: Re: Protagonist's race is hidden - should I reveal it? I'm currently on the fourth draft of a novel I'm writing, which features two protagonists. One of them, is, in my mind, black. I say, "in

As others have said, if the character's color doesn't matter in the story, then by not mentioning it you let the reader picture her as any color they like. Possibly matching their own color, possibly matching what is typical of the place where you set the story. (Like if I read a story set in Nigeria, I'd probably assume that all characters are black unless there's reason to believe otherwise. If I read a story set in Minnesota, I'd probably assume they're all white. Etc.)

I'd say the same if someone asked if it was necessary to mention a character's hair color or height or weight.

Any of these things MIGHT be relevant in any particular story, of course. Even if the story is not "about race", i.e. about racism or race relations or anything like that, it might come up in some cultural way or as some other incidental.

I'd discourage you from having clues to her color scattered through the book. If a reader sees a description of her when she is first introduced in the story that does not mention her color, and that reader pictures her as, let's suppose, white, and then 3/4 of the way through the book he sees one of your "hidden clues" and realizes that she is black, I think that would be very jarring. If I was the reader, I'd feel like I now had to go back over the entire story and re-picture it in my head.

For the same reason, I'd say that if her color is relevant to the story at any point for any reason, you should mention it when she is first introduced. If, say, half-way through the book you have a brief mention that, say, she couldn't go to the hairdresser with her friend because that hairdresser didn't know how to work with a black girl's kinky hair, or whatever, now as a reader I have to re-imagine all the previous scenes. You can get away with not mentioning subtle aspects of a person's physical appearance until late in the story, if people meeting that person wouldn't immediately notice, but I think most people would notice skin color pretty quickly.

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: Re: Protagonist's race is hidden - should I reveal it? I'm currently on the fourth draft of a novel I'm writing, which features two protagonists. One of them, is, in my mind, black. I say, "in

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: I keep going back to the story in Breaking Bad. The purpose of the story, novel or TV series, is to establish characters in an environment and then show how they react or accommodate to

: I'll skip repeating what others have said. Some additional thoughts: As other have pointed out, "tiphoof" is probably not an anatomically accurate term for how a hoofed creature would ever walk,

: Many sexual situations, but no actual sex scenes? My guile heroine's character arc is almost entirely sex and manipulation. I tell (not show) she was a sex worker in the past, it's left ambiguous

: How do I subvert the tropes of a train heist? What are the recognizable tropes to a "train heist", or more broadly the action sequences where a protagonist boards a moving train in order to

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