So What Color is Josette, Anyway?

. . . most of the characters and places were vaguely described. If they decided to make Chop, Chop into a movie--please don’t, Hollywood!--it would be pretty much up to the producers as to the ethnicity, eye color, hair color, height, style of dress, etc., of the characters, because they get little mention. From what I hear, Victor Hugo’s writings--which I haven’t read! I know; what kind of avid reader am I?--are notorious for their long, detailed descriptions; well, this is the polar opposite of that.”

The above is an excerpt from a negative review on Chop, Chop.

Shortly after I wrote Chop, Chop, a friend told me that I needed to include more descriptions—for example how did the lasagna smell when David entered the White’s house? And just this morning, my dear friend Heather Blanton (an author who is so excellent at describing people, places and things that I insisted she help me by adding her genius to my upcoming historical fiction novel, The Pirate’s Revenge) challenged me to do more in the way of imagery in my contemporary works. In part, she said, “You have five senses. Use them, especially when you’re setting a scene. I KNOW you are capable of this. Little things like wrinkles around the eyes, a middle-age paunch hanging over the belt, a song playing in the background, you know what I mean.”

I do know what she means, and I do know that I’m capable.

But despite many suggestions, challenges, and outright criticisms, I have no intention of changing the way I write because my lack of descriptions is very, very intentional.

Sometimes in my books—if looks are important in a character’s mind—that character will describe a person. For example, David describes what Samantha looks like quite a bit—because it’s important to him. But how Laci looks isn’t important to him at all. We know that she’s pretty and that she has brown hair, but that’s about it. What is important to David, is Laci’s heart, which (I hope) is described in vivid detail. (Incidentally, I recently talked to two people who both imagine Laci as a blonde—so obviously describing things doesn’t really change how readers choose to envision them anyway!!)

Interestingly, when David goes to the prison, he describes in great detail every aspect of the process of passing through security upon entering the correctional unit . . . what the lobby looked like . . . even going so far as to tell us the number on one of the prisoner’s uniforms. Why? Because that’s all David could manage. He couldn’t think about what he was getting ready to do.

There are, of course, times when I have had my characters describe other characters. In Not Quickly Broken, for example, Jordan not only tells us what Charlotte looks like, but what he and Tanner look like as well. (On a side note, one of my favorite lines in that book is when Jordan tells us that he looks “just like Tanner, (which – after watching women throw themselves at him for years – I’d learned wasn’t exactly a bad thing).” :)

And Marco, in What I Want, lets us know what Josette looks like as follows:

Just as I still believed that there was someone out there for me, I also still believed that that “someone” would belong on the Island of Misfit Toys like I did. I was certain that there was going to be something majorly wrong with whoever I wound up with . . .

And to put it bluntly, there was nothing wrong with Josette.

Josette was way out of my league. She belonged on the antipode of the Island of Misfit Toys . . . clear on the other side of the world. You can’t live with a woman for almost a year and not notice something like that . . . whether or not they’re attractive.

And Josette most definitely was.

Her eyes, for example. I had actually noticed them the moment I met her in the student union that first day, so long ago. They were a dark, charcoal gray and they were framed by incredibly thick, black lashes and they were beautiful . . . and I had immediately felt guilty for even noticing them.

It wasn’t just her eyes, though.

Everything about Josette was attractive: the soft curve of her lips, the gentle arch of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows, her high cheekbones and long, straight dark hair, the flawless tone of her bronzed skin, her delicate fingers, her . . .

No. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Josette.

But despite all this, Marco—who is Latino—never does address her ethnicity. Is she Caucasian? Latino? African American? The description Marco gives leaves room for any of these possibilities and more. But one of the things I hoped to convey in What I Want is the fact that it doesn’t matter what we look like—even though Marco was so sure it did. And so I purposefully decided to let the reader imagine Josette’s skin color however they want.

I know what I picture Josette’s skin color to be, but I’m curious about what you envision . . . so will you leave me a comment below to let me know? I promise I’ll tell you my thoughts on the matter after you tell me yours!