Personality Traits: Charming, Devious, Annoying, Puritanical, Happy

Marc McCutcheon's book  Building Believable Characters is a great tool for writers to create believable characters. I'm in the section of the book called the PERSONALITY TRAITS INVENTORY. Today's traits are Charming, Devious, Puritanical, and Happy. Let's dig in.

CHARMING/WELL-BRED is another of those that could lead to stereotype if you're not careful. This character is gracious, polite, and smooth. They make others comfortable. They are the life of the party. Ladylike, tactful, warm, friendly, personable, they are the child every parent wishes they had, the wife every man wants as his own, the friend everyone wants to be with. They are sexually attractive. Clean and neat. Considerate. Darn-near perfect. And that's the problem--how often do you run across someone in your life that's this wonderful? Do you truly love them, or in the back of your mind do you envy them or wish they'd step into a mud puddle just once? All this awesomeness is good in a protagonist, but it must be coupled with a flaw or she'll seem cartoonish. Ruin her looks with a hairy wart on her chin. Or give her a bit of a temper and a unique way of displaying her temper--no shouting or door-slamming for this woman, she plots her revenge in secret and gets her revenge by publicly humiliating her enemy. Play with it and see what you come up with.

The next trait is DEVIOUS/CONNIVING/EVIL. This is fabulous for the antagonist, but can you use this trait for a protagonist? This guy is wily, plotting, false, manipulative, lying, backstabbing, two-faced, sneaky, power-hungry, and venomous. Think Scrooge times two. Actually, Scrooge is a great example of how to pull off this nasty protagonist. Use these traits as his flaw to overcome, make the stakes ultra-high (death, in Scrooge's case), and reel the reader into a fabulous ride of conflict after conflict.

ANNOYING is up next. This personal in a know-it-all, or tells offensive jokes in mixed company, or touches people too much, or whines. He's shallow, gossipy, smug, self-righteous, rude, and insincere. He's not exactly evil, although he is self-absorbed. He doesn't know how to behave politely with others. How did he get this way? Is he desperate for attention? Is his sense of self-worth grossly exaggerated (Mommy raised a prince)? Is he socially awkward because of a secluded upbringing? This one has lots of potential because it's so varied, but again, he must be sympathetic. 

PURITANICAL/PROPER could get you in a bit of trouble if you don't handle it well. This character is goody-goody, politically correct, morally superior, sees others as immoral heathens (but never himself--he sees himself as clean and righteous), quotes Bible verses at every opportunity (or Koran, or Torah, or whatever religion you make him). He's modest, law-abiding, honest, attends church regularly, doesn't drink or smoke, and is judgmental. He knows what's best for everyone and expects everyone around him to heed his words. Once again, be ultra-careful about stereotypes with this one. The old Bible-thumper from the South has been done one-too-many times, and quite frankly, he's not sympathetic. This would make a great comic-relief, though, or a good fanatical antagonist. 

The last trait I want to cover today is HAPPY/JOVIAL. This lady is a treasure. She's good-humored, easy going, funny, light-hearted, relaxed, friendly. She smiles a lot and sees the glass as half-full. She's always smiling, or humming, or doing good deeds. She's also too good to be realistic, too syrupy and sweet. She needs a flaw that brings her back into the realistic realm, because Pollyanna has been done several times and Disney princesses, while wonderful, belong to Disney. So give your happy character something to be sad about (an ailing parent, a dead-end job, a disrespectful/willful child) and make sure her inner flaw stands in her way of achieving Her Goal.

(This is Belle, the happiest of all the Disney princesses. This photo courtesy of wikipedia)

What negative traits would you pair with a charming or happy personality? How would you make an annoying character likable? What positive traits would you give a devious or puritanical character to make them believable? Share your thoughts in the comments section. I love hearing from ya'll. 

-Sonja

Personality Traits: Nervous, Depressed, Intelligent/Ignorant, Boring/Eccentric

Marc McCutcheon's book  Building Believable Characters is a great tool for writers to create believable characters. I'm in the section of the book called the PERSONALITY TRAITS INVENTORY. Today's traits are Nervous, Depressed, Intelligent/Ignorant, and Boring/Eccentric.

