How to properly show what your characters’ skin tone is without resorting to stereotypes and overly used words that lack sense?
My Turn:
My characters are black or POC, but I don’t always want to say “brown skin tone” or say “his/her resembles chocolate or caramel”. I have to get creative, I’m just at a loss on how to word this. The same applies to characters who have a much lighter skin tone or are white. The issue is creativity without resorting to tired old cliches and stereotypes. I want to get this right when describing skin tones and even hair styles of characters.
How do you guys describe skin tones in your novels without using the same old cliches or stereotypes?
I don’t know, but my characters are the equivalent of British schoolboys circa 1740, so they can be fascinated by someone’s appearance without sounding either politically correct or disrespectful…? ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
☜(ˆ▿ˆc)
Bremil and I were on a school break in Llundein again, and we decided to go to a stationery shop in town. Papa gave us the money for notebooks and quills, and let us take the barouche. A tiny shop, but there was so much to look at and the proprietor was, to me, rather surprising. Extremely fetching, and brown as a fawn. Probably from the southern islands. She said her husband had died recently, so she ran the business by herself.
you could outright say their race.
i think placement of description matters as much as the description. also is it first or third person? if first are they describing themselves or another character?
if first person and themselves - is it in present tense or past tense? if in past tense why is the narrator telling us this now? if in present why are they noticing it enough to comment on it?
