: Re: Is it okay to describe the protagonist's friend's appearance before the protagonist? I am still fairly new to writing, so I am bound to make plenty of mistakes. The beginning goes like so: The

When writing in first person, you would only write about what your POV character is seeing, thinking, feeling, experiencing. This means that unless she is looking in a mirror, or particularly self-conscious, she would not be thinking about her own appearance in great detail.

This means that it would make sense that she would notice her friend's appearance first. However, when I see my friends, I don't immediately assess their looks in my own head, unless something is different or notable.

Therefore unless her friend's appearance is particularly noteworthy, she wouldn't necessarily acknowledge that either. And unless the friend is an important character throughout the story, her appearance may not even need to be given in great detail.

Therefore you could always begin with a minimal description of the friend from your protagonists perspective, and then bring it back to the main character's appearance.

Perhaps she wakes up her friend, who is lay down with her hair covering her face (opening up the opportunity to describe her hair, or note that something else looks out of place in her disheveled state). Then when the friend wakes up, she comments on something about the MC such as "what's that on your face?" or "what happened to your nose?"

Then she can perhaps rush to the bathroom and look at herself in the mirror to assess her features, or maybe even just feel her face with her hands to find out what is on it, opening up the thought process of your protagonist to her own features.

Load Full (0)

: Is it okay to have a character who doesn't actually have a name? The character in my book doesn't have a name. I mean, he probably does, but its not used by any other character in the book,

@Mendez196

Load Full 3 Comments

: Length of a scene? Really, just how long should a solid scene in a chapter be? And what about when characters move setting but the topic is still relevant to the scene? How long would that

@Mendez196

Load Full 3 Comments

: Interwoven story arcs (for video) - guidelines so viewers will not get lost? I am trying to create a documentary about the history of a sports team, and have identified some compelling story

@Mendez196

Load Full 2 Comments

: The Search for Good Places to Discuss Science for Worldbuilding One of the major oversights of the worldbuilding process is that worldbuilders tunneled their focus on the story at hand, which

: Re: Is it okay to describe the protagonist's friend's appearance before the protagonist? I am still fairly new to writing, so I am bound to make plenty of mistakes. The beginning goes like so: The

More posts by @Mendez196

: Is it okay to have a character who doesn't actually have a name? The character in my book doesn't have a name. I mean, he probably does, but its not used by any other character in the book,

: Length of a scene? Really, just how long should a solid scene in a chapter be? And what about when characters move setting but the topic is still relevant to the scene? How long would that

: Interwoven story arcs (for video) - guidelines so viewers will not get lost? I am trying to create a documentary about the history of a sports team, and have identified some compelling story

: The Search for Good Places to Discuss Science for Worldbuilding One of the major oversights of the worldbuilding process is that worldbuilders tunneled their focus on the story at hand, which

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top