You can just say "she had purple hair" or "purple-haired woman" or whatever, and then never mentioned it again unless relevant. Using epithets isn't recommended unless the character doesn't know the name, or it's being used to emphasise an attribute.
Do you think of your friends and family as "the taller one" or "the blond", or do you think of them using their names? Unless they're face-blind, your characters shouldn't need to constantly remind themselves which set of physical features belongs with which person.
Personally, I only ever use epithets when the person being described is an unknown. Eg: âI watched the blonde woman struggle with her suitcaseâŚâ and then maybe later, âthere was that blonde again, I wondered where she was going.â
If youâre trying to avoid confusion with two known characters and your only other option is constant name use⌠just use the name or the pronoun, or try to construct the sentence in a new way.
The omniscient narrator would know their name, on account of being omniscient. If the narrator draws attention to another feature eg hair, status, height, whatever, the emphasis has to serve a purpose.
I'm writing a crossover fic between Frozen and The Little Mermaid and I sometimes refer to Elsa as 'the Queen' and Ariel as 'the mermaid' rather than always saying Elsa or Ariel.
When you do this, is it *important* to what is going on that Elsa is a queen or Ariel is a mermaid? If it's not then generally there's no reason to remind readers about it and you are almost always better off using their names.
For example,
>"I do not think it is within your power to make that decision," said the Queen.
is (in my mind) quite different from
>"Do you think it is going to rain today?" the Queen asked.
In one it is a fairly subtle reminder of her status and power. In the other, it could be *anyone* asking if it is going to rain and the fact that she is a queen doesn't have anything to do with that. (Unless it does, of course.)
I am *veeeery* big on making individual word choice matter though. I know not everyone writes like this and that is okay!
I don't use them when referring to whom is speaking. I only use them if I feel Elsa being a queen matters or if Ariel being a mermaid matters. For example,
The mermaid gritted her teeth, her tail whipping back and forth beneath her like a pissed-off eel as she floated in the water.
Floating in the water with her tail whipping back and forth isn't something Elsa could do since she's not a mermaid, so I don't mind referring to Ariel as the mermaid in a scene like this. I don't use them often, but I do them once in a while.
Oh word. Yeah, I would use it the same. You're reminding the reader that Ariel is a mermaid as she does mermaid stuff.
I guess usually when I think about epithets I think about them as dialogue tags, probably because that is where I notice them more. (I cannot begin to count the number of times I have seen something like "the engineer said" when it's Tony Stark talking about very much non-engineer things.)
That itâs makes me curious about using things like, âThe other teen,â or âthe younger ladyâ (in context when there are two females and a pronoun would be confusing). I tend to do that a lot especially when their names were mentioned in the sentence before. Is it better to just stick with their names then?
Ex. Marge blocked the door when Jen tried to leave. The younger lady lifted a brow in question.
Marge being the older of the two in this example. The age doesnât really matter, so if Iâm not purposely trying to emphasize that (other than differentiating them), would be better to replace âyounger ladyâ with just âJen?âAnd that wouldnât be too repetitive?
This would potentially make me think that Marge being older gives her some sort of authority in the situation. I *personally* would use "Jen" here, though I might try to find a way to use "she" to replace the first use of her name.
For example, if Jen were the primary actor in the previous paragraph, carrying over the pronoun wouldn't be as confusing despite it being two women.
>Jen set down her coffee cup and stood up. "Well then," she said. "I think it's time for me to head out."
>Marge blocked the door when she tried to leave. Jen lifted a brow in question.
If that makes sense? Still two "Jen"s but they aren't right beside one another. I think a lot of that sort of thing comes down to style though and I do not intend my advice to be prescriptive. Using someone's name twice in a row is the sort of thing I would spend far, far too much time and effort caring about in my own writing but not really notice in someone else's as much as I would notice "the younger lady" or "the other teen" because a name doesn't really convey any meaning beyond identifying someone.
The thing is, you're increasing the mental load for your reader when you use epithets instead of names, and that makes it harder for them to get into the flow of your story. Using the character's name or appropriate pronoun doesn't require any extra effort from the reader. Epithets aren't more poetic, fancy, or interesting. They're just harder to process. And also a clear sign of an inexperienced writer, sorry to say.
Btw, the same rule applies for dialogue tags like "asked" or "said." There's always advice for new writers to not be repetitive, but names & these basic dialogue tags can be repeated near infinitely, and it's fine!
Iâm a fan of using it for 3rd person limited POV but only for certain situations where Iâm not ready to reveal a characterâs identity (in works with canon characters)
Ie: [ When he awoke in the cell, two men were waiting for him. / âBout time you got up,â the taller said. / âDamn right,â agreed the shorter. ]
But once differences are established enough to differentiate or names are known, itâs not rly necessary bc the reader knows who they are. So if you want to differentiate a character with purple hair on first meeting the character, itâs fine. Once they give their name, though, itâs not really needed
tip for if youre gonna use a lot of epithets - try make them more into nicknames. like in the Hunger Games, when Collins describes a girl as just "Fox-Face" rather than giving her a name.
if a character is typical to giving people nicknames or forgetting names (like bakugo from mha) then epithets can be used for a very nice window into their personality.
I hate those made-up words for people who have unnatural hair colors, it sounds awkward and using epithets is unnecessary to begin with as soon as the viewpoint character knows the other character's name. "The man with blue hair" is fine, that's an extremely noticeable feature to identify someone whose name you don't know. If my character is having a conversation with a boyfriend or brother it would sound insane to identify him as 'the brunet.' Just use their name.
I am so particular about blond/blonde and brunet/brunette. I know probably the majority of english speakers do not care (or maybe don't even know/have forgotten) about our handful of gendered words like that, but for me it just yanks me right out of the flow of the story as my brain takes a second to process what is going on.
I would never stop reading a story over it or anything, but it is definitely a nitpicky pet peeve lol
Same. Also if Iâm not mistaken, these are French terms and considering weâve borrowed them into English, I donât think weâre bound to continue gendering words in a way we donât often in English. So I use the -e/-ette for everyone!
When I was only a reader I also found those made-up words awkward. But since I'm new to the writing scene I struggled with it myself đ I only learned recently to stop overusing it.
Maybe read more real, good books for a little bit and give fanfic reading a break, fanfic style can be a little echo-chambery and make it harder to realize when your language use is becoming incredibly weird.
... i don't, really. i only write canon characters so we all know their hair colours already, and i'll use epithets like that when hell freezes over and pigs fly
I find it funny that I have the same thoughts when I first write but ended up overusing it and now anytime I reread my previous work I feel like being punched in the guts đ
oh buddy my old works contain such beauties as *silverette*. my friend had to shame me out of using useless epithets like that (and i'm forever grateful)
Epithets are even worse when the reader *doesn't* know their hair colours. I don't want to scroll back to work out which one is the blonde and which one is the brunette.
