We all want our characters to be special, unique, stand out from the crowd. And often writers attempt to achieve this, in part, by giving them “piercing” or “soulful” or “wide” eyes of a lovely shade of blue, ice, green, violet, hazel, etc. Basically any color except that plain old brown.
But if you were given a peek into the slushpile, you would be a bit embarrassed to realize by giving your character such special eyes, you’ve actually made them quite ordinary. If we were to postulate eye color statistics based off of characters in submissions, the world would be made up of mostly green and blue-eyed persons with a good chunk of beauteous hazel/violet-eyed gals in one corner and steely, silver/amber-eyed hunks in another. (There would also be a looot of white people, but that’s a post for another day.)
I may sound like a broken record at this point, but write with awareness. Don’t default to the easy way. Your character’s uniqueness should not be shown through their eye color but rather through the situation they are in (the plot) and how they handle it. Their looks are a part of who they are, but not what makes them stand out. Their appearance should be realistic, for many reasons, number one so many different readers can relate to them.
This is not a rule, just a suggestion to consider. Unless their eye color is super important to the story (for example Alanna’s violet eyes in the Song of the Lioness series. Her magic is purple to match, and the blue-eyed prince’s magic is blue) consider defaulting to brown, especially when there are many characters in the story. Because brown eyes can still be attractive, unique, special, windows to the soul, etc. (full discloser, my eyes are brown). And because statistics.
Percentage of eye color in the world according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology:
- brown 55%
- blue 8%
- hazel 8%
- green 2%
- silver (rare)
- amber (quite rare)
- violet (extremely rare)
TWO PERCENT OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION HAS GREEN EYES. Something to think about. *While we are at it, two percent are red heads too. So that gorgeous green-eyed woman with the rich red hair? Reconsider. (I’m looking at you, romance writers!)
Love to hear opinions on this, agree, disagree?
Sami
November 10, 2023 at 4:00 amAnd the topic of whiteness is definitely relevant. I actually used to think green eyes are more common than blue because of the amount I saw (even though I often forget people’s eyes colours). But I never saw brown as “plain” and find them to be equally beautiful to any other eye colour. I wish there was a comprehensive list of fantasy books where the main character had dark features.
Season C
April 14, 2021 at 7:55 pmOr, you could not mention eye color at all! Because it’s such a cliché, and not a real indicator of character.
Steva
February 23, 2021 at 10:51 amYeah, but a lot of red-haired REAL people have green or blue eyes, mostly green. Because when gen mutate in hair it involves eyes too.
Flavia deJesus
June 6, 2020 at 8:07 pmThroughout my life I have seen many animation films, cartoon series and fiction books in general, and I can confirm the excessive overuse of red-haired and green-eyed female characters in popular culture as a whole in the last 30 years. See, I have nothing against redheaded characters. The problem is that the authors want the characters to sound so unique and special because they have the rarest hair and eye color that ends up becoming banal and uninspired, after all , all the female heroines or love interest are red-haired now. I would simply like to see more brunette, Latin and black characters in the center of the stage. Blondes have had their glory years in the past, ginger is at its peak now, but it needs to rest.
Rob bienke
June 13, 2017 at 2:01 amI disagree with the eye colors. The fact we are talking about fiction sets worlds apart from what we are accustomed to seeing. The point of fantasy and sci-if is to create New possibilities. New experiences. What’s wrong with having a world where everyone is sexy for a change? Or everyone has green eyes and red hair on planet Jasper. Who cares. It makes an interesting read and opens up new ideas. Especially in sci-fi fantasy, there are no rules. If you’re story is good and original, I say go for any character you wish to have. Or characters. This is why I refer to fantasy as Epic. It can be the wildest of ideas. Maybe there is a blue eyed moron born on planet Jasper that destroys their perfect idea of their race. There are no limits. I and many others have seen best seller novels with the dumbest titles, concepts, thousands of adverbs and extremely cliche scenarios, run on sentences and extreme paragraph jumps to random topics. Yet the moment aspiring authors present an idea it’s shot down. Has the world gone mad? I think so.
Mary C. Moore
June 13, 2017 at 1:45 pmFreedom of opinion is fine, this post about eye color is simply a reminder to not default to character descriptions, but choose their development with awareness.
Sami
November 10, 2023 at 3:56 amSome people do care and not everyone finds light/white features prettier. I sure don’t. I want more protagonists with dark, beautiful and mysterious features. And with the amount of books filled with green/blue eyes, I want to see a change. And fantasy worlds have nothing to do with eye colours. And having green eyes is a reality rather than a fantasy feature which would be more like red or yellow eyes, or even black since nobody actually has black eyes.
Maureen Marshall
May 22, 2017 at 5:36 pmI beta read a lot of writers’ works and I find so many characters with emerald green eyes it’s spooky. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them in real life. Probably look possessed!
