How do the main characters look?

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Fflewddar	How do the main characters look?	Lead	[-]
Posts: 29 (04/03/06 07:36:12) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None Hi, I just finished reading the second novel in the Death Gate series, which are great! (in fact any book written by you guys is great I'm an artist and I like to draw/paint the characters in the books I love, just for fun, and I'd like to more accurately portray some of the characters, but I didnt' quite get a good enough description. I may have missed it in the books, if it was only mentioned once I could have forgotten it. Anyway, I was wondering if I could get some help with the details of how these people look: 1. Paithan -hair color (I pictured it as blond but I could be wrong) -eye color -hair style (is it long & straight? curly? in a ponytail, etc..?) 2. Haplo -hair color (I remember reading that it was brown with white tips?) -hair style (I picture it as shoulder length straight) -eye color -skin color 3. Aleatha -hair color (I think it's blond, but I'm not positive..) I couldn't find any pictures of these guys, so I'd really like to get these main details correct. Thanks for any help
trhickman_nuked_for_import1216838595	Re: How do the main characters look?	#1	[-]
Posts: 344 (04/04/06 19:28:03) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The truth is that the characters look exactly the way you picture them in your mind while you are reading the book. Of course, someone else reading the same book may picture them differently than you but that shouldn't make any difference to how you see them. As I have often said, reading is an interactive act of creation involving the imagination of both the writer and the reader. The writer puts the words on the page but they are only a guide to the imagination of the reader. It is the person reading the book that brings the story to life in their mind. Tracy Hickman
Fflewddar	Re: How do the main characters look?	#2	[-]
Posts: 29 (04/05/06 05:51:15) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Thanks for the reply I do agree with you on that, except for one thing that can happen, and has happened, in books concerning descriptions. A character is introduced without full details being given. So you, as a reader, picture that character in your own way. Then much later on in the book, or books, you discover that the character actually has a different look from the descriptions the author now gave. An example of this is Haplo. I didn't find out the color of his hair until about 3/4 of the way through Elven star, when Aleatha picks up the statue of "The Mother" -Sartan who had white hair with brown tips and said that Haplo's hair was the opposite in color(brown with white tips). Up until that point no description of his hair color was given(unless I forgot it), so I was picturing him with blond hair from my own imagination of how he looks. Now, in my opinion, the unique coloring of the Patryns & Sartans hair is a somewhat big point in the story, it's important. So, I do like to get the right picture in my head. However I understand that when writing the story, giving a big description of every detail of how a character looks right from the start isn't ideal at all. It may not even fit to throw some details here and there in context until much later in a story- there can be reasons why, or perhaps it's just waiting for the right moment to tell the readers what color this characters hair is, etc.. For me, what is written in the book are the facts which I base my imagination on. If it's not written at all, I make it up the best I can. So I just wanted to get it right from the start and not draw Paithan with blond hair and later find out it's black or something, hehe That's why I asked. Anyway I really do appreciate hearing your opinion on the subject. At least it makes me feel better about drawing them however I think they look. Thanks for taking the time to read my post
trhickman_nuked_for_import1216838595	Re: How do the main characters look?	#3	[-]
Posts: 344 (04/05/06 06:43:21) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	No problem at all. In fact, you bring up an interesting occurance in writing; that the author often imagines things being on the page! Authors often see the story in their heads as they are writing. Sometimes this can be so vivid that we think we have written something when, in fact, we only imagined it while we wrote. I don't know how many authors have gone through the editorial process on their books and had an editor ask them why their description of a place or character was missing from the book. The author responds, perhaps indignantly at first, that it IS in the book -- only to discover that they only imagined writing it! Tracy Hickman
Druen Blackstar	Re: How do the main characters look?	#4	[-]
Posts: 17 (04/05/06 14:18:23) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	One of the minor miffs abotu these things are that when I have one set image of a character and then find it's different (or maybe I mispronounce a name wrong) and once I discover my error, I can almost never "fix" it. An example is from the covers of the Dragon Lance books, where I had one specific view and picture of Caramon, however the cover interprates him entirely different. I have no problem with the "official" look of him, but I never invision him the same as is on the cover
Fflewddar	Re: How do the main characters look?	#5	[-]
Posts: 29 (04/05/06 16:35:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	hehe, I can only imagine how hard it can be at times to keep those things straight with one novel, nevermind several! You could easily forget if you wrote down a detail like that or not. That happens to me too Druen, although I do try to fix it, and sometimes after a while I do..and sometimes I just give up. But giving up gets annoying when you read the description in the book again, so they you say to yourself again you'll "fix" it..it can be annoying at times that's for sure. Also many times I have a hard time picturing the character, and drawing the character helps me, even if I don't know exactly how he/she looks when I start. When I draw it, that character comes to life more, and then I can picture them.