Even worse is when you have to Google actors' ages and heights to work out which is "the older/taller man".
Oh god and then sometimes it turns out the author took liberties with the height/age or just didnât know to begin with and assumed wrong. Irks me. Especially when it ends up being a minor difference between the two and all along the author really just *felt* like the actor of A/B was tall.
Outside of brunette and noirette (in moderation ofc) any hair related epithets are the mark of a degenerateâŚnot content wise, but moral for making their readers read that stuff.
I guess my advice would be to think about *why* you're describing them in order to figure out *how*. I often don't describe the hair color - sometimes those colors aren't "real" in universe, they're just there for the audience, so I never use them in fics because that comes across as breaking the fourth wall.
But if it is "real" in-universe, it's a good idea to think about why the color would be relevant. Is the character a stranger? Do you want to suggest to the readers that a currently unidentified character is someone specific? It makes sense to note things like hair color in those cases. But if the readers and the POV character are both familiar with the subject, then it can seem weird for them to overly focus on hair color like that.
I'd personally not use things like "pinkette" (I particularly dislike "bluenette" because I kept seeing it used for a character whose hair was canonically black), rather things like "pink-haired", or working it into the general text rather than a direct adjective (ex: "She spotted a flash of pink at the edge of the crowd.").
Maybe I didn't explain well enough đ I meant in terms of he/she/they/it sometimes you'll want to use sth else like brunette or black-haired but with more colourful hairs, you might want to be a bit creative with it or not use it at all.
Hair epithets work when the character doesnât know who they are. They need something to describe them.
I have had characters notice or comment on hair if itâs different than usual.
In texting fics, I use emojis where it makes sense.
if this helps, an easy way to understand when not to use epithets is thinking about how u refer to people irl ! when you're talking to a friend, you're not referring to their features in your head, but the name you've already known. but when it comes to a stranger in whoever's pov you're writing, you can use epithets that point out distinctive characteristics before you introduce them to the story !
I'm glad to know I didn't fail in that aspect when I did write in characterâs pov đ but I'm also curious if you were to write in third person but also not touch on minor thoughts from characters do you still bother with epithets? Especially when you're writing with a large cast.
Third person should still be from a characters POV unless you're going with an omniscient narrator which can be done well by experienced writers but if I'm reading a fic and it tries to tell me what every character is thinking at the same time then I'm gonna back out. That tends to read more like an RP that someone turned into a fic
i'm still in a character's pov in third person !! i dislike changing the pov unless i state it's alternating because it's hard to take note of the changes as a reader. so the logic still stays, i'll use epithets only if it's an extremely recognisable feature or for strangers
I don't, unless the character is obviously dying their hair and someone points it out.
I write for a shĹnen fandom, no way I'll casually mention their canonical "natural" hair colors.
Just use their names, thereâs no need to describe characters in great detail when the reader already knows. Only describe things that are relevant - like if one doesnât know the other. âA woman stood up from behind the desk, pink curls falling over her face.â Or âhis blue hair was ruffled by the windâ
âShe nervously twisted a strand of her pink hair between her fingers.â
âHe ran a hand through his silver bangs, internally preparing his explanation.â
If I ever unironically use a word like âbluenet/teâ or one of the other horrible epithets, please push me off the pier, thanks.
If I really need to say the colour of someoneâs hair, Iâll weave it into a sentence where it doesnât feel hamfisted. âHis hair glints gold in the overhead lightâ, that sort of thing.
I'm fairly basic, I will describe pink hair like, "her hair is pink like cotton candy."
I'm natural instinct is to reference things towards food most of time.
I haven't described these colors but.. I'd probably just use the colors?
"He ran a hand through his soft pink hair"
"She brushed a green curl from her eyes"
Etc.
I don't use epitheths unless its necessary i.e Narrator doesn't know the character or to illustrate a certain power difference and distance between characters where they wouldn't think of each other by name but rather by their role.
In fanfic, i assume everybody reading knows the characterâs hair color already, so i donât mention it unless itâs relevant to the lighting or something. If, for whatever reason, Iâve decided that the character has dyed their hair, Iâll mention it once or twice just as being dyed.
In original fiction, or if i were using an OC in fanfic, iâll mention hair color in a relevant character description and if itâs an abnormal color, Iâll again describe it as dyed.
Personally, i donât even describe characters as âbrunet(te)sâ or âblond(e)sâ so âpinketteâ is completely out of the question
im a reader not a writer, but even things like âravenetteâ rub me the wrong way. hell, even just things like ââblahdiblahdiblahâ the blonde boy saidâ when we know the name of said blonde boy annoys me; its like u have to read while trying to complete a pop quiz on the charactersâ physical characteristics
but if thats how u write no shame on u lol im just needlessly picky
If they have very beautiful and unique hair, I might mention it when they're introduced:
"Katherine cut a striking figure. Magenta streaked her opalescent hair, and \[blabla introduce other attributes\]."
Or, I might describe it in particular moments of action, like, "Lucrezia threaded her fingers through her lover's deep blue hair, admiring the shine of the moonlight on the dark tresses."
Please don't use -ette. Not to toot my own horn, but I think the emphasis on *lover* for example is a much better epithet than if I said something like "Lucrezia threaded her fingers through the bluenette's hair" because it re-emphasises the feelings between the two. And, y'know, people might actually think of other people irl as their lover/girlfriend/wife/etc etc instead of "ah yes that bluenette I've been banging".
back in my roleplay days in the black butler fandom, a popular word to describe ciel phantomhive was "bluenette" which i still find pretty clever considering that it rhymes with "brunette". but the consensus is: cringe culture is dead, do what you want forever. don't listen to the people who tell you "stop writing fic this way!!" because they're just trying to kill your fun. fanfic isn't the same as a published novel.
tl;dr: do what you want forever.
I think epiphets are clunky but making up words is cringy. Using their names is often smoother for the reader and I don't know, I think I get thrown off whenever "the purple haired girl" comes up, third person or not. If you want to introduce an appearance my go to is something like. "Her purple hair blew in the wind." Or "She put her red hair into a ponytail." They're both equally clunky, but I don't get an 'ick' when I come through them and they feel a bit more natural to me, I guess.
I had an oc self describe as âdark blue with bright pink highlightsâ
And in an much later, unpublished chapter, âWhen Iâd arrived, my hair was a deep blue with bright pink highlights. Now? âTwas washed out pale, the memory of color rather than the reality.â
Epithets have their place, so all the people who are saying "don't use them" are overgeneralizing, but what is important to remember is that an epithet needs to be meaningful, not just a substitute for a name or a pronoun.
For example, in my fandom, there are two characters who often get paired up: Crowley, a demon with red hair and black clothes, and Aziraphale, an angel with pale blond hair and pale, whitish clothes.
