Monday, March 22, 2010
Putting a Good Face on Your Characters
If any of you remember reading Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in high school, I’ll bet you still have some vague recollection of the Wife of Bath.Remember her? Married multiple times, buried all her husbands and was left with lots of moolah?
If you must know, I had to seriously jog my memory to come up with those details because they are completely eclipsed in my memory by Chaucer’s description of that enormous gap between her teeth. You see, Chaucer was a student of physiognomy–the study of a person’s character based on their outward appearance. The gap between the Wife’s front teeth told 14th century readers more than they ever needed to know about her sexual prowess–hence the multiple husbands ... perhaps even the cause of their deaths .
Of course today, the idea of physiognomy has certainly taken a back seat in the age of psychology. We know that psychopathic serial killers can look like Ted Bundy, and no matter the soft look of Osama Bin Laden’s eyes, he sees Americans through a veil of hatred. But these are psychopathic types. The villains. Those with an innate ability to hide their true nature.
More often than not, however, there is some truth of a person that shows on their face. Even my sweet sister, while extricating herself from her devil-man ex husband, broke out with such a horrid case of acne, all I could think when looking at her was that her body was desperately trying to rid itself of the poison in her life. What’s more, I’ve seen rather narcissistic people from my past age in a puffy-faced manner, as though years and years of only thinking about themselves has over-bloated them–their eyes now small and squinty because they simply cannot see beyond themselves.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="189" caption="NOT a picture of Scuttle"]
[/caption]Even my own take on life is showing on my face. Around my mouth, I have pretty deep parenthesis lines. It’s from smiling. Of course, I also have a groove between my eyebrows, but I take comfort in the fact that the parenthesis is deeper than the exclamation mark.
As for writing, I once read an article in RWR that said, “Give your character some detail that shows exactly who they are.” In this case, physiognomy can be a writer’s best friend–particularly when said writer is stuck.
Gap between the teeth = slut (Madonna anyone?)
Broad forehead, high hairline = brainiac
Large, bulbous features that smile easily = someone who is partial to drink
In my own writing, I’ve used physiognomy to help pin down secondary characters in particular. See if you can guess what I’m trying to say about Mrs. Jenkins:
She had a flared-nostril, stretched-necked look about her, as though she had to labor to look down upon the multitude of sinners scuttling about her feet.
Religious zealot, right? Judgmental bitch, right? Of course the stretched-neck part always reminds me of Carol Burnett’s version of Norma Desmond, but paired with the flared nostrils, I think Mrs. Jenkins takes on a rather condemnatory appearance. Don’t believe me? Try it in the mirror.
Physiognomy can work with any character type. Is your character obsequious, timid and unassuming? He or she has no sharp lines in their face, no hard angles, no overtly-pointed point of view.
But there is always something more you can say about a person in addition to their specific features. Roald Dahl, in his story The Twits, writes:
If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
Yes exactly.
Now it is your turn. Think of one of your characters, or even a memorable character you’ve read, and tell me how their outer appearance helps show who they are inside. Do you think physiognomy could help you develop your characters? What feature on your face is a telltale hint as to who you are?
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32 comments:
Her eyes were large, a deep furrow ran between them with one eyebrow always slightly higher than the other. This was echoed with the opposite corner of her mouth.
Hmmmm. Not sure what that says about Emily. I'd like to think it says she has a sense of humor but thinks too much. And is easily confused...
My features...last few years I've noticed frown lines...I worry too much.
Yep. I would've said Emily was a tad conflicted, but good-natured, yes?
As for your worrying, Chance, mine is showing up in that way, as well. You can also see it on the bottom edges of my teeth as I've begun grinding in these last few years. Oy.
I have that little line between my brows. I'd like to say it's because I spend a lot of time thinking, but I don't know.
There was an article in Woman's World this week about this exact thing. The only trait that fit me was the large lips. I'm no Angelina, but I do have full lips and I believe it said this means I'm generous but take charge and determined to change things. Oh yeah, that fits.
No idea about my characters. I think Emma is uncomfortable with anything that shakes up her world. She's a bit...repressed. Got a trait for that?
