Customization isn't always necessary?

Hi everyone. I just wanted to see how others feel about character customization in stories because maybe I’m just being picky. While I love when I can customize my character to look however I want, I think it’s a waste of time when there’s details throughout the story that refers to the default character before I customized them. For example, I’m African American so I usually make my characters darker skinned. I think its so annoying when the parents are white by default or my hand holding a phone is white by default, or if there’s a picture of the original characters somewhere throughout the story and they look nothing like my customized character. I personally think that if you’re an author and you have a specific way you want your character to look, then don’t allow customization. I just don’t get why allow customization when there are 10 art scenes that show how the original characters look. As a reader, I would see it as a bit of a disconnect between the character I created and the one theyre referring to (idk if that makes sense). But maybe its just me? I really don’t care if I get to customize the main character, what matters to me is if the story is good. And if I do customize my character, at least let me customize my parents and cellphone hands or whatever so everything matches up.

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if i got cc in my story i try not to talk about looks. because its i will ruin the story for people if a say your ocen blue eyes. and the reader have made them brown. also why i dont think there should be cc in stories with art scenes cause they ruin it too

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Maybe people should just put a warning in the beginning. For example : Warning! This character’s original looks will be referred to often during the story. There will also be art scenes that refer to their original looks. If you are okay with that, than customize to your liking. If not, please hit “I’m done.”

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I don’t like using customization that much. So I use limited cc with my main characters so that readers can change certain features only. I’ve only used one full cc but that is in an unpublished story and it’s for the friends and supporting characters. The main characters and family have limited cc for the reader to choose from.

I was obsessed with it at some point.
I wouldn’t read stories with MC’s or LI’s that had some features I didn’t like.
Yes, I was that petty.
But after a certain point I realised that authors can portray their characters however they want.
If there is CC on a story I will use it, but even if there isn’t I will read the story.
You can add Limited CC that works pretty good for people that don’t like certain features but can accept a certain hair color, eye color, skin tone etc.
But authors have the right to make their characters however they like, and it must be unmotivating to them to get comments calling their characters ugly.

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You can use limited customization, like in my story. I don’t like art scenes at all.

I see where your going with this, but from my favorite authors they always complain about the readers bugging the authors about customization

i get what youre saying, that can disrupt the flow of the story. i dont think authors should put cc if they literally plan to add things in their story that show the original character. obviously they have a set look in mind and just put cc for the reads. they have to be mindful of the readers experience ? for my story i was gonna show a magazine cover with the mc on it, but since i made him cc, i decided against it because he wont look the same for some people. and i added options for hand colors. like yeah its an extra step but its not that difficult, you dont even have to add ALL the colors, just a light, medium, and dark tone will do the trick. i was gonna show his parents as well, but i dont feel like dealing with more customization coding so im gonna just not show them lol. if authors dont wanna be mindful, the LEAST they could do is warn you that there will be references to their design of the character.

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I feel like the solution is pretty simple: have a default MC and say that if the reader doesn’t want to CC, they can play with the default MC. If they do wanna CC, they can go through all the motions with choosing how they look, overlays, and all that jazz. Also I think art scenes are really unnecessary and drawn out, but that’s a topic for another day.

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Hello @Shaid8432, this is Sydney the moderator. Welcome to the forum. :smiley: Moved this to Episode Fan Community since Community is for discussion of specific stories. Make sure to check out our Forum Tutorial for more info about where to correctly create topics, and feel to PM me if there are any questions. :wink:

For me, I mainly read stories where I can customize the main character because I feel more involved and connected that way but in my story which is my first one… I allow the readers to customize themselves but I give a warning beforehand so they know I’m using art based on the original look I gave the character. I haven’t published mine yet but I just finished the third chapter yesterday so for now I’m proofreading.

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