The next personality McCutcheon covers is NERVOUS/SHY/SUBMISSIVE. This is different from introverted. The nervous/shy/submissive character has nervous ticks like fidgeting, trembling, clenched jaws, blushing, or stuttering. They are apologetic, deferential, won't make eye contact, and solicitous. If your protagonist suffers from this personality trait, you'll need to find a way to make him sympathetic so the reader won't walk away. I once began a book where the protagonist became morbidly obese, and everyone (including his parents) mocked him for it. I put the book aside and never finished it because I felt too uncomfortable to identify with the hero. If you decide to use this personality trait for your hero, he definitely has a flaw to overcome. If the final conflict of the story is a confrontation, then your hero has a lot of preparation and growth to experience before the book's end. 

SAD SACK/GLOOMY GUS is the next type. This person mopes around, slouches, sighs a lot, complains, has a "poor me" attitude, never seems happy, and generally drags everyone around him into a funk almost as deep as his own. Be ultra-careful with this character! In real life, people like this are hard to put up with. I know one of these people, and I avoid her like the herpes virus. This character is not only unsympathetic, she's down-right toxic. Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh might suffer from a bit of this, but he's sympathetic because he genuinely cares for his friends and will do anything to be helpful, even while he's grumbling. If you use this character trait, couple it with positive traits to balance her negativity, or she'll be nasty.

(This image courtesy of wikipedia)

The next two personality traits are INTELLIGENT and IGNORANT. I'm pairing them because they both have the same danger: they can lead to stereotypical characters. The brainy nerd who wears glasses and is socially awkward. The ditzy blond who couldn't find her way out of a paper bag with a map and a flashlight. The bumbling, naive country boy who's built like a John Deere tractor but can't spell CAT if you give him the C and the A (I stole that one out of a Robert P. Parker book). Intelligence or lack thereof can be an important part of your character, but avoid the stereotypes. To do that, pair the intelligence or ignorance with other traits that you don't expect to find together. Bumbling but loves sports. Intelligent with a secret belief in UFOs or astrology. Bookish, but loves punk music concerts. The more variety you add, the better the character and the further away you get from stereotypes.

I'm also listing BORING and ECCENTRIC together for the same reasons above. A boring personality talks a lot about himself or about other mind-numbing subjects, has poor listening skills, might be prone to babbling, speaks in monotone (remember that teacher from Ferris Bueller played by Ben Stein?), never changes his routine, and is afraid of change. On the flip side, the eccentric is weird, original/individualistic, doesn't care what others think, could be mad/insane/deranged, enjoys excess and extravagance, and may enjoy shocking people with unconventional behavior. These characters make great comic relief in secondary characters because of their uniqueness. If used for the protagonist (or antagonist), pair these traits up with something more normal/likable like a devotion to pets, exceptional generosity with money/time, or immense compassion. 

I'll stop here. Did you find anything interesting to use? Can you come up with examples from books you've read where the author took one of these toxic personalities and created a fabulous character?

-Sonja

Personality Traits: Introvert/Extrovert, Cold, Domineering

I'm studying  Building Believable Characters by Marc McCutcheon and passing along the good stuff to you. I began in my last post with the first sections of the book. The chapters aren't numbered, which makes it difficult to let you know where I'm at in the book (if you care about such things), but I'll do my best. Today I want to start on Part 2 of the Character Thesaurus: Personality/Identify. There's so much good stuff in here, I may have to use several posts to cover it all. 

(These personality traits courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

It begins with the words PERSONALITY TRAITS INVENTORY, then jumps right into the difference between introverts and extroverts. I've covered this before, but I will re-state it here because it's important. 

An introvert is not necessary a shy person. I'm an introvert, and I am completely comfortable performing in front of massive crowds. Meeting a stranger is a different beast altogether. I can get nervous speaking to a person I don't know. The key to introverts is they need alone time to recharge. When an introvert is stressed out, they will retreat to a quiet place, usually home, and do something solitary: read a book, listen to music with the headphones on and eyes closed, play a musical instrument, crochet/knit, that type of stuff. Introverts get their energy from being alone, and being with others sucks energy out of them.

An extrovert, in contrast, needs to be around people to re-charge and de-stress. When life gets rough, they need to be with people, any people, even complete strangers will do. My teenage son is an extrovert, and he craves the mall when it's crowded. A crowded mall sends me into a full-blown panic attack. County fairs, rock concerts, loud parties, these are the go-to venues of the extrovert. They don't always crave crowds, though. Sometimes extroverts like quiet time with their best friend, or spouse, or mom. The key is that they don't want to be alone. They get their energy from others, and being alone drains energy from an extrovert.