Nate is determined. Like a freight train barreling through, once he's set the goal, he's going full steam ahead. I think this means he'd have a strong chin, yes?
I don't think I've used any facial physiognomy yet in this story. I'll probably add stuff like that after I'm done. My villain could use something like this, in particular.
I know someone who is--how do I say this tactfully--not a nice person. She was always a large woman but lost a lot of weight recently. I think she believed that losing weight was the only thing keeping her from being lovely. But after she lost her weight, her face look more pinched, the skin around her chin and mouth looked tighter. I think she proves your point. :)
Great blog!
I'm not sure I've ever done this with my characters, but now you've gotten me to thinking about it!
I really like the parentheses and exclamation points. LOL I think the one between my eyebrows looks more like the backslash key though!
Apparently I'm a brainy slut then. I have both the high forehead and the gap toothed grin. WHY is the gap-toothed thing mean slutty? What is that even about? Is it because if you're gap-toothed, you're probably a little homely, and if you pay attention to a homely girl, she's likely to give it up a lot more readily than a pretty girl who knows it.
Hmm. I don't know if I focus too much on facial features. I know Adam refers to Eve as round, ripe--like fruit--and says she smells like apricots. (That's the big identifier for him, the apricots.)
Women in my stories are always curvy and round; and the men always have shoulders as wide as church doors (though they tend to have spare builds. More lanky than beefy.) That is the extent of my description, unless we talk about hair--and I can wax on about hair; and I tend to wax on about eye-color.
But never about noses or types of smiles. (I should think of types of smiles, since my people smile a lot. There are many types of smiles.)
On the whole though (with the exception of Luc), I'm not that concerned about looks because my heroines (and heroes) aren't overly good-looking, which is fitting because I'm not good-looking--so I'm not comfortable writing about people who are. I figure they're getting enough stories written about them, and I write about homelier people who also need to get laid. But my heroes and heroines are beautiful to their loves...I just don't focus on something particular (except, well, with Eve, I guess it was her hair. I'm so Amish.)
I do something similar though. I'm a scent-slut. My critique partners used to laugh whenever they read something of mine because I was always waxing on and on (and on and on) about how great the hero smelled. SCENT is my thing of beauty. It's the thing that makes you fall in love. Which is looney-tunes nutso, I agree.
Yet, deer-hunter boy gets near enough and I'm purring into his neck, sniffing contentedly and friskily, like he's bloody catnip. I thought it might be only me, except I read that series of the Princess Diaries, and Princess Mia talked about Michael's smell ALL THE TIME. I felt better. That meant Meg Cabot was a chick who liked smell too.
Oh, my favorite example of this is when the Catholic church (in the old, old days) explained the various personality traits associated with hair color.
Black or Red hair: you're a witch, a daughter of the devil
Brown hair: you're boring and dull-witted
Blonde hair: the best of all colors and the most virtuous (unlike that slutty red), which was why a lot of women were trying to bleach their dull brown hair blonde with urine...
Amusing to say the least, and the best come back to such a study was in the novel, Wonderful, by Jill Barnett, when a tower full of women who were doing needlepoint were discussing this, and a little girl say, "If that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! If hair grew directly from the brain"--which is what the church said--"all men would be bald."
*LOL* http://www.astrology.com.au/face/theface.asp
According to this, green-eyed people are spontaneous and prone to be willful. The hell you say.
I'm with Donna. I don't know if I've really thought about this much with my characters, but now that it's been brought to my attention I can't help but ponder it.
I have a forehead like my mother with a deep set wrinkle right down the middle of it. Stress makes it deeper (mostly it's because I forget my glasses and spend my day squinting at the computer screen) but I gave the wrinkle to my heroine and she's constantly rubbing it thinking she's going to make it go away.
Hells, you aren't the only one. Did you not read me waxing poetic about the smell of After Hours last week? Seriously, if I smell the stuff walking down the street, I track down the man wearing it and you almost have to tear me off of him. I could smell that scent all day every day and never get sick of it. It's like liquid sex.
