fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3552 ]

[ SECRET POST #3552 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3552 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 52 secrets from Secret Submission Post #508.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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What are some things works almost always leave out about characters, but you really want to know?

Their birthdays!

^

That's one thing I kind of have to give Mattel credit for. 90% of their characters in their media empires have birthdays.

Well I mean they ALL have birthdays but we know them lmao

Birthdays are one of my FAVORITE things to know about characters.

What do they even watch on TV?

- This is more specific, but with Parks and Rec, I always wish we knew who Leslie knew outside of the Parks department, and/or who she knew before they worked together. Not that I wanted a high school flashback episode per se, but it always seemed strange to me that she didn't seem to know or be connected to anyone in the town outside of work, despite having lived there her entire life. (Although I can also see it being the sort of town a lot of people leave in their twenties, and only return once they start families and/or retire.) Same with some of the other characters, actually.

- I'm always curious about religious beliefs and political affiliation, although I completely understand why writers tend to leave these out!

A whole lot! Sometimes I wish every canon came with stat sheets like some shounen manga do with all the random trivia stats like favorite food or what music they listen to and all of that stuff.

I don't care about these details quite so much these days, but when I was younger I always wanted to know birthday, age, hair color, eye color, height, etc.: just all the little "stats."

It's funny, because in a lot of YA type work, you tend to get the "stats" by the second paragraph. In adult writing, though, it's often seen as bad writing to list them out like that. In fact, according to the Creative Writing class I slogged through in college, the Best Writers(tm) never describe the physical appearance of a character at all (unless a feature is specifically relevant to the plot).

But on the other hand, when I sent my own creative work around the circle to be read, pretty much everyone's feedback was, "what does your MC look like though".

I read the beta notes of a friend's fanfic and one of the bits of advice was to salt in little mentions of a characetr's looks in the course of actions, for example:

"-he explained as he brushed aside a lock of dark hair." - That line at least gets across that the character has dark hair, without flooding the text with a massive description.

In fanfic, I hate when characters seemingly live in three places. Work, home, one store.

it always bothered me when TV characters seem to only go to one bar/cafe/restaurant. (unless the show's about said bar,etc. like Cheers)
P.S. hi, I'm the anon who told you what a pukwudgie was!

Thanks! That was the only thing I could tell my sister about Pukwudgie(s) when I told her what I got.

Just dumb little things. Mainly things about the state of their workstations. Like, are they messy? Are they neat? Do they make their beds? Do they habitually need to have a cup of tea or coffee to hand if they're working/writing/coding/etc?

Just the sort of things I'd notice about someone; like my supervisor in undergrad was the literal worst about making his (black, no sugar) tea and getting it everywhere. He'd make it straight in the kettle and somehow manage to still splatter the entire wall and microwave and counter and shelves with it. Everything in the lab within a metre radius of where he had his setup was tea-stained, and the sink was actually dead brown with about half a millimetre of dumped out remains of tea that has just... caked on. Never rinsed.

Me being the way I am, I spent like 40 minutes scrubbing everything as soon as I saw it and was utterly horrified by the state of it. Those little details though, they go a long way to describing a character's personality.

If you're a writer of any kind, you should let one of your characters have that kind of tea habit. That's an awesome detail about any person (real or fictional).

Well, yes. That is more or less the kind of thing I try to put into my own work (and there's definitely a character I have who I'll be using it for just because it fits so, so perfectly lol). My old supervisor was a grizzled old mountain man who never gave a single fuck about anything but good, real results; I have a character for whom that also pretty much rings true.

I guess I would just appreciate it more if there was more of it in other people's writing, you know?

Yes, but if I ever read your book, I will appreciate it. :P

You just wait, you're supervisor will be the new Snape.

You joke, but actually...

If Snape were a really hard left pro-animal rights vegetarian ecologist who studied proximal factors in population genetics and believed the only way to results was decades of remote northern/arctic field research...

What I'm saying is, he's a fucking hardcore guy and routinely makes his students incredibly salty about how difficult his tests are in an "easy" subject (which actually isn't easy if you don't dumb it down). He's also a brilliant researcher. Academically speaking, he probably has more in common with Snape than I would have thought lol.

Re: Inspired by #3

(Anonymous) - 2016-09-24 21:47 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #3

herpymcderp - 2016-09-24 22:05 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #3

(Anonymous) - 2016-09-24 22:31 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #3

herpymcderp - 2016-09-24 22:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #3

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2016-09-25 09:20 (UTC) - Expand

Little things, like hair color, eye color, taste in movies, etc.

Little tiny habits characters might have. Do they chew the end of pens when they write? Do they bounce their leg when sitting? Do they pick at loose strings on their shirts when bored?

Little details in general.

Basically, things that have little to no use in the plot, but I'd like to see anyway.

Everything about their families. If it's relevant to the plot we get to see some of it, but I want to know everything. Are their grandparents still alive, how close are they, what about aunts/uncles/cousins? And it really gets me curious when the characters are kids who still presumably live at home but we don't even know anything about their parents or if they have siblings or pets.

If in adult fiction: childhood memories that aren't specifically traumatic or relevant to the story per se. I just do think that that the memories that are remembered by character fondly, say a lot about their personality.

Height and weight. But I've struggled with an eating disorder for like 10 years, so that's probably why I am super interested in it.

What they think at any particular moment is usually the biggest. If they aren't a POV character and we aren't inside their heads, I still want to know how things are affecting them emotionally or what they think about whatever happened.

What music they listen to. Just 'cause I love music and I think it's fun to learn about other characters' music tastes. Any "guilty pleasure" songs or artists? Any albums that are their absolute favorites? Songs they'll crank up when they come on the radio? It'd just be a fun little aside to know :).

What type of music they like. Especially when they are portrayed with headphones a lot. (Example: I really want to know what kind of music Tsukki listens to!)

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