Keep these differences in mind when you create your character, because you will definitely be putting them into one or more stressful situations. How do they want to deal with it? Do they want to find a quiet corner, or do they crave their best friend's company? You can also use this personality trait to create more stress: your introvert is desperate for some alone time, so don't let her have it. Push her beyond her comfort zones, stress her out to her utter limits, and you'll have an exciting story to tell, even if she's just trying to get out of a folk music concert that's gotten wild.

The next personality trait covered is simply labeled COLD. This person is undemonstrative, doesn't like to be touched, seems remote or distant, maybe rude or grim, needs plenty of personal space, and may seem to be uncompassionate. This character could be either introverted or extroverted, although a cold extrovert would definitely be a challenge to create. You could also mix and match from this list and create a character who hates to be touched and needs plenty of personal space, but is otherwise caring and polite. The key is answering the question What Made Her Like This? There will be something in her past that has shaped her personality this way. It could be as simple as having non-demonstrative parents, or it could be as devastating as an assault. 

DOMINEERING/OVERBEARING is up next. This character interrupts frequently in conversations, tries to finish other's sentences, gets loud and bossy, is seen as willful and pig-headed, likes to take over, is always right, and enjoys making others feel uncomfortable or unworthy. This isn't a nice person, and if you make your hero a domineering guy, you've got to find a way to make him sympathetic immediately, or the reader won't stick around to see if he becomes a better person by the end of the story. What could make him sympathetic? A domineering mother he cowers to; he was bullied as a child; he has such a low sense of self-worth that he's in danger of committing suicide. Whatever you come up with, make sure it comes out in the story eventually (probably early on) so the reader can bond with this character.

I'm calling it quits today. I'll continue in my next post. Comments? Questions? Observations?

-Sonja

Building Believable Characters

I took a necessary mental health break (read: I was lazy), but now I'm back to my three-posts-per-week schedule. Unfortunately, my laziness extended to my novel-writing discipline, and I haven't written squat in about three weeks. There's no sense feeling guilty about it. I am a pre-published author, there's no deadline hanging over my head, and my bad habits at this point in my career hurt no one but me (and maybe you, if you really missed my blog posts). After analyzing my lack of writing, I came to this conclusion: I was hesitant to write anything new because I didn't know one of my main characters well enough to know what he'd do in the situation I put him in. What I wrote was somehow OFF, but I didn't know why or how to fix it. That revelation sent me back to the basics of creating characters via a book on my resources shelf: Building Believable Characters by Marc McCutcheon. It's on sale, at the moment, if you want to zip over to Amazon.com and pick it up. Or stick around and read my blog for the next umpteen posts. Yep. I'm diving into a new series.

This book starts off in a rather strange place, in my opinion: naming your character. I rarely start with a name, but maybe there are writers out there who do. I've blogged before about names and the process of choosing a good one, so check the archives if you're interested. I find naming my characters a fascinating process. I like looking up the meanings of names--I fact, I almost always choose a first name based on the meaning. Sometimes it's a completely fitting name (a hero named Alex, which means "defender of man") or it's ironic (a hero named Melinda, which means "gentle," who's brash, head-strong, and self-rescuing). McCutcheon doesn't spend enough pages on this fascinating part of the process, as it's easy to write an entire BOOK on this subject, but all of this section is devoted to quoting famous authors and their tricks of the trade. 

The next section (they're not numbered, for some reason...) is a lengthy character questionnaire for getting to know your character. I find it too burdensome. Do I really need to know what kind of car my hero drives? Maybe, unless he takes the bus everywhere or rides a broom or is stuck in space. Eye color/hair color might come in handy. I find myself scouring the Internet for photos of actors/singers/Facebook users to use as inspiration for my main characters. What grades he received in school? Military experience? Past occupations? These may or may not be important to his personality, but I find it kind of boring to sit and try to fill in the questionnaire on the fly. It's more fun to make it up as I go (I'm a hard-core outliner, so little surprising things like these make writing fun). Then the questionnaire gets into more interesting things: introvert/extrovert; eccentricities; temperament; admirable traits; negative traits; bad habits; prejudices; pet peeves. These types of things could easily lead you to finding your character's inner flaw, the fear or trait he must overcome before he can reach The Goal. I'd like to go more in-depth on this in a later post, so stay tuned. First I want to finish this questionnaire. It wants opinions on controversial subjects like abortion, the environment, homosexuality, etc. What are your hero's fears, manias, physical afflictions, mental disturbances, hobbies, interests, favorite past-times? I once had a character who had a favorite movie, and it was brought up in the text, but only because there was a quote from the movie that increased tension in one part. Do I always know my hero's favorite movie/TV show/book? Nope. Favorite meal, favorite book, sexual turn-ons and turn-offs, pet sayings, speaking style, philosophy of life... it goes on and on, page after page of in-depth questions designed to help you know your character better. You can fill in the entire thing, spending hours on it, but I find it's too much. I pick and choose which questions to answer, and sometimes they lead to great insight.

