Describing races in fantasy

My novel is set in a fantasy world that has three different nations-- One is like England, One is sort of like Morocco-- darker skin and sort of spanish-y influences, and the last is based on Korea. I've got characters from all three nations who work together against a common foe. These places and people are very fleshed out in my mind-- my only trouble is getting their physical description on the page.

I can't think of how to describe people as Asian without it sounding racist-- and of course I can't say they're Asian because there is no Asia. I am absolutely not going to use the word "slanty" or anything like that. I've seen a lot of suggestions online to describe them as having "almond" shaped eyes, but this doesn't seem like an accurate description to me. People of all different races can have almond shaped eyes.

This is what I have, roughly, so far: "She was petite and had the dark shining hair and deep brown eyes of a Chaskuan. The sunlight from the above window illuminated the smooth plane of her face as she crossed her arms and tapped her toe impatiently, waiting for the last of the plebes to find seats."

Does this sound Asian? Once I get to the nation itself I can make the architecture and food clearly Korean influenced, but I'm worried people will already have locked the characters as white in their minds before we get there.

Any suggestions? I do not want to come across as creating some sort of offensive caricature, but I refuse to have an all white cast just to avoid accidental racism. That seems much worse to me.

It may help to describe her first through the eyes of a character who is seeing one of her people for the first time.

That way you can make note of how her people differ from what that character is used to seeing in a genuine, culture-of-the-novel-relevant way.

It doesn't sound (East) Asian to me at all, but perhaps that's just me. I live in a culture of whites where dark hair and eyes are not unusual.

However, if their culture is very obviously inspired by Korean culture, I think the readers will understand it (those who don't default to white no matter what).

That being said, I have a similar problem and the best advice I've received here (concerning eyes) is to mention mono eyelids. It's not perfect because many East Asians have double eyelids but still, it might be a descriptive way to point out the way your character's eyes and mono eyelid is still associated with East Asians so maybe this is the way to go?

It's something I'm struggling with as well, since my main character is going to be traveling soon and meeting people from all over his world. On top of that, I have a bit of an added wrinkle in that... Shynia is a bit like the United States. There is a racial Shynian "type", but there are also a number of people who have come to Shynia from other places, so he'll have seen other races before so I won't have the ability to describe him seeing a race for the first time.

I'm going to settle for having the characters described the way I normally would and hope that's enough to get the point across.

A character doesn't usually drop into the story naked, with nothing for you to describe but their skin tone, hair colour and eyes. You'll have social cues, clothing cues, food cues, all sorts of things to create the picture. after all, you're not talking about an asian person from here anyway, you're talking about a chaskuan.

and as people have pointed out before, Suzanne Collins explicitly states that Rue had dark brown skin, and people were still grumpmad that Rue was black in the film. Using racial/racist descriptors to indicate to racist people exactly what earth corrollary race your Chaskuan is probably won't serve your novel!

Here's a useful article - fantasy author N. K. Jemisin shares how she describes characters of various different racial origins. There are links to parts 2 and 3.

http://nkjemisin.com/2009/04/ways-to-describe-characters-of-color/

I just describe features.

There's a reason why physical features come to be in real life, and why people dress a certain way, and why they view their bodies as such and such. It's how that people group have developed. You don't have to copy an earth culture to make yours seem legitimate. Just think it through and make sure there's a valid reason for why your people are the way they are - even if that reason is magic in nature, that doesn't mean it's invalid, either.

Noses.
- Broad or narrow? Round or sharp? Crooked? Hooked? Turned up or down? Flared nostrils?

Skin.
- More brown, olive, or pink? Pale or tanned? Freckles or moles? Do they get sunburn? Do they wear any specific cosmetics (like kohl) that is associated with any particular cultures more than others? How does this influence your people group's idea of beauty?

Eyes.
- Are they more likely to be pale or dark? Are blue or green eyes rare for that people group? Is grey or brown more common? Are there any superstitions about eyes of different color, or cross-eyed people, or a particular eye color? Does your culture have any way to fake eye color or affect it with magic for fashion or other purposes?

