A friend and I have been arguing about the best way to describe

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Anonymous
2016-02-15 00:20:01 Post No. 7698113
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 00:20:01 Post No. 7698113 [Report]

A friend and I have been arguing about the best way to describe a character.

My friend says one should point out the major characteristics to provide a framework for the imagination to work within. Describing only bare details will simply leave a confused mental image.

I personally think, you guessed it, the opposite. I'd rather the character's context and environment helps me figure out their aesthetic. The details I'd want to be told, maybe one or two, would only be the ones that tell me something about their character or that are important to the narrative.

So, /lit/

What's your opinion on describing a character?

Pic unrelated, its hard to find /lit/ related imagery.

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Anonymous 2016-02-15 00:26:02 Post No.7698132
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 00:26:02 Post No.7698132 [Report]

>>7698113
Depends on the effect you are trying to achieve

Brevity of description and intention of description elicit different responses in the reader

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Anonymous 2016-02-15 00:28:40 Post No.7698141
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 00:28:40 Post No.7698141 [Report]

Fuck off, you genre fiction pleb, descriptions of a character should be used only so much as to establish, or consolidate, a thematic context.

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Anonymous 2016-02-15 00:32:33 Post No.7698155
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 00:32:33 Post No.7698155 [Report]

>>7698141
So you agree with OP then. Okay.

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Anonymous 2016-02-15 01:16:14 Post No.7698262
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 01:16:14 Post No.7698262 [Report]

>>7698113
describing faces, clothes, physical appearance is very antiquated, especially if these elements are used as characterization- i.e. older novels using descriptions of faces to sum up a character

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Anonymous 2016-02-15 01:23:28 Post No.7698286
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 01:23:28 Post No.7698286 [Report]

>>7698113
>>7698262
You should read armadillo by William Boyd if you want to see how a character should be described.

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Anonymous 2016-02-15 01:59:58 Post No.7698403
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 01:59:58 Post No.7698403 [Report]

>>7698113
you should go on for pages about the make of their suits

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Anonymous 2016-02-15 02:02:36 Post No.7698412
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Anonymous 2016-02-15 02:02:36 Post No.7698412 [Report]

>>7698113
you're both wrong. it's not the major characteristics, or the minor ones, but the ESSENTIAL ones; the difficulty of writing is therefore sorting essential characteristics from a panoply of major and minor ones.