Can I just say, as a white girl, it’s a little terrifying to get race wrong and be part of the problem? Because I know that getting patted on the head and being told, “Well, you tried,” means that actually I failed. :/

…so here’s a few examples from my unpublished novel:

“His skin was dark, but in the unnatural light of the galley she saw a hint of freckles on his nose. His black eyes were restful, not severe, and she found she enjoyed gazing into them. Flecks of gold scattered through his iris mirrored the freckles on his nose, and she found the sparkle they gave to his quiet smile intriguing.”

and later… “Is it your fault that your previous patrons turned out to be racist?” This question held a particular moral authority, coming from the woman on the dais as her skin was a shade darker than Radicand’s”

…I admit that I was a wimp, though, and while a careful reader might have gotten hints that my heroine and her sister weren’t white, it isn’t until 1/2 way through that the heroine describes herself as half-Pakistani. And the second quote is from 4/5 of the way through the story and is the only time I reference the color of the heroine’s skin.

I’ve been wondering if I should be more blatant about it earlier… but then my heroine’s also Muslim, and I was afraid if I was all “Check out my Muslim biracial NYU mathematics professor who helps save her sister’s solar airship flock from corporate raiders while falling in love with this hot black guy after it turns out the first guy she was interested in was gay…” people’s eyes might glaze over. I, certainly, would be suspicious of it. But some early readers wished I had been more clear since they already had an idea of the character in their head and adjusting her looks midway took them out of the story.

Maybe I should read the rest of this series before I whine any more. ;)

The first description comes in scene one:

“Felix had frost on his black beard, and his pinkish complexion was reddened by the cold, but he still seemed unconcerned.”

but I was surprised to notice that we have to wait scene two to see the protagonist, Jason, described.

“He turned back to the billeting officer, a tall man as deeply dark-skinned as him – a rarity among Unitarians just as Felix’s pink skin was – and said quietly, “We’re off the Aurora, which is in dry dock upside.”

I read the description as being a woman with straight hair who wanted curls.

Damn. Then I did it wrong. ::sigh::

I sat on the riverbank, twisting my hair into rows along my scalp. It would dry overnight and then I could let it loose to dangle in spirals like a cloud-dragon’s neck.

The first description, of twisting the hair while wet, is actually how I do my own hair, which is natural and standard nappy ™ in texture. I could never have done wet two-strand twists back when my hair was relaxed; it wouldn’t hold the twists. So to my mind that’s obviously kinky hair… though it occurs to me that only a reader familiar with kinky hair would know that. -_-

How funny. I twist my hair while it’s wet as a way of adding curl in to the straight sections. I suspect that it’s a different type of twisting, but I read the description as being a woman with straight hair who wanted curls.

I sat on the riverbank, twisting my hair into rows along my scalp. It would dry overnight and then I could let it loose to dangle in spirals like a cloud-dragon’s neck.

I got the crown of his head at first, and marvelled as always at the feel of hair like my own — soft-curled, dense but yielding, thick enough to lose my fingers in. The first time I’d touched him I’d thought he was one of my people, because only Maroneh had such hair.

The first description, of twisting the hair while wet, is actually how I do my own hair, which is natural and standard nappy ™ in texture. I could never have done wet two-strand twists back when my hair was relaxed; it wouldn’t hold the twists. So to my mind that’s obviously kinky hair… though it occurs to me that only a reader familiar with kinky hair would know that. -_-

Anyway, there are several other characters mentioned here who wear their hair the same way, because I can’t resist a bit of Mary-Sue-ing. -_- But again, I mention the look/effect (“cloud”, “storm of hair”) rather than the texture. (I occasionally wear my hair in a round old school ‘fro, but I’ve discovered this is actually more work than just twisting it and letting it do what it wants. You know that Erykah Badu line: “You need to pick your Afro daddy/because it’s flat on one side…”? This was me, constantly.)

The second above descrip is notable because it’s the only time I describe texture — and that’s because the viewpoint character is blind and texture’s all she’s got to go on. Also because I tend to describe my black men as bald or with long dreds — both personal turn-ons. -_- I don’t really like men with braids, but I did it a couple of times in a(n unpublished) novel with an Egyptesque setting. Frex:

The dark ropes of his hair had been threaded with cylinders of gold and strings of minute pearls; the mane surrounded a face which was fine-planed and flawless.

In the sequel to that book, when the female protagonist at one point goes out among people who resemble the Tuareg of our world (technically the Tuareg are Berber offshoots and thus Caucasian, but they’re dark-brown-skinned and nappy-haired), I gave her a hairstyle mooched from a girl I saw in a book called AFRICA ADORNED — which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to look at creative ways to depict nappy hair. Anyway:

The top half of her hair had been pulled into its usual bun, though bound with strands of white shells from the distant Western Ocean. The bottom half had been separated into a dozen or more locks, each captured at the tip by a heavy, teardrop-shaped gold ornament. They made a subtle rattle, drawing the eye, whenever she turned her head.

(The white shells are meant to be cowries, but the protagonist doesn’t know what they’re called.)

I think it’s time I updated this post, or wrote a new one, maybe focusing on ways to describe CoCs that don’t involve skin color. Like hair.