Hair.
- Straight or curly? Does it tend to be dark and uniform across the population? Is there a lot of variation within the people group? Is there a cultural stigma against hair dye, or is it encouraged/accepted? Do men and women wear their hair different lengths? What about braids or feathers or other decorations? How does the climate affect how your people group style their hair?

Body structure.
- Are they tall or stocky? Petite or even smaller? Big feet or little feet? Same for hands? Is there great sexual dimorphism between men/women/other sexes? Do they have a sedentary or active lifestyle? Is there muscle mass uniform, or are some areas like the arms or chest emphasized over others? Does any of this greatly affect their clothing choices? Are they modest or do they prefer to show their bodies?

Facial structure.
-How are the cheekbones placed? Are lips full or thin? Do ears tend to stick out noticeably? Attached or free earlobes? What is the usual shape of the jawline? Is the brow particularly prominent? How is scarring or other flaws like acne treated? Does either sex wear cosmetics? What about piercings?

Fantasy elements.
-Do they have eyes with pupils and sclera and such, or are they strange in some way? Do they have any animalistic features like tails or claws or wings? Do they have any extra sensory organs? If they shift shape, does it affect any of the above in some way? How can magic change their bodies?

Don't think of them as races. Think of them as people with sets of physical traits in common. The culture will do the rest. Just get the basics down. You don't have to describe them all at once or mark down every last detail. In fact, the physical details aren't as important as cultural details (unless your plot somehow makes it important) - and if you've done your character and world building, it shouldn't be difficult to make the physical and cultural mesh.

At any rate, this is what works for me, and I hope it helps a bit, anyway. :) I generally use a mix of racial backgrounds - some drawn from real life, like a Greco-Roman, Celtic, or Asian origin - while others are invented people groups, or ones that have more fantasy elements than human features.

why is it important that the reader have a specific vision of a real world ethnic type?

the important thing would be that your reader recognize that there are (3) different cultures and ethnicities and there are many (better) ways of achieving that than getting into degrees of skin tone or facial structures

Use names of characters to differentiate various cultures. if you're basing a culture in your novel off a culture in the real world then borrow names across from one to the other.

Naming conventions are an easy, generally non-offensive, way to differentiate various cultures from each other. On top of that names will give you an idea of what a cultures native language might sound like. They're easy cues for a reader as well.

I've come across this question a lot, and often I don't really know how to answer it, or what the asker wants to know. I tend to think if you want something rooted in a culture you reference things that people will know as coming roughly from that region, and then you put a few things that are firmly from the exact culture you want to share roots with, regardless of whether people will know it or not.

Let me say one thing, books are also about teaching. They teach us how other people see the world, their ideals, how they see cultures, what words they use and what turns of phrase are familiar to them. Fantasy, the reason I love it, is because I get to see someone else's hopes and dreams, in addition to all of that. So... my point is, if someone doesn't know what something is, they'll look it up if they're interested. So don't be afraid to write about what people don't know about. Someone said something about a Cinnabar Chair, and people not knowing about Cinnabar.

So. What. We have the internet now, more than ever before we have access to information right on our fingertips. And if not, we do it the oldskool way - we ask our friends, teachers, parents, siblings, and we use a dictionary. Writing isn't supposed to cripple the author so that they can only talk about what people will know, Yes, there is a large of element of making a book accessible to most of your audience, but that doesn't mean you have to throw away the small few terms that describe how you feel about an element in your story.

If people don't know about something, they should look it up. It's right that a story shouldn't be littered with things no one knows about, but simple terms like cinnabar? I think not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnabar

Regarding racist stereotypes, well black isn't really black more often than not. And there aren't easy ways (that come to my mind) to describe the colours that represent the east asian nations, but that's part of our job as writers. We take things and we internalise them, we try to understand, we try to make the paths that others don't have to. Some people can draw a picture, some can make a video, but we have only words to describe what we see.