johncmerrell	Re: How do the main characters look?	#6	[-]
Posts: 15 (04/07/06 08:46:40) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	As for me, I am a very visual person and when I am reading a book I will have a lot of vivd visualizations in my mind. I find this true when I am writing to and, as Tracy said, sometimes you can think that you have written something you have only just seen in your mind. When I proofread my material I sometimes find that I do not see the same thing I saw when I was writing. Thats when I have to go back and add something so the reader sees what I do. Of course, I want everyone to see my world and characters as vividly as I do but I don't mind if they see something a little different than I; as long as they see something and are moved.
trhickman_nuked_for_import1216838595	Re: How do the main characters look?	#7	[-]
Posts: 344 (04/08/06 06:57:06) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	John and I are both visual and, yes, it can be difficult to keep all those character's straight in our heads! One of the tools that I use is a figure-rendering program called 'Poser.' Laura calls it my 'dolls.' I develop a character's face on a model in poser and then render it out. You can see some examples of this on our 'Bronze Canticles' website. I then print them in color and post them on the cork board behind my computer (along with HUGE maps) so that I can always have a visual -- and consistent -- reference to the look of the character. That still means the reader has their own image in mind -- but at least I'll be consistent in my descriptions. Tracy Hickman
Druen Blackstar	Re: How do the main characters look?	#8	[-]
Posts: 17 (04/08/06 12:13:36) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	It may be a little off topic, but I thought of it with John's vivid pictures. In THE short story (shows how experianced I am in writing ) I have writen, the most vivid pictures are the combat situations. Many times I don't even thing about how it looks, but once I put on some mood music, the entire battle unfolds in my mind, usually going along with the music as well :P. And after that experiance, I want the reader to experiance the exact same excitement and thrill as I did, but thats near impossible, as I find writing the fight step by step, with every block, parry, thrust, swing, and movement, but thats obviously way too clunky. So I usually condense it. And to correct my statement above, I have only written one short story, but I have written many a text roelplay with some of my friends over the internet.
Fflewddar	Re: How do the main characters look?	#9	[-]
Posts: 29 (04/08/06 14:11:36) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Ah, I was wondering who had made those poser models! I played with poser a few years back, it doesn't make very realistic looking people, as it has a very CG look to it, but it's definetly good for concepts and also for drawing your own image, using the poser model as reference. Tracy, I was wondering if you ever do not want images of characters made, so as to not ruin the reader's imagination of them? Obviously you can't stop fan art from popping up, but did you ever not want "official" art? Hope that makes sense
trhickman_nuked_for_import1216838595	Re: How do the main characters look?	#10	[-]
Posts: 344 (04/11/06 08:48:22) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	You do make sense and I think you have a valid point. I personally make the images to keep their descriptions conisisten but I'm not sure whether having such things available to fandom is a good thing or not. Tracy Hickman
Pyre Dynasty	Re: How do the main characters look?	#11	[-]
Posts: 141 (04/11/06 13:45:29) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I just wanted to add an experience I've had. There was one story I read where there was a character with no physical description but he did grab something for the others that was on top of a tree. I assumed that he was a giant and went the entire story seeing this huge guy with them. At the end I found out that he was a tiny fairy.