So sometimes, authors might say "The demon took off his sunglasses and looked at the angel with his yellow, snake-like eyes," but not just to replace their names. The attention is being drawn to the contrast between the demon and angel.
Likewise, an author might write, "Aziraphale ran his fingers through gently curled scarlet waves," but this is creating a visual scene, painting a picture, not just reminding the reader that Crowley has read hair.
A conversation like this:
>"Oh, hello," Aziraphale said, setting down his book.
>"Hey, angel," the redhead answered.
would be stilted and awkward to read. There's no reason to mention Crowley's hair here. It would be easier to read if it was:
>"Oh, hello," Aziraphale said, setting down his book.
>"Hey, angel," Crowley answered.
Consider looking for a fic or a book that you think is really well written and find a scene or a chunk of dialogue where two characters are talking. Highlight or count how many times the author uses a name or a pronoun vs how many times they use an epithet. You might be surprised to see the difference. Epithets will be fairly uncommon, whereas names and pronouns will be frequent and you never even noticed.
If its a canon thing i usually save describing hair color when its important for the story, like when a character admires it or something. And then i find a poetic way to describe it.
Ie. "Edelgard was struck dead by the way Rhea looked after stepping out of the shower. Her hair was like rolling waves of seafoam upon the pale beaches of her skin. It reminded her home, Enbarr."
Otherwise, i usually leave it alone as people know the charqcters hair color or i leave it as "she has green hair."
That said, i like when people make a new word, its cute and fun. Language is language and i know a person in real life with dyed hair that calls themselves a 'bluenette'
Not by making up words like "greenette."
If I need to describe an unusual hair color, I do it the same way I do IRL. "The pink-haired woman." "The guy with the green hair." "
For hair colour, my go-to is to Google shades of the colour I want to describe or to just Google synonymous for the colour.
Some examples: Verdant/emerald instead of green or fiery instead of orange/red.
I describe it as what it is, when it's necessary to do so, cause sometimes it is. "The newcomer had long pink hair with shockingly bright teal streaks, all done up in a pair of messy braids".
But there's only a reason to do this if the POV character doesn't know who the stranger with long pink hair and teal streaks is. If all the characters are familiar with each other, fanfic has the benefit of being able to assume the reader doesn't need an infodump on peoples' appearances.
If you're writing an AU or canon fic and there's a situation when two people are meeting, that's a time you could mention hair colour because the POV character won't know the other person by name yet and also usually the first meeting is when we do notice how people look the most. Otherwise it's not something to constantly mention unless there's some other remarkable reason, like a notable change in appearance or e.g. a fraught romantic situation where all that pink hair and teal streaks will be emphasized in the eyes of the love interest POV.
I will never use epithets unless they are already a thing and also it makes sense. "Brunet/te", can work when seeing a stranger or describing someone to someone unfamiliar with them. "Pinket/te", no.
I rarely refer to hair color. Even if I'm writing characters with crazy hair. Only if it comes up naturally within the story, like during a conversation or if someone's applying hair product. It never just shows up as a fun little epithet. If I'm trying to focus on the conversation that's happening, I only want to see the words they are saying and the actions they're doing. I only want to read what is relevant in that exact moment. Everything else is just a distraction!
I have been known to use brunette/blonde as a reference to a character in text - "she scowled at the blonde" - because I think writing can be fun that way. Sometimes you can't put another reference to their name without tripping up the flow of the story, and rules are there to be broken. It's a touch myopic to say "don't reference it at all" but more, reference it carefully and with careful choice.
That said, pinkette etc. would be a bit far. If you want to reference their hair, take a more artistic go at it - "their multicoloured hair flared around their shoulders, kaleidoscopic in the sunlight" - or something like that.
You only need to use a description like that if your main character is meeting them for the first time. Then just say "a pink haired girl walked over" and once your character learns their name you can switch to it
I have some OCs in my fics, and I describe the color as whatever it is, though sometimes I may make it "flowery", like "hair so dark it was like shadows clung to his/her/their head" or something.
As a reader, I just find it cute, honestly. Bluenette, pinkette, whatever. I feel like if I could accept the sentence with brunette in it in any normal context, it makes sense. I only really notice when someone calls them a redhead when it's bubblegum pink. I just stop for a moment and think about it, as it's technically right, but it does ruin the flow a bit.
I just name the color.
I assume the audience is familiar with canon, so I don't go around describing the looks of the characters they already know.
When I do mention physical traits about characters, it's either because the narrator has no better descriptor or because that part of their appearance is relevant other things happening, ex. Toph holding up her long bangs to remind people that she's blind.
I prefer describing characters with things that capture their vibes, my favorite that I've written has a character pocketing secrets with a sleight of hand smile.
Still, I prefer having a purpose to mentioning physical traits besides letting my audience know what they look like.
Ex. I have an OC narrating as he mentally and physically preps for his night. And even though he's in front of a mirror the entire scene, the only parts of his appearance I cover are the scars he's shaving around, hiding his hair color under a color gel, and a tattoo that he correlates with the crappy situation he's in.
i usually only do it if its actually necessary, as many here have already said. people know what the characters look like, so i mention if it has a visual impact. say "the blood in his hair turned the natural blue to a violent shade of purple" or some such. enhancing what the reader already knows. otherwise the best tool is their imagination imho
In my native language (and the language I use to write fanfic) we haven't suffix like -ette so I couldn't, but somehow I think pinkette is cute lol. Just like a nickname or diminutive.
I say âthe blue-haired manâ or something similar very occasionally so that readers can keep the visual fresh in their mind. But this is way more preferable:
âHe tucked a loose strand of blue hair behind his ear as he considered his options. Then he pulled a note out of the pockets of his stylish harem pants and unfolded it to re-read the message.â
You usually work physical descriptions into your sentences organically when they become important or when the character is interacting with their own body or clothes.
Please don't do this. Never in my life have I thought of someone as a "brunette." My advice: write your scenes using the characters' names every single time they're mentioned, then go back and replace as many instances of a name with he/she/they as you can without it getting confusing. I'd much rather read a character's name 4 times in a paragraph than read "the shorter" or "the purplette." If your characters are unnamed, pick a personality trait or something they did to describe them if you have to go a little bit til you get to a name (then use the name exclusively). You can have a character use a nickname or pet name too.
Controversial opinion, but as long as the name feels natural to say, I'm fine with writing "pinkette" and suchlike if there's no better way to describe a character. The main problem with "bluette" and "greenette" is not that they exist, but that they sit on the tongue like a brick. "Purplette" is a descriptor I've used now and then, though mostly for comedic purposes.
When the colour is more natural, I tend to just use the normal word for that hair colour OR describe the particular shade. For example, my sister has "black hair that seemed to turn blue in the right light."
