Meta: Appearance Headcanons and a question of canon.

[lightofdaye]

So I keep meaning to post something and don't so here is a little thing about appearances:

• How tall is Harry to people? Now I've always adhere to the short and skinny of early books, but I've seen/been told a few times that canonically Harry was tall by the end of the books. But in DH he's short than basically all the other blokes aside Mundungus that polyjuice but taller than the women. To me that's like average height, dude's tall but not remarkably tall.


• So there are two Weasley phenotypes right? shorter and stockier (charlie, twins) and tall and lanky, (everyone else.) And brown and blue eyes. (I'm not making up that some have blue eyes right?)

• Next gen kids. It's way too easy to think of them as mini-versions of their parents. Certain to me Al is mini-Harry, Lily Luna is mini-Ginny, Victoire is mini-fleur. Louis is mini-genderflipped fleur.


• James is better because he's Harry but with Weasley hair, Ginny's eyes and ends up towering over Harry.


• Rose likewise at least gets to be Hermione with red hair/blue eyes. (though genetically that would be wrong unless Hermione has recessive blue genes)


• George and Percy's kids are a lot more in the air for me as well.

Thoughts are in part thanks to Blvnk-art's rendition of Harry's kids. Though she does differentiate the younger characters well. With Al being a lot more tidy that Harry. (and has him outgrow James which is an interesting twist)

The other part of this of course is describing appearance in smutty fic. The old saw being blokes write more physical description and women more emotional stuff. The thing is I'd like to throw in a nice description of female characters in the fic, but it does seem awkward, especially in shorter fic because the characters already know each other and what they look like, so each bit of extra description can feel out of place.

Any way rambling over for now.

Comments

[paulamcg]

Late to comment, but anyway... That image of short and skinny Harry has stayed with me, too, and while it's been my headcanon that he grew to be about as tall as his father, I've thought that this was not taller than average height.

It's interesting to be reminded of some canon hints at his height – and people's ideas about the looks of the next-gen characters, whom I still don't know well.

I can't remember ever thinking about the Weasleys' eye colours. In general, I hardly pay attention to people's eye colours in real life either, and I find it natural to mention an eye colour in fic only when the viewpoint character is gazing lovingly in someone's eyes (and even then not the colour of the gazing character's own eyes :)).

I guess the challenge of including suitable description of appearance applies to other than smutty fic, too. Perhaps I'm a combination of bloke and woman traits in this sense, as I want to offer some material for visuals – or even more generally include the viewpoint character's sense perceptions – of (other) characters as well as of settings. It's interesting to look for a natural way to include some of these as early in the first scene as possible, so that the reader doesn't start developing different ideas (particularly not of where the characters are). In fanfic there's the problem that readers often have preconceptions of what the characters look like. That's why I think it's best not to include anything too exact about permanent features (while it's probably better not to burden the reader with too many details, and to also let the reader imagine the exact arrangement of the furniture unless it's essential for the following action). Above all, there must be a reason for the viewpoint character to pay attention to what I'm describing, and that's usually related to emotions. A strong emotion can make the character think about the look of another one's hair or even their own gaunt face or stupid outfit, even though they both know what they look like.

Thank you for this chance for rambling!

[lightofdaye]

no problem thanks for rambling.

You definitely have a point about needing a reason to include things otherwise not needing them, convservation of detail is a big thing in writing.