From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   On Sunday, October 26, 2014 12:01:18 AM UTC-4, J.Pascal wrote:   
   >    
   > I prefer to get a physical description when I'm reading a book because I   
   tend to have a mind-picture of the characters.  And that's all good until   
   sometime around, oh, A Civil Campaign I suddenly shout... WHAT DO YOU MEAN   
   IVAN HAS BLACK HAIR!  (That    
   wasn't Bujold's fault, of course, I just have this association of "Ivan" with   
   "big blond" that is about as strong as the sky being blue.)   
      
   Russiam scientists I've encountered had hair some shade of light brown, both   
   men and women.   
      
   Met a few Russian undergraduate students of various varieties -- same thing.   
      
   I worked with a Croatian electronics engineer for a little while named Ivan.    
   He kept his head shaved.   
      
   I have never seen a Russian who looked like a James Bond villain.   
      
   Russian and East European go go dancers are invariably bottle blondes, in my   
   experience.  The bar near my home is 90% that now, Russia or former USSR; they   
   come from Brighton Beach.   
      
   That pretty much concludes the Russians I have been acquainted with.   
      
   Most Russians I've known had hazel eyes or a sort of light brown with dull   
   green in it.   
      
   I know what you're saying about tertiary characters described with not much   
   more than a name.  The author is linking them to some stereotype.   
      
   >    
   > But lots of readers like a visual so skipping descriptions is tricky...   
   delaying descriptions is tricker.  If you get a good cover, that's probably   
   the best.   
   >    
   > And yeah, if you don't let on early that a POV character isn't human or are   
   too coy about their identity a certain number of readers are going to think   
   you lied to them.   
      
   I mentioned that because I've seen a couple short fiction manuscripts in   
   workshops where that was supposed to be a twist.  The authors were men, if I   
   remember right.   
      
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)