I can't even remember what my forehead looks like. I keep it camouflaged with bangs.
I have a high forehead, but I'd never think of myself as a brainiac. And I too have the one wrinkle line that runs across it. I figure it's from always raising my eyebrows. I'm surprised a lot.
I don't think I know this After Hours scent. May have to check that out the next time I'm in that section of a store. If I can make it in and out without having an allergic reaction to all the perfumes.
It's an Old Spice thing.
What an interesting topic, J! I love the Wife of Bath! Everything about her challenges the view of what a woman should be--her open sexuality (her gap-teeth), her assertiveness, her independence, her pride in her craft. She seems so real to me with her weakness for a bad boy and her poignant concern over aging. She's such a welcome contrast to the ideal patient Griselda of the Clerk's tale. Ugh!
I don't think I've consciously used physiognomy in my writing. I did use a passing reference to a very minor character that may qualify, a line borrowed from my mother: "She was one of those tight-lipped women who thought she had a direct line to God but was convinced he was too soft on sinners."
Light blue eyes suppose an individual who is likely to enjoy flirting with the opposite sex.
Me? No way.
hehehe
*LOL* Janga, that's PERFECT! *LOL* I know that person!!!
Now, where did that Scuttlebutt scuttle off to?
I couldn't figure out where Sin got the "light blue eyes" stuff and then I remembered the link. I had to check.
This made me snort. Nay, guffaw!
A deep blue colour means that you are in the company of a highly sexed yet gentle and sensitive being.
Everyone is out scrutinizing people's faces. Aren't ya? :)
I wish. Same faces. All day. Every day. Blech.
LOL -- too bad you can't mentally rearrange their facial features, just to amuse yourself. You know, like that toy that has different features on the blocks, and you turn them over, and. . .
Okay, I'm gonna go back to my edits now. LOL
That would be kind of fun. Like working with a bunch of Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads. LOL!
I know exactly which ones would lose their lips.
I'm so sorry I'm late, everyone. We had a school situation and now I have to run out one more time, then I'll settle in here.
LOL, Donna and Ter, on the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head writing. Why not, eh?
Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads! Of course! LOL
Hope the school situation wasn't too yucky. :(
I too hope that the school situation wasn’t very bad.
Had one of those yesterday.
The DD got sent home from school with Hives.
Ter, as far as Emma goes, I think repressed could be expressed by body/body movement ... the sort of girl that stands with her hands clasped in front of her private parts.
Seriously, we need to consult a book on body language.
Marn, I have THE EXACT SAME EXPERIENCE, but with an ex-boyfriend. He didn't lose weight but his face--after years of being mean--has definitely become pinched.
Take note, right? Your attitude shows on your face, people.
Yikes, Hellie. I'm scared to answer about the gap-teeth. I don't know, exactly. It wasn't me who thought of it.
My women are curvy, as well. I think I'm wishful writing.
First of all, you are not homely. I've seen your pics. But I agree that everyone is the perfect heroine to their hero. That's how I see it, as well.
I'm with you on scent. Please tell me you've read Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses. The smell section is the very best of them all. It was that book that led me to Patrick Suskind's Perfume (which is now a movie, the main character played by Ben Winshaw). Perfume was a freaky little tale into the depths of scent.
Also, and this may be TMI, but when I smell my dh with just a tad of B.O., I go cat-in-heat. So, yeah. I get you on scent.
It's all about the pheromones.
Well I never. I refuse to be boring and dull-witted.
Great link ... although, I am now analyzing my children and it's scaring me.
Sin, I've done that before with certain scents. In college, I fell in love with one so much, I started slathering myself in it.
Too bad it was man perfume, but my husband now wears it.
Ha! on your flirty color eyes, Sin.
Janga, oh dear God, I know that woman. About 2000 of her used to fill my childhood church.
Hellie! I told you we grew up in much the same way.
Ter, that describes you to a T.
Julie, everyone thinks the worst part of the parent-child relationship is when the child realizes the parent isn't perfect.
Nuh uh.
It's when the parent realizes the child isn't.
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