The Character Thesaurus is the final section of the book, and it's massive. Part 1 is Face and Body. Need to find the perfect wording for your hero's complexion? It's in the thesaurus. Don't like the word blond? Find a different word in the thesaurus. Feel an overwhelming need to describe your hero's nose but can't think of the right term? Yep, it's in chapter three. Hair styles, facial hair, head shapes, body types, you can find them all in this chapter. It's a nice long list, and that's all I want to say about it.

(Mighty Men and Monster Maker by Tomy, a brilliant toy from the '70's that mixed/matched heads, torsos and legs to create new characters. Photo courtesy of chrisroberson.net) 

In my next several posts, I want to discuss Part 2 of the Character Thesaurus, which is Personality/Identity. It's a full and satisfying chapter that has too much Good Stuff to gloss over it like I did the first three chapters. So stay tuned--same Bat time, same Bat channel.

Question: Do you find the character questionnaire's useful, or are you like me and find them burdensome? Share your opinion in the comments section below. I love hearing from you! Seeing comments makes me think I'm not alone. Oh, and if you remember that Monster Maker toy, or had a similar one for girls, please tell me about it. I wanted the Barbie version when I was a child, but Santa never brought it to me. I probably would have been bored with it, anyway. I was always a tom-boy, never interested in fashion or accessorizing, so a power tool was probably a better choice of gift for me then. Now, too.

-Sonja

Negative Book Review

Over at The Kill Zone today, Joe Moore talked about identifying and knowing your audience. He says don't chose a group of people that you're writing for, choose one individual. Then cater everything you write to that one person. That's sound advice, in my book, and it got me thinking about who my target audience is. Then my brain did that wonderful rabbit trail thing where one thought leads to another, and pretty soon I'm nowhere near the original topic. I was thinking, "Who was this particular author thinking of when she wrote this stinker of a suspense book?"

(This foul smell brought to you by freedigitalphotos.net)

Let me backtrack a minute. I'm not naming this particular author because normally I love her books and every author is entitled to one stinker. So I don't want to malign her name or her mediocre book. Instead, I want to focus on why I didn't like the book, and maybe tie it all up with "who was this author's target audience." 

There were some good things in the book. I genuinely liked the lead characters. There were four of them. Two were on one side of the mission, and the other two had the backside of the mission. They were male/female pairs, and there was some minor hints of romance, but mostly they were working partnerships of equals who treated each other as fully competent and capable. I liked that. The characters were interesting, flawed, and sympathetic. Their mission was easy and made sense: bring in the bad guy.

Then everything started to fall apart. The bad guy was fairly incomprehensible. I had a hard time figuring out why he was doing what he was doing, what was happening to him, and what made him so dangerous. He wasn't a typical sociopath--in fact, he was just some poor schmuck that was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught up in something evil. Unfortunately, the author didn't explain that bit well enough and there were far too many unanswered story questions that kept me thinking, "huh?" It was wrapped up at the end of the book, but still not fully explained, and I finished the book thinking there should have been MORE. 

That feeling of not-quite-getting-it stuck with me for the last two-thirds of the book. One of the female leads had something funky going on, and the more the author tried to explain it, the more lost I got. There were lots of technical terms tossed around in the hopes of explaining what the problem was, but they just made the mess more muddied. I never did figure out what was going on with the female FBI agent. At the end of the book, the character explained what had happened to her (via dialogue with her partner, who was there the whole time so it was kind of cheesy), and I STILL didn't understand what it was. It was almost like watching a nuclear physicist and a philosopher debate something complex while an audience of junior high school students looked on, scratching their heads, and trying not to be rude and walk out. Frustrating. The worst part is that the author spent some serious page-time trying to explain this stuff, and it started to feel like a waste of ink. I got bored with it when I couldn't understand it, yet it kept going.