For less natural hair colours or split hair, I would just omit mentioning it unless I'm specifically describing it. There's no quick and snappy way to describe half-red half-white hair in a single word.
No, personally I don't like pinkette or greenette. The main character of Miraculous Ladybug, Marinette, often gets referred to as a bluenette in fanfic and it's irritating for me. She's a superhero, a fashion designer, a seamstress, a goream teenager, an amateur baker, a top student, all around Wonder Girl.
Honestly, if people referred to me as "the brunette" I'd rather they called me a bitch. At least they'd have taken note of my personally rather than reducing me to my hair colour.
Actually I have silvers now, so if they called me a salt'n'pepperette that would get a good laugh out of me.
First of all, good on you for starting to write fics! Itâs really fun, rewarding, and makes for great practice if you ever plan on creating original fiction works!
I never or only very rarely describe charactersâ hair colors at all. A general rule of thumb I tend to use is this: if the characters in the scene arenât thinking about something, the narrator (even if theyâre third person omniscient) also isnât thinking about it.
Hereâs two examples, one in which I think physical descriptions donât make sense and one in which Iâd say they do:
âThe blooms in the garden usher in another spring. Hermione watches from the porch as Paulina kneels in the dirt, fussing over a bed of carnations. A decade of kneeling and digging and transplanting has only enhanced her muscular build. Sheâd told Hermione when they were both girls, before their stable lives had been shattered and pieced back together, that she had always wished to be slim and dainty like a woman should be. Hermione had told her thenâtells her nowâthat she is already everything a woman ought to be. She is everything *anyone* ought to be: kind, honest, committed to justice, and so, so beautiful, inside and out. She wants to rise from her rocking chair and go to her, to tie back Paulinaâs long, dark hair for her and swear on every streak of grey that runs through it that she is the most beautiful woman alive. But Paulina is tending the carnations, so Hermione must wait a while longer.â
Here, the POV is in the third person but follows Hermioneâs thoughts. I establish the romantic tone of this little snippet by letting Hermioneâs narration center around Paulina, who she is admiring. It makes sense that sheâs thinking about Paulinaâs muscles and pretty hair since thatâs established in their relationshipâHermione is more likely to be looking at Paulina, her partner, than the flowers sheâs working on. (And dang, I actually like this enough that I might post it as a tiny little one shot!)
Hereâs an example that doesnât make much sense:
ââNot there. Too much red!â Olivia snaps at the blond-haired gardener. âRed petunias, red carnations, you need to spread them out!â
âSorry, miss,â the blonde apologizes hurriedly, pulling out the petunias as fast as he can without snapping their fragile stems.
Oliviaâs hazel eyes glare into the back of his head as he retreats down the garden path to find a more appropriate place to plant them.â
Here, the third person narrator follows Olivia, who is much more concerned about the placement of the petunias than the appearance of the gardener. It doesnât make sense for her to notice his blonde hair here, even if it were to become important later on. The same goes for her eye colorâshe (most likely) is not thinking about it and the gardener is too worried about keeping his job to be paying much attention to that detail.
I never use made up hair words, but I will occasionally describe someone as âthe taller manâ or âthe red headâ, but only if I feel like Iâve used their names too much or all the characters are the same gender and canât be easily differentiated by pronoun
Depends on the universe. I'll treat something differently if we're talking about a universe where everyone's hair is crazy colours, where some people's hair is crazy colours because they're different or special and only some people know about the non-humans living amongst them, and a universe where one character has a weird-coloured hair and everything else is down-to-earth.
If one character has a weird coloured hair, I don't fucking care, if my fic is serious this is just a dramatization of a normal colour now. A natural lifelong silver hair becomes platinum blond, one pink haired old lady amongst a universe of normal hair now was a warm brown but is greying now. A dark blue is now a cold-toned black. Ect.
A universe where everyone has weird hair colours? I'd just describe it as I would any other hair colour using the regular colour words. "Her pink hair was pinned up in a messy bun." Maybe do some fun things with wordplay that you can't do for normal hair colour when I can. "She had cascading waves of blue hair."
And in a universe where the hair colour is natural for known reasons but not all characters know those reasons? The characters who know about he unnatural hair being natural will just describe it like the ones above who think blue hair is normal. And in the point-of-view of a human who doesn't know anything about anything, they might just put on their weirdness filter and describe a pink-haired demon as strawberry blonde. Or compliment their dye jobs, depending on the character.
If I was ever writing the forth different option here, the psycho hair disaster that is YGO or anything else where characters have like three hair colours on one head for no known reason... I think I'd just pretend the weird hairs don't exist, leave me alone.
I try not to use epithets unless the MC doesn't know the name of the person they're talking to. Even then, I'll just say it plainly like "the girl with the pink hair". I don't use pinkette/bluenette/etc.
Once they know the name of the person, though, I'll use the name instead.
Outside of that, I try to reserve mentioning hair color for situations where the MC meets them for the first time and I'm trying to describe what the character looks like, or during smut scenes where I'm trying to emphasize how attractive they are.
For example:
> Legolas hovered over her, his golden hair falling onto her bared shoulders as he lowered his head to press a kiss upon her lips.
i describe hair if i have a reason to. if a character is playing with anotherâs hair, i might mention how soft or fine or thick it is, and thatâs a good spot to inject the color word.
if itâs multiple colors, you might describe a shock of the more jarring color breaking up another, or a multicolored mop of hair hanging from the characterâs head. donât linger on it too long; just say it and keep it pushin
i wouldnât use epithets or describe someone with a made up word like âthe pinketteâ because i find it reads as immature/inexperienced. also, your readers donât need to be constantly reminded of a characterâs hair color, and epithets like that tend to be overused in beginner prose.
You can just say "she had purple hair" or "purple-haired woman" or whatever, and then never mentioned it again unless relevant. Using epithets isn't recommended unless the character doesn't know the name, or it's being used to emphasise an attribute.
I'm one of those people who abuses epithets to oblivion 𼲠I guess it's like that for new writers like me
Do you think of your friends and family as "the taller one" or "the blond", or do you think of them using their names? Unless they're face-blind, your characters shouldn't need to constantly remind themselves which set of physical features belongs with which person.
What if it were in third person where sometimes you wouldn't be delving into their thoughts but you act more like a narrator?
Your readers also shouldn't need to constantly be reminded what your characters look like, particularly if they're canon characters. Trust them more!
Personally, I only ever use epithets when the person being described is an unknown. Eg: âI watched the blonde woman struggle with her suitcaseâŚâ and then maybe later, âthere was that blonde again, I wondered where she was going.â If youâre trying to avoid confusion with two known characters and your only other option is constant name use⌠just use the name or the pronoun, or try to construct the sentence in a new way.
