Just take it like a clean slate, a blank page, a place full of new and exciting things to write about and to read.
May the year bring you far more and better things than 2023. I managed 1800 yesterday and 2100 today, so I am hoping it lasts longer than the normal NY resolution does.
As a something to talk about – I saw the question asked on X today, and rather surprised at the answers: do you write about clothing and hair in your fiction, and if so how much? (as someone with little or no interest in either, I know I have to do so in certain settings, but I find it very hard work.)
Nil Carborundum Illigitimi!
Mad Genius Club 
21 responses to “A New Year”
My characters do a fair amount of undercover work, so changing clothes to fit the role, mussing, cutting or dying of hair happens. And my male characters tend to notice the visual attractiveness of women, so hair and clothing comes in there as well.
Similar here, although it’s not always undercover work, just “dressing differently for the occasion.” The men in my books do tend to notice women and the women tend to notice men. There are also status markers to clothing in some of my settings, and even non-snobbish people take some notice of clothes.
I try to if it is something the perspective character pays attention to.
Depends on how you use hair and clothing.
For example, a preoccupation with clothing could indicate internal character: vanity, status concerns, reveling in having overcome childhood poverty, pride in a uniform, willingness (or refusal) to confirm to social expectations, shallowness (“ooh… shiny”), humor, etc.
Or it could be entirely instrumental — how to attract someone/impersonate someone/deceive someone.
And clothing is surely also an extension of the rest of the character’s physicality and self-perception: fat, thin, uncomfortable, itchy, suave, self-effacing, sensitive to deformity, etc.
Not indicating hair/clothing (and using it as above) risks thin world-building, where vaguely visualized personages drift through empty sets. There’s a detente-range between mentioning every button on each outfit and how fashionable it is and not having any idea what these characters look like in clothes ever, or how they move/groom/conform/boast, etc.
Hoppy New Year, kangaroo!
And A Happy New Year, too!
I do a fair amount of description, at least in two of the current series. In one, the main character’s hair length is a sign of his being different and flaunting it. In the other one, it is a visual culture, so clothing is a fast check of status, rank, and authority.
One of my characters has long, bright purple hair. Everybody notices. Sometimes it just attracts harmless attention, occasionally it causes problems. Like when Trans Activists assume she’s one of them and are Shocked, Shocked! to find out she’s not. Then they accuse her of appropriating ‘their’ Virtue Signal.
“I was born with this hair color long before your ’cause’ existed. If anybody’s ‘appropriating’ it’s you.”
Sometimes clothing matters, like when you’re dressing your characters for an event, or when what they’re wearing is in some way unusual and eye-catching. Or when a woman poses in the bedroom doorway wearing a Naughty Nightie… 😀
———————————
Mollari: “Everyone is cute! But in purple, I’m stunning!” [collapses on the table]
Vir: “Ah! He has become one with his inner self!”
Garibaldi: “He’s passed out.”
Vir: “That too.”
If you ever write a regency you might worry about hair, just sayin’. Anyone for a Dave Freer regency? Happy New Year to you and yours.
This one is his, IIRC: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ5RK218/
It’s pretty good fun. 🙂
Many thanks! I will. Crud. Put it in my save for purchase file. Been a bit of trouble with finances. I mean I’m OK but I have a couple things…
I hear you. I gave up buying ebooks for Advent because all those little impulse purchases on kindle add.
Much depends on the character. A noblewoman used to court instantly appraises to avoid offending protocol, for instance.
It depends.
Clothing can matter a LOT, because it shows your place in society.
Hair can do the same.
So if it matters for the character, I do!
I almost always mention clothing and usually hair in my initial descriptions of a character. I don’t do it to the “This is a woman’s fashion magazine disguised as a fantasy novel” extent that some sections of The Wheel of Time turned into, but in trying to improve my descriptions, I realized that what a person is wearing is one of the first things I notice. I’ve tried to make my written descriptions reflect that.
For the record, I’ve found that what I notice is (in this order):
1) Anything particularly unusual: if someone is 6’7″, has a purple mohawk, is wearing a speedo in the lobby of the Ritz, etc.
2) Clothing: we’re not talking fabric types and brands, but is this guy in a business suit or a hoodie? Slacks and polo shirt or tuxedo?
3) General build: tall, short, fat, skinny, completely average?
4) Hair, both color and style.
Eye color, I noted, is not on that list. If someone has particularly vivid blue or green eyes, that might get included in (1). If they don’t, however, I can know someone for years and have no idea what color their eyes are.
One character in a Turtledove expressed his opinion of a marriage by wearing clothing of a revolting green color.
Oh, it was a wedding that he had to attend, both because of his status and the status of the couple. 😆
That should have been “Turtledove story”. 😉
No.
As a reader, I aggressively skip such descriptions if they run longer than a couple of words.
I used to have more patience for it, but The Wheel of Time broke me.
It broke everyone. I may never look at a silk gown again…
I managed to write an entire tactically correct romance without once mentioning what the heroine’s eye colour was. I only know this because I went back while writing the next to double-check, only to find out it was never mentioned…
I try to do better than that, now. Doesn’t mean I’m great at it.
I mention things like coloring and general physical build when introducing a character, or somewhere within a paragraph or two of their first appearance. As for clothes – usually not more than a sentence or two of generalities – phrases like ‘ragged and threadbare’., ‘clad in the latest fashion’ or ‘ plain workman’s garb’. Only details of dress if such are deeply relevant to the character or situation. I’m doing a novel, not a fashion magazine.
Important to note that most people’s reading of clothes is subconscious. You do not note tie-dyed T-shirt, long hair, love beads, you just think “hippie.”