The other thing I didn't care for about the book was the LACK of suspense. I want to feel genuine anxiety for the protagonist of a suspense book. His/her/their lives must be at stake, and I must feel that heart-pounding, page-turning, will-they-make-it excitement. It wasn't there. Not even a little bit. The bad guy shot at one of the good guys and wounded him in the leg. Then later the good guy's partner gets shot in the shoulder. Throughout the entire siege, they were both mildly afraid that the bad guy would get them. But I didn't feel it. Not once did I think they were in serious danger. Maybe it's because I know that good always wins, although sometimes the good guy comes out wounded or slightly maimed... but I never got to the point in the book where I was seriously worried about their safety. It was a major let-down.

There were numerous references to characters/plot lines that happened in previous books (this is a series), and the author nicely foot-noted which previous book they happened in. Since I've read all the others, it was nice to see friendly characters from previous books. And that made me think this author has a specific audience in mind: someone who has read all her previous books, and would therefore "get" some of the metaphysical/philosophical stuff that came up in this newest book. Maybe I'm a bit dense, but I've read all the previous books and this one still didn't make a ton of sense. It makes me wonder if the author expected her readers to remember every little detail from every book. Or maybe she expected them to be ultra-familiar with her unique world, and I just didn't remember enough. Or maybe she thought she'd done a darn good job of explaining everything, but since she's too close to it, it wasn't quite enough and she wasn't in the position to realize it. Or maybe I'm unique in "not getting it" in this book. I'm not going to dwell on these issues--I'm chalking this one up to a dud, and when her next book comes out, I'll read it and hope she's back on track. Unfortunately, the book ended with the "it's not over" speech from the boss--whatever evil was working it's way through this book will definitely be in the next two (she likes to write books in threes). I'm hoping the author takes better care in the upcoming books.

Has this ever happened to you, where an author you love/admire puts out a book you didn't care for? It makes me kind of nervous: will one (or more) of my books be thought of as "a stinker?" What will my target audience think? Makes me wonder...

-Sonja

What I'm reading

I have utterly failed in my resolution this year to blog three times per week. I'm six weeks into 2014, but I've only posted 10 articles. For those who are math-challenged, I'm 8 short of my goal. The interesting part about this is that I feel no guilt. I've been sick, I've been busy, I've been bored, and to get right to the heart of it, I haven't had anything worthwhile to say.

(these excuses courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

One of the excuses reasons I haven't been blogging is that I've been too busy reading. I'm an avid reader. Last year I read something like 120 books (Goodreads keeps track for me when I rate the books). If I keep going at the rate I've been going, 2014 will definitely top that number. So I thought I'd tell you about the books I've been inhaling voraciously over the past six weeks or so. 

Before I tell you the author and all her books and why I love them and hate them and can't keep myself from reading the next one, let me preface with how I found her (that's a clue, folks. The author is female). On Amazon.com, there's a cool feature partway down the page called "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought." It's one of my favorite features of Amazon because I'm constantly on the look-out for new authors. I usually look for comp titles of my latest work-in-progress. The minute I find a book that's somewhat similar to mine, I hit Amazon to find more. That's how I found Allison Brennan. Her name came up when I typed in a book by Kay Hooper (who also has awesome books, but I've read all of hers and Allison was new to me).

Now that I've revealed Allison's name, I'll tell you about her books. They're romantic suspense, which is what I'm currently working on (there's also an urban fantasy in the works, but that's a different story for another time). When I first found Allison's name on Amazon, I found her personal site and went to the page that lists all her books. Treasure trove! She's written a bunch, so I knew I'd be kept busy for a while if I liked her style. There's nothing worse then finding an author you love, and they only have three books available. That's not a problem with Allison. She's got 33 novels and a bunch of short stories.

There are some things I absolutely love about Allison's books. First, the protagonist sticks with you. Of all her books I've read, I I still remember all the main characters, the love interest of said character (there's always a romance because, duh, it's romantic suspense), and the bad guys. They're that memorable. The bad guys are nasty but believable. The crime investigations are realistic and fun to follow. It's not always possible to identify the bad guy before the "reveal" in the story, but that's okay because I'm so interested in the characters that catching the bad guy is like a secondary thing. 

Allison's writing style is fabulous--I never get sucked out of the story because of awkward phrasing or clumsy craft or bad dialogue. I find myself invested in the characters like they're personal friends or something. So yeah, it hurts a bit when the book ends, but Allison keeps bringing old characters back in the new books! Yeah! The Kincaid family has seven adult children. They've all had a novel to themselves, and the youngest has a whole series of novels. The siblings pop up in other novels, other FBI agents, private investigators, and cops show up from time to time, old cases get mentioned... so I get to "keep in touch" with familiar characters while being introduced to new ones.