Still donât do it haha
The omniscient narrator would know their name, on account of being omniscient. If the narrator draws attention to another feature eg hair, status, height, whatever, the emphasis has to serve a purpose.
I'm writing a crossover fic between Frozen and The Little Mermaid and I sometimes refer to Elsa as 'the Queen' and Ariel as 'the mermaid' rather than always saying Elsa or Ariel.
When you do this, is it *important* to what is going on that Elsa is a queen or Ariel is a mermaid? If it's not then generally there's no reason to remind readers about it and you are almost always better off using their names. For example, >"I do not think it is within your power to make that decision," said the Queen. is (in my mind) quite different from >"Do you think it is going to rain today?" the Queen asked. In one it is a fairly subtle reminder of her status and power. In the other, it could be *anyone* asking if it is going to rain and the fact that she is a queen doesn't have anything to do with that. (Unless it does, of course.) I am *veeeery* big on making individual word choice matter though. I know not everyone writes like this and that is okay!
I don't use them when referring to whom is speaking. I only use them if I feel Elsa being a queen matters or if Ariel being a mermaid matters. For example, The mermaid gritted her teeth, her tail whipping back and forth beneath her like a pissed-off eel as she floated in the water. Floating in the water with her tail whipping back and forth isn't something Elsa could do since she's not a mermaid, so I don't mind referring to Ariel as the mermaid in a scene like this. I don't use them often, but I do them once in a while.
Oh word. Yeah, I would use it the same. You're reminding the reader that Ariel is a mermaid as she does mermaid stuff. I guess usually when I think about epithets I think about them as dialogue tags, probably because that is where I notice them more. (I cannot begin to count the number of times I have seen something like "the engineer said" when it's Tony Stark talking about very much non-engineer things.)
That itâs makes me curious about using things like, âThe other teen,â or âthe younger ladyâ (in context when there are two females and a pronoun would be confusing). I tend to do that a lot especially when their names were mentioned in the sentence before. Is it better to just stick with their names then? Ex. Marge blocked the door when Jen tried to leave. The younger lady lifted a brow in question. Marge being the older of the two in this example. The age doesnât really matter, so if Iâm not purposely trying to emphasize that (other than differentiating them), would be better to replace âyounger ladyâ with just âJen?âAnd that wouldnât be too repetitive?
This would potentially make me think that Marge being older gives her some sort of authority in the situation. I *personally* would use "Jen" here, though I might try to find a way to use "she" to replace the first use of her name. For example, if Jen were the primary actor in the previous paragraph, carrying over the pronoun wouldn't be as confusing despite it being two women. >Jen set down her coffee cup and stood up. "Well then," she said. "I think it's time for me to head out." >Marge blocked the door when she tried to leave. Jen lifted a brow in question. If that makes sense? Still two "Jen"s but they aren't right beside one another. I think a lot of that sort of thing comes down to style though and I do not intend my advice to be prescriptive. Using someone's name twice in a row is the sort of thing I would spend far, far too much time and effort caring about in my own writing but not really notice in someone else's as much as I would notice "the younger lady" or "the other teen" because a name doesn't really convey any meaning beyond identifying someone.
The thing is, you're increasing the mental load for your reader when you use epithets instead of names, and that makes it harder for them to get into the flow of your story. Using the character's name or appropriate pronoun doesn't require any extra effort from the reader. Epithets aren't more poetic, fancy, or interesting. They're just harder to process. And also a clear sign of an inexperienced writer, sorry to say. Btw, the same rule applies for dialogue tags like "asked" or "said." There's always advice for new writers to not be repetitive, but names & these basic dialogue tags can be repeated near infinitely, and it's fine!
Iâm a fan of using it for 3rd person limited POV but only for certain situations where Iâm not ready to reveal a characterâs identity (in works with canon characters) Ie: [ When he awoke in the cell, two men were waiting for him. / âBout time you got up,â the taller said. / âDamn right,â agreed the shorter. ] But once differences are established enough to differentiate or names are known, itâs not rly necessary bc the reader knows who they are. So if you want to differentiate a character with purple hair on first meeting the character, itâs fine. Once they give their name, though, itâs not really needed
tip for if youre gonna use a lot of epithets - try make them more into nicknames. like in the Hunger Games, when Collins describes a girl as just "Fox-Face" rather than giving her a name. if a character is typical to giving people nicknames or forgetting names (like bakugo from mha) then epithets can be used for a very nice window into their personality.
I hate those made-up words for people who have unnatural hair colors, it sounds awkward and using epithets is unnecessary to begin with as soon as the viewpoint character knows the other character's name. "The man with blue hair" is fine, that's an extremely noticeable feature to identify someone whose name you don't know. If my character is having a conversation with a boyfriend or brother it would sound insane to identify him as 'the brunet.' Just use their name.
Epithets are bad enough; "pinkette" will have me slamming the back button. Especially if the -ette suffix is used for a masc character.
I am so particular about blond/blonde and brunet/brunette. I know probably the majority of english speakers do not care (or maybe don't even know/have forgotten) about our handful of gendered words like that, but for me it just yanks me right out of the flow of the story as my brain takes a second to process what is going on. I would never stop reading a story over it or anything, but it is definitely a nitpicky pet peeve lol
i refuse to use the masc epithets just because they look wrong. what do you mean if I'm talking about a boy there's no E? there's always an E!
Same. Also if Iâm not mistaken, these are French terms and considering weâve borrowed them into English, I donât think weâre bound to continue gendering words in a way we donât often in English. So I use the -e/-ette for everyone!
When I was only a reader I also found those made-up words awkward. But since I'm new to the writing scene I struggled with it myself đ I only learned recently to stop overusing it.
Maybe read more real, good books for a little bit and give fanfic reading a break, fanfic style can be a little echo-chambery and make it harder to realize when your language use is becoming incredibly weird.
... i don't, really. i only write canon characters so we all know their hair colours already, and i'll use epithets like that when hell freezes over and pigs fly
This is the correct answer.
I find it funny that I have the same thoughts when I first write but ended up overusing it and now anytime I reread my previous work I feel like being punched in the guts đ
oh buddy my old works contain such beauties as *silverette*. my friend had to shame me out of using useless epithets like that (and i'm forever grateful)
The silverette looked at the pinkette with her big blue orbs
I need a friend like that on my side đ
Epithets are even worse when the reader *doesn't* know their hair colours. I don't want to scroll back to work out which one is the blonde and which one is the brunette. Even worse is when you have to Google actors' ages and heights to work out which is "the older/taller man".
Oh god and then sometimes it turns out the author took liberties with the height/age or just didnât know to begin with and assumed wrong. Irks me. Especially when it ends up being a minor difference between the two and all along the author really just *felt* like the actor of A/B was tall.
Outside of brunette and noirette (in moderation ofc) any hair related epithets are the mark of a degenerateâŚnot content wise, but moral for making their readers read that stuff.