johncmerrell	Re: How do the main characters look?	#12	[-]
Posts: 15 (04/20/06 09:56:38) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Since I am an artist also I ilistrate all my main charachters so that I can more easly describe them. That way I don't forget the little things such as his pouch or which side its slung from his belt. As for combat there is a race of characters in my novel that are very adept at hand-to-hand combat and you have to be careful not to overload the reader with to much technical descriptions; thats something I learned while selling computers. Since I was a technician I had to describe it differently to my customers than to a collegue. You also may want to describe it in detail that the scale of the combat demands. If its just a few people in that scene detail may be o.k. but if your in a huge battle that detail may be a little out of place and can really afect the pacing of your story. I know pacing is generally more of an issue in screenplays but it applys to novels as well so don't forget to look at it.
Fflewddar	Re: How do the main characters look?	#13	[-]
Posts: 29 (04/24/06 18:58:09) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Well, it certainly is an interesting subject that I never really thought about: Does it bother readers to have characters already pictured for them? Speaking for myself, I love to see illustrations of characters from books. So it never bothered me at all, it was a plus I go looking for pictures because it makes it easier for me to see the characters. If I don't see an Illustration of a character(and even sometimes when I do), what usually happens is: 1. I have a very very hard time picturing the character, and can barely picture him/her at all. 2. My mind draws a similarity with that character in the book, to a RL person, usually an actor/actress, or another character illustration, and I really hate it when this happens as I don't want to picture them this way, my mind just does this and it can be hard to get out. 3. On some occasions I CAN make up my own picture of how the character looks. But this comes from a lot of practice of trying to see that character. Take Haplo for example. At first I pictured him with blond hair, elf ears, and well..he looked like Gilthanas. Couldn't get it out of my head. Then I found out he had brown hair w/ white tips. That changed a lot. So, I drew a picture of him on paper, and that helped me to see him even better. Now I have a very clear picture of him after refining that image more and more in my head. It took a while, but I got it #2 happens the most often for me. I try my best to change that image, to sculpt it if you will, into how I truly see that character. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. On another note, sometimes I see an illustration of a character, and I say to myself, "that doesn't look like him/her!", and so contrary to the image, even if it's "official", I will change how they look to suit how I see them. In my opinion, illustrations are not definitive. Photographs on the other hand, are. For instance take LOTR. Now, I only read the books once, and I wasn't a real fan of the writing style so I didn't love them. But I did love the movies. The thing is, now Frodo= Elijah Wood, always(same for the other characters). I could never do any true fan art illustrations with it, they'd be photographs for me. That might be different if I was a big fan of the books before hand however. But in this case, the photographs take away the fun of illustrating. I heard you speak about the DragonLance movie that might be happening. And I fear this may happen as well. If an illustrator draws a picture of Tanis, everone would say, "oh that's not him! He's supposed to look like ActorX". One last thing: DragonLance is probably your most popular series, right? Well there are illustrations, official illustrations, for just about every character. Has there ever been any complaints about this? I think this would be the best way to see if people do mind having official pictures or not, since it's so popular and widespread. I've never heard of a complaint, other than people saying one picture resembles that character to them, another of the same character doesn't. Ok I'm done rambling now, there was just a lot I wanted to say
nitsujjustin	Re: How do the main characters look?	#14	[-]
Posts: 2 (09/20/06 17:30:05) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I would love to be able to see profesional drawings of the characters on on book II of Deathgate. It is friggin awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! okay, i love the draying in the books, the dragon ship drawing is sweet. I also would love to be able to know the characters ages, i though in the first part of book II od deathgate, paithan was a kid, then the travel thing threw me off. and i love how the old wizard is "crazy" i think that chara adds to the enjoyment. i have to say this series is the best book ever!!!!
Evalbane	Re: How do the main characters look?	#15	[-]
Posts: 15 (05/31/07 22:53:07) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I have a problem with the new release of the Chronicles set. I think that the characters on the cover art are far different from the cover art of the original books. Sadly, I bought the new set before seeing the covers and now I have to actively avoid looking at them. I like having the cover art of the characters before I read the story or not having a picture of the characters anywhere. Showing them later is just hard to fix.

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