There's only one downside to Allison's books. She writes sex scenes--and usually she doesn't stop with just one per book. Because these are romantic suspense, there's always a love interest for the main character. I like it when characters meet The One and fall in love. I just don't need to see them expressing their love while naked. I'm not a prude, but I could definitely live without the sex scenes. Sometimes I skip over them, especially if they're getting really detailed and I find myself getting embarrassed (what if my husband glances over my shoulder to see what I'm reading?), but a lot of times Allison imbeds important information in the sex scenes that dig deeper into character motivations or flaws or psychological weaknesses--and those things are fun to know. So I wade through the sex scenes for the stuff I want to know and try to not focus on the body parts and whatnot.

I've read 15 of Allison's books, and every one of them was great. Some of them were fabulous. I could not recommend these book to teenage boys in good conscience, but if you can put up with sex scenes (or skip over them) and you like a good suspense, check out Allison's books. They can be read in any order (I read them out of order) but because she likes bringing in previous characters, it's probably more enjoyable to start from the beginning. That'd be The Prey  which came out in 2005.

I've mentioned it before, but I'm constantly on the look-out for new authors I can love. Have any recommendations for me? I love suspense, mystery, thrillers, and romantic suspense. I've been known to read fantasy and sci-fi, too. I can't stand romance or Amish, so please don't point me in that direction. 

-Sonja

Don't Be Racist

I was reading a blog post this morning that caught my attention and made me think. It's the January 31 post from Chicks on the Right entitled "Hey, Ya'll! Help Find This Criminal! But We're Not Going To Tell You What He Looks Like. Because Racism."

Let me quote part of it to you, then I'll comment (and yes, I'll make it applicable to writing):

"According to this, members of the African American and African Studies, Black Faculty and Staff Association, Black Graduate and Professional Student Association, Black Men's Forum, Black Student Union, and Huntley House for African American Males have jointly written a letter to the University of Minnesota's president to ask that no racial descriptions be provided in crime alerts... OMG. The reason that the race is provided in a crime alert is because it's part of a PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF A PERSON.  The purpose of an alert is to allow the public to help identify the criminal.  If the race is known, that tends to give a person something to go on."

My husband works in law enforcement (civilian) and frequently creates BOLOs (be-on-the-look-outs, or crime alerts). I've got first-hand experience seeing these things. The Chicks are correct: the main goal of a crime alert is to describe the suspected criminal well enough so that people can identify him. If there's a color photograph to go on the alert, then the racial background might not need to go on the sheet in words, but there are plenty of times when a photo isn't available. Thus, ANY descriptors, including the lightness or darkness of skin, could be helpful.

(This photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

In my books, I don't give a ton of description of my characters. I usually give something, though: hair color, eye color, height, distinguishing scars or tattoos, stuff that might be of interest to the reader. I usually try to work these things in a little at a time, in appropriate places. I've never used the "look in the mirror" scene to have a character describe herself--too hokey--but I have had a female character think about her so-called flaws when she's feeling insecure, and that might include the paleness of her skin, or the straightness of her hair, or her lack of curves (or over-abundance of said curves). 

I have only used racial descriptions a few times in my writing, although I usually have a cast of characters who are as diverse as the area I live. But I struggle with using race as a descriptor. I'm a pale Caucasian gal with a Scandinavian background, and it doesn't bother me if someone refers to me as "white" or "Caucasian." I've even heard "ghostly." That's what I am. However, I find myself (in this age of political correctness and diversity) wondering how to refer to someone who has darker skin. African-American doesn't work for me--if we live here, we're all Americans. American of African descent? Too wordy. Black? Am I racist if I describe someone as black? I had a black cop in one of my books, and I described him as African American, but I always wondered if that was a good way to describe him because it didn't sound right--the whole "we're all Americans" thing. I did it that way because another author I admire did it that way in her book. But I still don't know if it was right/okay/non-offensive.

It makes me nervous just thinking about it. Am I offensive writing racial descriptors? Does it really matter? Does the reader need to know if a character has pale skin, or dark skin, or something in between? I'm not sure, but I am certain that avoiding the issue isn't good. I've heard agents and editors say they'd like to see more books with protagonists who aren't Caucasian, which implies describing the character's racial background in some fashion or using a blatant name. But even a name can fool a reader. 

So my question to you is this: Does racial background matter when describing a character? How do you handle this in your books? If you're something other than Caucasian, does it bother you to read that a character is Asian, or black, or Inuit? Am I alone in feeling uncomfortable about this sometimes? Please share your wisdom with me.

-Sonja