Mary C. Moore
May 23, 2017 at 2:18 pmOr a whole lotta contacts are being worn. 🙂
Erin M. M. Solomon
May 21, 2017 at 8:21 pmI was born with red hair and blue eyes. Now I have copper brown with blue-green eyes. My character has a blood red auburn hair with green eyes. I’d like to think I put a bit of myself in her. That being said, the trait in my book is rare and the rest of my characters have an amalgamation of colors whether it’s hair, skin or eye color. I was sick of reading about mainly white people (even though I’m white), so I tried to present a good amount of diversity. Especially since I’m a historian and realize that in a fantasy bronze age style book, most people would be tanned from being out of doors, if they had the melanin.
Karen Yakey
September 22, 2016 at 12:47 pmLoved this post, because it’s so timely for me and made me pause. Never before have I resorted to any eye color infatuation within my stories . . . until my latest project. But I can at least offer up some justification for it: Most of all, it goes back to the “genealogy” idea mentioned previously, because this book is the first in a series, launching into familial generations to follow. Add to that: One main character is stuck behind a mask and, when his appearance is later revealed, it’s those bright green eyes that serve as a heightened form of identification. His love interest: complementary dark green, a “spiritual” tether of sorts. And a secondary character, who will play more prominently as the books progress: Stormy blue-gray, a symbolic reflection of something serious brewing back in that brain. But then a mix of everything else for the others, especially as the supporting cast is composed of multi-cultural characters. Of course, utilizing distinctive colors is all well and good and peachy, but you have to hope you’ve pulled it off in such a way as to avoid the reader eye-roll when those main characters first turn their “piercing” gazes upon each other! 😉
Mary C. Moore
May 23, 2017 at 2:19 pmIt’s great you’re thinking about it!
Diane Mulligan
June 19, 2016 at 5:22 pmThis is so funny. As a reader, the endless stream of red-headed, green-eyed women drives me nuts. In my MS I gave my character red hair–dyed red, not-found-in-nature, crayola-red-crayon red–as a little joke for myself after seeing so many gingers in popular fiction.
Mary C. Moore
June 21, 2016 at 8:48 pmha, that’s funny 🙂
Jenn Makseyn
June 13, 2016 at 4:30 pmWhatever, a lot of women color their hair, I have been a redhead by choice for way longer than I ever had my natural hair color. I also have emerald green eyes, my brother has grass green eyeseyes, my daughter has blue green eyes just lIke my dad.
To hell with these rules you know what your character looks like in your minds eye, don’t let this sort of nonsense to second guess yourself.
Mary C. Moore
June 13, 2016 at 10:39 pmAs I said, it’s not a rule, just something to be aware of when you’re writing your characters. If you know what your characters look like from the getgo and aren’t just throwing in traits without thinking about it, then good for you.
Katherine
June 10, 2016 at 2:11 amI read about more girls with auburn hair as a kid than girls my own race. And I didn’t even know any girls with auburn hair.
Mary C. Moore
June 11, 2016 at 4:32 amExactly!
Hüvös Ferenc
June 9, 2016 at 4:17 pmI have one of my MCs with brown eyes and (light) brown hair. Okay, the other one is blue eyed, blonde haired, but he’s the guy. I never even considered having the girl go with anything, but that more ordinary look. I guess I just wanted it to be realistic, as much as possible, and since she’s not a POV, I needed to make her believable every way I got.
Mary C. Moore
June 9, 2016 at 10:59 pmGood that you thought about it carefully.
Sami
November 10, 2023 at 4:03 amThe part I don’t understand it how brown eyed/brown haired characters are supposed to be seen as more “relatable”? I literally see so many blonde/white people with blue/green eyes that it’s so “ordinary” to me. And in a few Scandinavian countries, it is super ordinary and brown eyes are more unique.
Cyani Black
June 8, 2016 at 1:19 pmI love casts that are beautifully diverse in all aspects from eye color to culture to religion. Imo it gives the world a more realistic, deeper feel. Plus gives the reader so much more to explore than the same-old, same old.
Mary C. Moore
June 9, 2016 at 3:16 amAgreed!
Sarah Worley
June 6, 2016 at 7:25 pmAgreed! Completely! As a brown eyed girl with dark hair, I grew up reading all these books and thinking that I couldn’t get the man, or couldn’t be special. I mean, once I was older I realized that was stupid, but it did get to me as a kid for a while. My mom had green eyes, and I always wished I’d inherited those instead of my dad’s brown.
Mary C. Moore
June 7, 2016 at 9:28 pmThanks for sharing!
Jessica Ireland
June 5, 2016 at 9:48 pmI come from a whole family of blue and green eyes (my uncle has one blue eye and one green eye), but I love brown eyes. They always make me feel warm and safe. I usually try to represent as many different key features as possible, so as not to lean in one singular direction.
Mary C. Moore
June 5, 2016 at 10:41 pmA character with two different colored eyes would definitely be that way for a reason. I’m guessing the reason behind Tyrion’s in GoT will be unveiled at some point. 🙂
Good point about families though. If the eye color is specific to a family genealogy then it would make sense written into the story.
Tammy Gibaud
June 5, 2016 at 9:31 pmBrown. My MC has brown eyes. His best friend has hazel, but brown is the prominent color of my cast of characters. Brown hair as well.
Eye color has nothing to do with my character’s personality. Now, eye expressions is a whole other subject.
Mary C. Moore
June 5, 2016 at 10:39 pmAgreed!