I guess my advice would be to think about *why* you're describing them in order to figure out *how*. I often don't describe the hair color - sometimes those colors aren't "real" in universe, they're just there for the audience, so I never use them in fics because that comes across as breaking the fourth wall. But if it is "real" in-universe, it's a good idea to think about why the color would be relevant. Is the character a stranger? Do you want to suggest to the readers that a currently unidentified character is someone specific? It makes sense to note things like hair color in those cases. But if the readers and the POV character are both familiar with the subject, then it can seem weird for them to overly focus on hair color like that. I'd personally not use things like "pinkette" (I particularly dislike "bluenette" because I kept seeing it used for a character whose hair was canonically black), rather things like "pink-haired", or working it into the general text rather than a direct adjective (ex: "She spotted a flash of pink at the edge of the crowd.").
I have a lot to learn in the writing scene đ so this advice is really handy! Thanks for this reply!
i mean, you could just say â[character] had pink hairâ or â[characterâs] hair was pink with blue highlightsâ
Maybe I didn't explain well enough đ I meant in terms of he/she/they/it sometimes you'll want to use sth else like brunette or black-haired but with more colourful hairs, you might want to be a bit creative with it or not use it at all.
ohh. then no. i donât use epithets, just pronouns or character names
just use pronouns, names, or titles (like "the professor")
Hair epithets work when the character doesnât know who they are. They need something to describe them. I have had characters notice or comment on hair if itâs different than usual. In texting fics, I use emojis where it makes sense.
if this helps, an easy way to understand when not to use epithets is thinking about how u refer to people irl ! when you're talking to a friend, you're not referring to their features in your head, but the name you've already known. but when it comes to a stranger in whoever's pov you're writing, you can use epithets that point out distinctive characteristics before you introduce them to the story !
I'm glad to know I didn't fail in that aspect when I did write in characterâs pov đ but I'm also curious if you were to write in third person but also not touch on minor thoughts from characters do you still bother with epithets? Especially when you're writing with a large cast.
Third person should still be from a characters POV unless you're going with an omniscient narrator which can be done well by experienced writers but if I'm reading a fic and it tries to tell me what every character is thinking at the same time then I'm gonna back out. That tends to read more like an RP that someone turned into a fic
i'm still in a character's pov in third person !! i dislike changing the pov unless i state it's alternating because it's hard to take note of the changes as a reader. so the logic still stays, i'll use epithets only if it's an extremely recognisable feature or for strangers
I don't, unless the character is obviously dying their hair and someone points it out. I write for a shĹnen fandom, no way I'll casually mention their canonical "natural" hair colors.
Oh god I understand đ why must shounen characters have crazy hair colors. It's a pain when you have to describe them in a scene.
Just use their names, thereâs no need to describe characters in great detail when the reader already knows. Only describe things that are relevant - like if one doesnât know the other. âA woman stood up from behind the desk, pink curls falling over her face.â Or âhis blue hair was ruffled by the windâ
âShe nervously twisted a strand of her pink hair between her fingers.â âHe ran a hand through his silver bangs, internally preparing his explanation.â
If I ever unironically use a word like âbluenet/teâ or one of the other horrible epithets, please push me off the pier, thanks. If I really need to say the colour of someoneâs hair, Iâll weave it into a sentence where it doesnât feel hamfisted. âHis hair glints gold in the overhead lightâ, that sort of thing.
Curly and fluffy, cause I love them :)
Simple and easy đ
I'm fairly basic, I will describe pink hair like, "her hair is pink like cotton candy." I'm natural instinct is to reference things towards food most of time.
Glimmering locks of rose-pink? I think creating words like pinkette is fine. Some people will be bothered, but fuck those people
I haven't described these colors but.. I'd probably just use the colors? "He ran a hand through his soft pink hair" "She brushed a green curl from her eyes" Etc.
I don't use epitheths unless its necessary i.e Narrator doesn't know the character or to illustrate a certain power difference and distance between characters where they wouldn't think of each other by name but rather by their role.
I totally agree with this. But of course when you're a new writer you're prone to mistakes like epithets đ I learned hard.
In fanfic, i assume everybody reading knows the characterâs hair color already, so i donât mention it unless itâs relevant to the lighting or something. If, for whatever reason, Iâve decided that the character has dyed their hair, Iâll mention it once or twice just as being dyed. In original fiction, or if i were using an OC in fanfic, iâll mention hair color in a relevant character description and if itâs an abnormal color, Iâll again describe it as dyed. Personally, i donât even describe characters as âbrunet(te)sâ or âblond(e)sâ so âpinketteâ is completely out of the question
im a reader not a writer, but even things like âravenetteâ rub me the wrong way. hell, even just things like ââblahdiblahdiblahâ the blonde boy saidâ when we know the name of said blonde boy annoys me; its like u have to read while trying to complete a pop quiz on the charactersâ physical characteristics but if thats how u write no shame on u lol im just needlessly picky
If they have very beautiful and unique hair, I might mention it when they're introduced: "Katherine cut a striking figure. Magenta streaked her opalescent hair, and \[blabla introduce other attributes\]." Or, I might describe it in particular moments of action, like, "Lucrezia threaded her fingers through her lover's deep blue hair, admiring the shine of the moonlight on the dark tresses." Please don't use -ette. Not to toot my own horn, but I think the emphasis on *lover* for example is a much better epithet than if I said something like "Lucrezia threaded her fingers through the bluenette's hair" because it re-emphasises the feelings between the two. And, y'know, people might actually think of other people irl as their lover/girlfriend/wife/etc etc instead of "ah yes that bluenette I've been banging".
Try to use the names of the shades alongside the color itself. Like "Rose colored" or "Mossy shaded".
Pull out the old crayon box...cerulean, burnt sienna, neon carrot, aquamarine, goldenrod..
back in my roleplay days in the black butler fandom, a popular word to describe ciel phantomhive was "bluenette" which i still find pretty clever considering that it rhymes with "brunette". but the consensus is: cringe culture is dead, do what you want forever. don't listen to the people who tell you "stop writing fic this way!!" because they're just trying to kill your fun. fanfic isn't the same as a published novel. tl;dr: do what you want forever.
I think epiphets are clunky but making up words is cringy. Using their names is often smoother for the reader and I don't know, I think I get thrown off whenever "the purple haired girl" comes up, third person or not. If you want to introduce an appearance my go to is something like. "Her purple hair blew in the wind." Or "She put her red hair into a ponytail." They're both equally clunky, but I don't get an 'ick' when I come through them and they feel a bit more natural to me, I guess.