Quote:Menahem sighed. "How can one explain colours to a blind man?"
"One says," snapped Rek, "that red is like silk, blue is like cool water, and yellow is like sunshine on the face"

(from David Gemmel's "Legend")

Wow-- thanks for all the feedback! With the time zone difference I always seem to miss out on the good conversations on here. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who's bumped into this problem. I think i'm going to not worry too much about it-- the names and cultural elements should be distinct enough. Some of you asked why I cared, or thought it was strange to want to base a culture on a particular nation-- I suppose, ultimately, it doesn't really matter. It probably won't impact a reader's enjoyment of the book. I'm just hoping to put what's in my head on the page is all-- and as I'm living in Korea I've got such a wealth of observational inspiration to work off of. I imagine that most of it will go over people's heads, as Korean culture isn't super well known in America. That doesn't bother me.

As far as the eye-lid discussion goes-- I do know for a fact that women are self-conscious about this. There are plastic surgery ads everywhere here specifically for this. And while I don't see it as any less beautiful myself-- I wouldn't want someone to point out a feature that I was self-conscious about.

Just a query along the lines of the epicanthic fold, at risk of causing argument I just want to ask:

What is wrong with describing a physical trait which isn't currently fashionable in the real world in specific countries? There are cultures which shun albinism or pale skin, should a person not be described as white? A race will have distinct appearances - in fantasy they may range from normal to exceptional. Yet there is the overarching fact these worlds are not our own.

There are races with horns, tails, unusual eyes, no bellybuttons, wings, tentacles... Most fantasy has dwarven styled races where even the women have beards, which is largely considered an unattractive trait in many cultures. Elves are often depicted with pointed ears and almond eyes.

What is the classic portrayal of beauty in specifically current real world countries is in no way a measure of what is attractive in a fantasy land where such a trait might even be considered desirable.

The contrast between what happens in a magical world and our own is what makes fantasy intriguing and makes people think. Would it honestly be so terrible to depict something as neutral or desirable that isn't as popular somewhere real?

Ah, well I was referring to the mano eye lid not the epicanthic fold-- but either way... I'm not saying that it would be wrong to describe this, or that our standards of beauty within fantasy need to match real-world standards of beauty. Certainly, fantasy gives us the opportunity to challenge real-world prejudices and preferences.

My original question was less about how to describe a specific Asian character, but how to cue readers into the fact that a large group of people are a particular race. If I base that distinction on them having mano eye lids, it would be like reducing an entire real-world race into the possession of a single feature which is not homogeneously present and is, by a lot of people, considered to be undesirable. Like saying "you know that thing about yourself that you're not crazy about?-- well, that's the thing that makes you Korean to me." Like I said before-- I consider this to be a perfectly beautiful feature myself, and I don't intend to impart such thinking on my characters-- I'm more thinking about the way any of my Korean friends will feel when they pick up my book.

I have to say, is "slanted" really conceived as an absolutely racist description? Maybe it's just because I find that trait attractive myself, but people of all ethnicities can have slanted eyes, and in either direction for that matter.

I'm stumped because I find Asian features really beautiful, and in my story mermaids/men are sort of based on them, but I don't want to come off as racist by describing them.

The way I'm getting around the description of Asian eyes for the time being is by having my Asian eyed character describing one of the Caucasian eyed character's eyes, as he's the peculiarity in this particular land.

I'm having a bit of trouble in that while my characters do have that look they do not have that culture, so it may be confusing at times.

To add on to Allana's excellent advice- the most helpful advice I've seen for both writing and media of any sort is: Don't allow White to be Default. Because it's not and it makes anything non-white seem "other" by comparison. To do this describe white characters just as hard as you do with characters of any other race.

So, if you have your (presumably white) character describe themselves either in comparison to others and/or just musing on themselves it will greatly remove the "white is default" bias that can often occur AND make it will help when you are trying to describe and illustrate the differences between the three groups.