Physical Characteristics and Inward Character

[NorthernWhiteFurball]

Is it a good idea to depict a disreputable character in a fictional piece as physically unappealing? For instance, if I am writing about a race-baiter who makes Burris Ewell look like Harriet Beecher Stowe, should I set him as a scrawny, pockmarked runt of a man with some sort of unpleasant birthmark or scar, or is that too obvious especially if there is a plot which reveals him to have committed a crime and framed someone else?

[stephen]

You can do either/or I think. By that I mean: 1) let the reader draw up their own physical description based on the inward character or 2) just describe him however you want.

It ultimately depends on your personal vision, I think.

But as for making it obvious that he's a bad guy...well you probably shouldn't set him up to "look" like a bad guy if you haven't revealed that information early on.

[K.M. Weiland]

It's become almost a cliche to represent unsavory characters as unattractive, but, at the same, this has become a cliche because many nasty people look a certain way. Scars, tattoos, bad haircuts, poor personal hygiene - they can all result from a particular kind of lifestyle and, as a result, we're often programmed to think about people who possess them as also possessing certain traits. As writers, we can play off these expectations or against them. We have more wiggle room for developing unexpected traits in characters who play a prominent role in our stories. But even walk-on characters can be made more interesting with a very subtle details. I usually try to give even characters with small roles at least one unique feature to aid in bringing the scene to life, even if it's just something as small as the unshaven back of his neck.

So let your race-baiter be ugly - but give him at least one good feature. Perhaps he has beautiful eyes?

[Aimless]

... or a beautiful blonde blue-eyed young girl barely into college :o

I've always found this sort of thing to be the most effective when the character in question is depicted as being physically unremarkable. That's just my personal preference, of course--I just don't care for all-too-obvious signals nor do I care much for clichés (such as the bad guy being beautiful, which is probably more common than the bad guys that look like Nosferatu).

Imagine a perfectly ordinary-looking middle-class middle-aged father of two, and then imagine the disgusting look he gets in his eyes when he talks, calmly, about inferior races and all the evil they do, about how they've laid siege to the culture of good, white, Christian folks, about how they hold our nations hostage, how vile they are even towards their own (really, destroying them would be doing them a mercy)... imagine a perfectly ordinary educated person acting as an uncritical mouthpiece for everyone from Hitler to Phelps, filled with anything even resembling passion only when he expresses his fear and loathing.

I dunno, to me that's scary and effective.

I reckon most people are fairly unremarkable in appearance, except when it comes to their passions, their fears, their hatred--and even then only through the filters of other people's minds. Ie. when they're actively being people watched by other people :o

[strawberry-tea]

Sounds like it could easily be shorthand for "this character is evil." A question to ask is: "Why should he be ugly?" If the only reason is to make him look evil, I'd focus on his actual behavior and personality instead. Not to say there couldn't be a good, plot-related reason, but there's no reason to make him ugly if there isn't one.

[NorthernWhiteFurball]

...

Imagine a perfectly ordinary-looking middle-class middle-aged father of two, and then imagine the disgusting look he gets in his eyes when he talks, calmly, about inferior races and all the evil they do, about how they've laid siege to the culture of good, white, Christian folks,

"shudder" sounds like a description of that freak who named his son for Hitler and his daughter for Himmler - but actually he is unemployed with a history of domestic violence despite looking normal on the outside.

[Osamutezuka]

If you wanna make a guy look like a fox, put him with a handsome face and with a evil inner thinking. That will emphasize the personality.
But if you wanna make some misunderstanding to a good guy to look like a bad guy.
Make him look bad but with a kind personality.
So it depends of what you want.