Unschool for Writers

Unschool for Writers

A Perennial Question: to describe your character... or not

Thanks, Gina! Bring on the questions...

Alison Acheson's avatar
Alison Acheson
Jul 18, 2025
∙ Paid
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Photo by Finn Heraghty on Unsplash

Gina asked about this. It’s a question worthy of a full post.

Her words:

I have a question for you that came out of a discussion members of my critique group had and wondered if you'd care to comment or put it out to the larger group. What are the current trends for MG and YA in regard to physical description of a character, like race and gender? Several of us are writing main characters without a lot of physical description... maybe traits, yes... but not outward appearances so much. Thanks for your thoughts.

~~~

The question is about MG/YA, but we can go beyond and let’s discuss in the comments.

Trying to build to a sustainable point here; please consider going paid. Thank you SO MUCH to those who have!

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