scruffy and grungy-looking with three-day stubble, and another as carefully groomed and coiffured with not a hair out of place, you’re saying something about them as people by providing the elements of physical description.

Also, your characters are probably as shallow and appearance-obsessed as real people in the real world … they will often react to each other based largely on physical appearance. So you may as well say what it is they’re reacting to.

Of course, you can (and shouldn’t) over-describe … those awful amateur porn stories that start off “I am a 5’10” bisexual redhead with pert 38DD breasts" being a case in point. But I think a couple of pointers to what the people in your story look like … well, they do some good. In moderation.

17

I dunno, I like doing the physical descriptions of a character. It’s true that you can go to extremes — I don’t need to know the heroine’s cup size, or her height in centimeters, or what kind of stockings she has on. However, I find it’s very effective if you can describe a character from a particular character’s point of view: don’t tell me what Mary looks like, tell me what Bob thinks of Mary’s appearance.

18

[QUOTE=twickster]
But was it long or short? Curly or straight? Was his hairline receding?
[/QUOTE]

He was wearing a hat.

19

Heinlein was really good at making you be able to picture exactly what was going on, without having long expository paragraphs. If he wanted to describe a physical characteristic of someone, he’d generally do it only when necessary to move the plot, and he’d do it in context of the plot. So, instead of saying, “Mary had flaming red hair, cut shoulder length, with slight curls on the end”, he’d more likely have a character say something like, “Hey, flame-top! If you let that hair go past your shoulders you’re going to have a hell of a time keeping it out of your helmet seal.”

20

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Heinlein was really good at making you be able to picture exactly what was going on, without having long expository paragraphs. If he wanted to describe a physical characteristic of someone, he’d generally do it only when necessary to move the plot, and he’d do it in context of the plot. So, instead of saying, “Mary had flaming red hair, cut shoulder length, with slight curls on the end”, he’d more likely have a character say something like, “Hey, flame-top! If you let that hair go past your shoulders you’re going to have a hell of a time keeping it out of your helmet seal.”
[/QUOTE]

Yet I recall very specifically in Stranger in a Strange Land that Heinlein told us exactly which of Jubal Harshaw’s secretaries had what hair color, which was totally irrelevant to all aspects of that book’s plot.
Me, I wanted Dorcas…