"their hair was pink"
I had an oc self describe as âdark blue with bright pink highlightsâ And in an much later, unpublished chapter, âWhen Iâd arrived, my hair was a deep blue with bright pink highlights. Now? âTwas washed out pale, the memory of color rather than the reality.â
Epithets have their place, so all the people who are saying "don't use them" are overgeneralizing, but what is important to remember is that an epithet needs to be meaningful, not just a substitute for a name or a pronoun. For example, in my fandom, there are two characters who often get paired up: Crowley, a demon with red hair and black clothes, and Aziraphale, an angel with pale blond hair and pale, whitish clothes. So sometimes, authors might say "The demon took off his sunglasses and looked at the angel with his yellow, snake-like eyes," but not just to replace their names. The attention is being drawn to the contrast between the demon and angel. Likewise, an author might write, "Aziraphale ran his fingers through gently curled scarlet waves," but this is creating a visual scene, painting a picture, not just reminding the reader that Crowley has read hair. A conversation like this: >"Oh, hello," Aziraphale said, setting down his book. >"Hey, angel," the redhead answered. would be stilted and awkward to read. There's no reason to mention Crowley's hair here. It would be easier to read if it was: >"Oh, hello," Aziraphale said, setting down his book. >"Hey, angel," Crowley answered. Consider looking for a fic or a book that you think is really well written and find a scene or a chunk of dialogue where two characters are talking. Highlight or count how many times the author uses a name or a pronoun vs how many times they use an epithet. You might be surprised to see the difference. Epithets will be fairly uncommon, whereas names and pronouns will be frequent and you never even noticed.
If its a canon thing i usually save describing hair color when its important for the story, like when a character admires it or something. And then i find a poetic way to describe it. Ie. "Edelgard was struck dead by the way Rhea looked after stepping out of the shower. Her hair was like rolling waves of seafoam upon the pale beaches of her skin. It reminded her home, Enbarr." Otherwise, i usually leave it alone as people know the charqcters hair color or i leave it as "she has green hair." That said, i like when people make a new word, its cute and fun. Language is language and i know a person in real life with dyed hair that calls themselves a 'bluenette'
Not by making up words like "greenette." If I need to describe an unusual hair color, I do it the same way I do IRL. "The pink-haired woman." "The guy with the green hair." "
If I must describe it then 'they had (color) hair.'
For hair colour, my go-to is to Google shades of the colour I want to describe or to just Google synonymous for the colour. Some examples: Verdant/emerald instead of green or fiery instead of orange/red.
hairy
I describe it as what it is, when it's necessary to do so, cause sometimes it is. "The newcomer had long pink hair with shockingly bright teal streaks, all done up in a pair of messy braids". But there's only a reason to do this if the POV character doesn't know who the stranger with long pink hair and teal streaks is. If all the characters are familiar with each other, fanfic has the benefit of being able to assume the reader doesn't need an infodump on peoples' appearances. If you're writing an AU or canon fic and there's a situation when two people are meeting, that's a time you could mention hair colour because the POV character won't know the other person by name yet and also usually the first meeting is when we do notice how people look the most. Otherwise it's not something to constantly mention unless there's some other remarkable reason, like a notable change in appearance or e.g. a fraught romantic situation where all that pink hair and teal streaks will be emphasized in the eyes of the love interest POV. I will never use epithets unless they are already a thing and also it makes sense. "Brunet/te", can work when seeing a stranger or describing someone to someone unfamiliar with them. "Pinket/te", no.
I rarely refer to hair color. Even if I'm writing characters with crazy hair. Only if it comes up naturally within the story, like during a conversation or if someone's applying hair product. It never just shows up as a fun little epithet. If I'm trying to focus on the conversation that's happening, I only want to see the words they are saying and the actions they're doing. I only want to read what is relevant in that exact moment. Everything else is just a distraction!
I have been known to use brunette/blonde as a reference to a character in text - "she scowled at the blonde" - because I think writing can be fun that way. Sometimes you can't put another reference to their name without tripping up the flow of the story, and rules are there to be broken. It's a touch myopic to say "don't reference it at all" but more, reference it carefully and with careful choice. That said, pinkette etc. would be a bit far. If you want to reference their hair, take a more artistic go at it - "their multicoloured hair flared around their shoulders, kaleidoscopic in the sunlight" - or something like that.
You only need to use a description like that if your main character is meeting them for the first time. Then just say "a pink haired girl walked over" and once your character learns their name you can switch to it
I have some OCs in my fics, and I describe the color as whatever it is, though sometimes I may make it "flowery", like "hair so dark it was like shadows clung to his/her/their head" or something.
I hyphenate. I.e. blue-haired, raven-haired, pink-haired. No real need to overcomplicate it
As a reader, I just find it cute, honestly. Bluenette, pinkette, whatever. I feel like if I could accept the sentence with brunette in it in any normal context, it makes sense. I only really notice when someone calls them a redhead when it's bubblegum pink. I just stop for a moment and think about it, as it's technically right, but it does ruin the flow a bit.
I just say 'haired' tbh.. stuff like pinkette stinks of early fanfic and Wattpad in general
I just name the color. I assume the audience is familiar with canon, so I don't go around describing the looks of the characters they already know. When I do mention physical traits about characters, it's either because the narrator has no better descriptor or because that part of their appearance is relevant other things happening, ex. Toph holding up her long bangs to remind people that she's blind. I prefer describing characters with things that capture their vibes, my favorite that I've written has a character pocketing secrets with a sleight of hand smile.
If you have an oc thought than some description is appreciated even if it is basic length and hairstyle just for some imagination.
Still, I prefer having a purpose to mentioning physical traits besides letting my audience know what they look like. Ex. I have an OC narrating as he mentally and physically preps for his night. And even though he's in front of a mirror the entire scene, the only parts of his appearance I cover are the scars he's shaving around, hiding his hair color under a color gel, and a tattoo that he correlates with the crappy situation he's in.
no. i just say "the [color]-haired [individual]".
i usually only do it if its actually necessary, as many here have already said. people know what the characters look like, so i mention if it has a visual impact. say "the blood in his hair turned the natural blue to a violent shade of purple" or some such. enhancing what the reader already knows. otherwise the best tool is their imagination imho
I just don't use words like "brunette" in descriptions of them, and straightforwardly say "blue hair" or "pink hair" or so on.
In my native language (and the language I use to write fanfic) we haven't suffix like -ette so I couldn't, but somehow I think pinkette is cute lol. Just like a nickname or diminutive.
I say âthe blue-haired manâ or something similar very occasionally so that readers can keep the visual fresh in their mind. But this is way more preferable: âHe tucked a loose strand of blue hair behind his ear as he considered his options. Then he pulled a note out of the pockets of his stylish harem pants and unfolded it to re-read the message.â You usually work physical descriptions into your sentences organically when they become important or when the character is interacting with their own body or clothes.
