How important are good looking people in a novel/story?
I've read many books where the main protagonists are described as good looking people with Greek god looks, plenty of sex appeal, the perfect figure and all that. As a reader, how important would it be to portray your main characters as good looking? Does it increase the prospects of people buying your book?
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I don't think it is important at all for main characters to be outstanding in the looks department; if fact it can be a detriment. They can be more sympathetic to readers if they aren't that good looking, and know it. How many movies have you seen where the main character is NOT the best looking member of their gender? Or where some other side actor is clearly intended to be the beautiful one?
Novels are the same. Noticeable physical beauty comes with positive attention and privilege, popularity with both sexes, as friends and potential lovers. Beauty smooths the path to early success in life, it opens doors locked to those that aren't going to be contenders for the crown in any beauty contests.
It is harder for readers to believe a noticeably beautiful or sexually attractive character struggles for success in life. We expect the noticeably beautiful to be given opportunities not available to the rest of us; and to exploit their beauty in subtle ways. It is easier for a beautiful person to get minor favors from strangers, for example.
It is easier for readers to empathize with the guy/girl in the middle of the pack, which is where most self-aware people see themselves. We aren't going to be hired for any jobs because we are sexually attractive, we are going to have to do something more than be fun to look at.
I avoid good looking characters as my main characters and as love interests; the only outstanding beauties in my stories are there as contrast to my main characters: To prove my MCs aren't the most privileged or beautiful or attractive in the world and my MCs know it. Although my MCs do always have something they are extremely good at it, it is never natural beauty or sexual attractiveness. That is too easy and too obvious, and readers know it. Whatever my MCs excel at, it is never outwardly obvious to those that do not know them, and usually something the MC would have to choose to reveal to a stranger. For example, my MC may be a world class chess wizard, a result of both natural talent and training, but you wouldn't know that by looking at her.
I wouldn't use beauty as a shortcut to anything; I consider it clichéd writing, for either gender.
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There are more important things than physical perfection. It would depend on the genre. As has been stated, romances have handsome love interests. Also, we have been taught that beauty and virtue are somehow paired. The strong and noble hero must be handsome and the villain is ill-favoured.
In Magic Mountain, the MC becomes completely besotted with a Russian princess and I assumed she was beautiful mostly from his reaction. The author then starts describing her features and I realized that she was no looker. Not even a case of the harmony of imperfections.
The reader often assumes beauty as that is the default in the important characters.
In my WiP my main character can’t be remarkably handsome - good looking yes, but not to the degree people would take note.
Choose whatever works in your story. Are your characters beautiful or ordinary? A mixture? Perhaps they have some handsome traits.
I was describing a character to my cousin - barely got started. I told him her hair colour and he told me ‘sounds hot’. Okay - he filled in a few blanks but that is fine. It is part of the fun of reading - creating an image in our minds eye of the characters.
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It'll depend pretty heavily on what type of story you're telling and what type of readership you're aiming for. Generic sex appeal does different things in different context:
- In a romance, they can help a love interest feel more appealing -- but, if it's poorly done, the whole romance might feel cookie-cutter and forced by the author.
- In erotica, you're generally assuming the reader is looking for sexiness, and pretty often the characters are mostly reader-inserts and wish-fulfillment -- so sexiness is pretty much a given.
- In mass-market thrillers, good looks are often part of a larger parcel meant to signal competence, heroism, an uncomplicated adventure.
- In literary melodrama, those same tropes may be a source of horror or trauma, or the tropes may be deconstructed into something entirely different.
So there's no one answer; you need to understand what conventions you're working within, what goals you're working towards, and what reader expectations you're up against.
But I will say this: if you don't feel that good, Greek-god looks are what's right for your story, then I wouldn't try to force them in. If your feeling is "Argggh, okay, fine, I guess he's pretty sexy, are you happy now" -- and it well might be! -- that'll probably come across in your writing, and it's hard to imagine how that can be a good thing :P
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