Green Eyes

[raefinlay]

I've been reading the new(ish) Luna line to get a feel for that particular market. Read one that was pretty decent. (C.E. Murphy's Urban Shaman.) Read another that was abysmal. The abysmal one contains the typical hero/heroine in a love/hate relationship. They torment each other verbally while being undeniably drawn together by flaming passion, blah, blah. *has headache from rolling eyes so much* If I read another "sparks" or "moth to flame" metaphor I will spork this book.

Also, the heroine has green eyes. Not only are they green, they are oft-noted whenever the reader is forced to wallow in the hero's POV.

Dude(s). In one of my WIPs, my heroine has green eyes. I didn't do this because it was a cliche. I did it because *I* have green eyes, so I know how to write about them. Color-crayon green. Green that makes people look twice and say, DUDE, you have GREEN eyes. My sister has green eyes. My cousin has the kind of sea-green eyes that make you think about tropical beaches. Green eyes are just...normal. To me.

But reading the abysmal book, I'm getting it. I see why people are so irritated by the green eye thing. Why do so many authors choose this color for attractive heroines? I guess Hitler ruined us for blue. (Unless, of course, the blue eyes are accompanied by dark hair.) And brown is just so...I dunno. Why not brown? Do we still have subconsious, residual issues with brown?

*repaints all characters with brown eyes*

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to be not-commenting, but I also agree with the above -- Luna's first year was really hit-or-miss. Mostly miss. A lot of those novels weren't really fantasy novels (although they claim otherwise on the Luna forums); they were romance novels written as fantasy novels. And I think it showed; a lot of them were fufushishi.

The latest one I have is Michelle Sagara (West)'s Cast in Shadow. I started reading a bit of it, but I'm biased since I've loved all of Michelle's novels so it's hard for me to be objective. I must say though; it's a stark contrast to many of the previous Lunas. The writing is so much tighter than the fushishi ones. I say this because I'd read Annie K's one prior and her style is much... looser and ornate than Michelle's taut style, I suppose.

And Last Rite's Angelline has blue eyes. She's not blond though, so I guess that doesn't really count.

...dude, I don't think I have any blue-eyed blondes. D:

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

...they were romance novels written as fantasy novels.

A while back, (a long while back, I believe) elizabethbear posted a trunked story. It was sci-fi...but only because the setting made it so. She said she trunked it because you could remove the characters and plot from the setting, place them anywhere else, and have basically the same story. (And it was a lovely story, but she was right.)

That's exactly how I feel about the abysmal book. Except, of course, it's not written anywhere near Bear's level.