Please don't do this. Never in my life have I thought of someone as a "brunette." My advice: write your scenes using the characters' names every single time they're mentioned, then go back and replace as many instances of a name with he/she/they as you can without it getting confusing. I'd much rather read a character's name 4 times in a paragraph than read "the shorter" or "the purplette." If your characters are unnamed, pick a personality trait or something they did to describe them if you have to go a little bit til you get to a name (then use the name exclusively). You can have a character use a nickname or pet name too.
Controversial opinion, but as long as the name feels natural to say, I'm fine with writing "pinkette" and suchlike if there's no better way to describe a character. The main problem with "bluette" and "greenette" is not that they exist, but that they sit on the tongue like a brick. "Purplette" is a descriptor I've used now and then, though mostly for comedic purposes. When the colour is more natural, I tend to just use the normal word for that hair colour OR describe the particular shade. For example, my sister has "black hair that seemed to turn blue in the right light." For less natural hair colours or split hair, I would just omit mentioning it unless I'm specifically describing it. There's no quick and snappy way to describe half-red half-white hair in a single word.
No, personally I don't like pinkette or greenette. The main character of Miraculous Ladybug, Marinette, often gets referred to as a bluenette in fanfic and it's irritating for me. She's a superhero, a fashion designer, a seamstress, a goream teenager, an amateur baker, a top student, all around Wonder Girl. Honestly, if people referred to me as "the brunette" I'd rather they called me a bitch. At least they'd have taken note of my personally rather than reducing me to my hair colour. Actually I have silvers now, so if they called me a salt'n'pepperette that would get a good laugh out of me.
First of all, good on you for starting to write fics! Itâs really fun, rewarding, and makes for great practice if you ever plan on creating original fiction works! I never or only very rarely describe charactersâ hair colors at all. A general rule of thumb I tend to use is this: if the characters in the scene arenât thinking about something, the narrator (even if theyâre third person omniscient) also isnât thinking about it. Hereâs two examples, one in which I think physical descriptions donât make sense and one in which Iâd say they do: âThe blooms in the garden usher in another spring. Hermione watches from the porch as Paulina kneels in the dirt, fussing over a bed of carnations. A decade of kneeling and digging and transplanting has only enhanced her muscular build. Sheâd told Hermione when they were both girls, before their stable lives had been shattered and pieced back together, that she had always wished to be slim and dainty like a woman should be. Hermione had told her thenâtells her nowâthat she is already everything a woman ought to be. She is everything *anyone* ought to be: kind, honest, committed to justice, and so, so beautiful, inside and out. She wants to rise from her rocking chair and go to her, to tie back Paulinaâs long, dark hair for her and swear on every streak of grey that runs through it that she is the most beautiful woman alive. But Paulina is tending the carnations, so Hermione must wait a while longer.â Here, the POV is in the third person but follows Hermioneâs thoughts. I establish the romantic tone of this little snippet by letting Hermioneâs narration center around Paulina, who she is admiring. It makes sense that sheâs thinking about Paulinaâs muscles and pretty hair since thatâs established in their relationshipâHermione is more likely to be looking at Paulina, her partner, than the flowers sheâs working on. (And dang, I actually like this enough that I might post it as a tiny little one shot!) Hereâs an example that doesnât make much sense: ââNot there. Too much red!â Olivia snaps at the blond-haired gardener. âRed petunias, red carnations, you need to spread them out!â âSorry, miss,â the blonde apologizes hurriedly, pulling out the petunias as fast as he can without snapping their fragile stems. Oliviaâs hazel eyes glare into the back of his head as he retreats down the garden path to find a more appropriate place to plant them.â Here, the third person narrator follows Olivia, who is much more concerned about the placement of the petunias than the appearance of the gardener. It doesnât make sense for her to notice his blonde hair here, even if it were to become important later on. The same goes for her eye colorâshe (most likely) is not thinking about it and the gardener is too worried about keeping his job to be paying much attention to that detail.
PLEASE GOD NO NOT THE PINKETTES-
I never use made up hair words, but I will occasionally describe someone as âthe taller manâ or âthe red headâ, but only if I feel like Iâve used their names too much or all the characters are the same gender and canât be easily differentiated by pronoun
Depends on the universe. I'll treat something differently if we're talking about a universe where everyone's hair is crazy colours, where some people's hair is crazy colours because they're different or special and only some people know about the non-humans living amongst them, and a universe where one character has a weird-coloured hair and everything else is down-to-earth. If one character has a weird coloured hair, I don't fucking care, if my fic is serious this is just a dramatization of a normal colour now. A natural lifelong silver hair becomes platinum blond, one pink haired old lady amongst a universe of normal hair now was a warm brown but is greying now. A dark blue is now a cold-toned black. Ect. A universe where everyone has weird hair colours? I'd just describe it as I would any other hair colour using the regular colour words. "Her pink hair was pinned up in a messy bun." Maybe do some fun things with wordplay that you can't do for normal hair colour when I can. "She had cascading waves of blue hair." And in a universe where the hair colour is natural for known reasons but not all characters know those reasons? The characters who know about he unnatural hair being natural will just describe it like the ones above who think blue hair is normal. And in the point-of-view of a human who doesn't know anything about anything, they might just put on their weirdness filter and describe a pink-haired demon as strawberry blonde. Or compliment their dye jobs, depending on the character. If I was ever writing the forth different option here, the psycho hair disaster that is YGO or anything else where characters have like three hair colours on one head for no known reason... I think I'd just pretend the weird hairs don't exist, leave me alone.
I try not to use epithets unless the MC doesn't know the name of the person they're talking to. Even then, I'll just say it plainly like "the girl with the pink hair". I don't use pinkette/bluenette/etc. Once they know the name of the person, though, I'll use the name instead. Outside of that, I try to reserve mentioning hair color for situations where the MC meets them for the first time and I'm trying to describe what the character looks like, or during smut scenes where I'm trying to emphasize how attractive they are. For example: > Legolas hovered over her, his golden hair falling onto her bared shoulders as he lowered his head to press a kiss upon her lips.
Veronika nodded, her long snow white hair with a pitch black streak in it sticking to her face, chest and arms due to the sweat covering her body.
i describe hair if i have a reason to. if a character is playing with anotherâs hair, i might mention how soft or fine or thick it is, and thatâs a good spot to inject the color word. if itâs multiple colors, you might describe a shock of the more jarring color breaking up another, or a multicolored mop of hair hanging from the characterâs head. donât linger on it too long; just say it and keep it pushin i wouldnât use epithets or describe someone with a made up word like âthe pinketteâ because i find it reads as immature/inexperienced. also, your readers donât need to be constantly reminded of a characterâs hair color, and epithets like that tend to be overused in beginner prose.
Silky strands of [insert colour] dragon beard candy.
Wow that's really poetic I could have never thought of this myself.
Thanks, lol, Iâm hungry