Write what you know.

[dameboudicca]

You know, that advise you get all the time. It has some truth to it (especially if not taken to literally).

But what do you do if you suffer from prosopagnosia (facial blindness), when you couldn't describe the face of someone you knew if your life depended on it even? If you are incapable of reading facial expressions (at least, if they are not really exaggerated). Does that mean you have to write stories about faceless beings who never shows the slightest hint of an expression on their faces? It would be all right if your character had the same condition, but if you don't want that...?

This is not just a question out of idle curiosity, I have these problems, and so far I have avoided it by using generic descriptions (put together from stuff I've read), but it feels a bit like cheating (no, no, not word-by-word, of course not - but still!) - and I'm terrified someone will, eventually, see through it. After all, I know it's fake!

Or, do I have no choice but to continue as I do now?

[somewhat cross-posted]

Comments

[lea_hazel]

There are a lot of ways to describe a character's emotions. Body language, tone of voice, language. As you said, trying to describe something you've never seen will probably end up sounding stilted, but you don't have to describe facial expressions to create a rich and evocative text. There is also environmental symbolism, if you swing that way.

And don't worry, there are thousands of authors who don't have prosopagnosia, whose descriptions still sound like they were copied from books they read.

[dameboudicca]

Thank you!

At the moment I have kept my descriptions to a bare minimum, and knowing my own weakness I have tried just what you mentioned - body language, voice et c (after all, that is what I myself use to understand people). I don't mind writing something a bit different from everyone else (that should be a good thing after all!), I just don't want to come across as TOO odd - odd in a way that would be a hindrance to the reader's understanding of my story!