: Describe illustrated characters? I'm writing a YA fantasy novel in my free time that I plan to illustrate myself. Most if not all named characters will have their 'picture' presented to the
I'm writing a YA fantasy novel in my free time that I plan to illustrate myself. Most if not all named characters will have their 'picture' presented to the reader as soon as they are introduced.
Should I bother describing the appearance or most notable features of these characters even if their picture is right next to said description? I could imagine it being necessary to get a feeling of how the POV character perceives his peers, but I could also imagine it getting very redundant. On top of that, were the illustrations to fall short of the descriptions, or the other way around, the reader might become conflicted on how to view the characters.
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@Moriarity138
A book should be a book, first and foremost, even if it has illustrations. It needs to be able to work on its own.
Then, good illustrations add a new level of meaning and depth. The ideal is that either the text or the illustrations would be interesting on their own, but that they bring things to a new level when combined, yet without being tediously duplicative of each other. This is why, in good picture books, the illustrator often includes his or her own narrative, or features of interest, not mentioned at all in the text.
My advice to you would be to complete the book, as though it were not to be illustrated at all, and then illustrate it as if you hadn't also written it.
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@Jamie945
Think about people who may use a screenreader (or like audiobooks)
E-Books are very important and a lot of books are sold as hard-copies and as e-books alike. This allows people with a disability to "read" books, for example by using a screenreader. (That's also why it's important on sites like StackExchange to always provide a useful image description instead of the generic "Insert Image Description here".) These people need the description as your picture itself is pretty much useless for them, depending on the severity of their disability.
Furthermore there are a lot of audiobooks out there. I know many people who like to listen to their favourite book before going to sleep or when travelling with public transport. You are restricting your target audience by not including the mental image in your description.
The problems with the non-matching description and the illustration happens all the time. Some people will not like it, a lot of people won't care. For example I've seen many people who were furious about some things that didn't match in the Harry Potter movies (non-matching eye colours I think), but I know a lot of people who would never even bother to mention this even after someone pointed it out to them. It's normal that there are a few differences between what is in your head and what you can bring to the paper - and some people will prefer to simply ignore your illustrations and stick to their personal mental image. I, for example, like to go "Nah, that character would look more interesting if they had darker/brighter/longer/shorter hair" or similar things - it's my own mental image and my own mental world after all. You might have some ideas about how everything looks like, but many people will willfully adapt this - and many others will accidentally change some details.
Don't stress out over making everything exactly equal and include description like you would normally do in a novel. It doesn't cost you a lot of work and it will potentially help your readers understand your world.
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