The Way Your Characters Look...

unthoughtknown · Oct 15, 2005

My question: how far do some of you go with imagining what your character looks like?

Do you keep it all in your head?

Or do you resort to magazines (as an example) to find a picture of how your character should look?

I have most of them in my head but then I think to help describe their physical features literally -- that an actual picture would help me more (this is my first WIP btw).

Nicholas S.H.J.M Woodhouse · Oct 15, 2005

it depends on the setting and how relevant their appearance is to the storyline. a father and son with completely different heights, dress sense, hair etc - then i'll physically draw them and refine those drawings.
drawing it out helps.

My-Immortal · Oct 15, 2005

I generally 'see' the characters in my mind and put enough description in the book so that others can imagine them for themselves. Occasionally, I might see an actor/actress etc. that looks enough like one of the characters so that I could see them playing that character if the story ever made it to the big screen, but I don't usually create the characters in that way. They 'appear' in my mind first and the longer they are up there, the more 'real' and developed they become until they seem like a group of old friends (even the villains - lol).

Good luck with your writing!!

ANNIE · Oct 15, 2005

I like to have a clear idea of what they look like, I draw all my main characters after I figure out what they look like in my head

KTC · Oct 15, 2005

I write from the huge group of people wandering around in my head. I know exactly what each of them look like. I try to sprinkle their physical features throughout a story, so that eventually the reader would be able to recognize them on a street corner. Not that all of my characters spend time on a street corner! That kind of came out wrong. I think it's important that the reader can visualize the characters. I never use people in the real world, but I suppose all characters are amalgamations of people you have seen on, hey, street corners!

katdad · Oct 15, 2005

Depends. Most of my recurring principal characters I describe completely so that I can fix them into my mind better. Occasionally they are real people from whom I have borrowed their physical appearance but not their personality.

My principal protagonist, however, is never fully described. This is intentional, as I want him to be imagined in the mind of the reader. We know he's an anglo in his mid 30s, about 5-10, in decent physical condition but by no means an athlete, and that he's okay looking but not handsome. That's about it.
Some characters I describe as looking like a known actor, or similar. But I don't use actual actors as role models or appearance models for my characters, just as comparisons.

azbikergirl · Oct 15, 2005

My characters tell me what they look like, sort of. I have a program that lets me assemble faces from various parts ('jaws' and 'mouths' and 'eyes' etc), and I experiment until I get it right. When it's right, I just know it. Sometimes I'll have most of it right, but the nose is wrong or the eyebrows aren't quite like that, so I'll change until it's close enough. It helps me to have something visual to refer to, but I don't plan to ever 'publish' these renderings.

scfirenice · Oct 15, 2005

My characters tell me too, they yell and scream if I do them wrong. I have never looked at pictures or anything. I just listen to those voices in my head and keep refusing all those psych meds they offer....

Jamesaritchie · Oct 15, 2005

Looks

Nearly all my characters are people I've known, so how they look in my head is the same way the real people look. I try not to describe character in too much detail while writing. Better, I think, to let the reader do that with his own imagination.

Danger Jane · Oct 15, 2005

I keep it in my head and draw them out sometimes...but those aren't for anyone else's eyes, hah. Just so I have something other than a bunch of indistinct bodies doing whatever. I try not to dump a ton of description into the story, at least not all at once. But I'm also really visual...it helps me to figure out what they look like by writing--for myself only--a few paragraphs of pretty dry description. I throw it away afterwards, because it's not exactly something you need reference on, but the writing is the important part. Usually I know what my cahracters look like pretty well.

Bufty · Oct 15, 2005

Jamesaritchie said:
Nearly all my characters are people I've known, so how they look in my head is the same way the real people look. I try not to describe character in too much detail while writing. Better, I think, to let the reader do that with his own imagination.

I am unpublished, but I agree. One young girl, while telling me about one of my characters whom she loved in particular, described him back to me as being clothed completely differently to how I had described him! :Shrug:

brinkett · Oct 15, 2005

I have a very fuzzy idea of what my characters look like and never describe them in great detail. However, sometimes when I'm out riding the bus or shopping, I'll see someone and think, "OMG, she's got so-and-so's hair!" or "That's what so-and-so would look like!"

FolkloreFanatic · Oct 15, 2005

I know what they would look like if I saw them IRL, but I usually leave the details up to the reader, except in YA and fantasy stories (there you really ought to be descriptive to save decades of arguing on the offchance that work becomes well-read). In standard thriller stories, I'll possibly make a vague reference to a recognizable face and make fun of a character for possessing some of the same traits, maybe even stipular that their hair is dark or light in some subtle fashion, but I leave the rest up to the reader. I know that when I read a limited-POV story, I liketo pretend I'm that character, and it makes it more difficult if I know he/she has a giant carrot-top for hair or stands six feet tall.

Darin C. Bradley · Oct 15, 2005

brinkett said:
I have a very fuzzy idea of what my characters look like and never describe them in great detail. However, sometimes when I'm out riding the bus or shopping, I'll see someone and think, "OMG, she's got so-and-so's hair!" or "That's what so-and-so would look like!"

I'm with brinkett -- I generally only fix hair and eye color and the angularity of features (soft jowled, catlike, etc.). I keep notes if someone has something distinctive like affronted eyebrows or a cleft chin. Oddly, I tend to pay more attention to what the characters are wearing at a given time than how they might be defined physically.

I have a hard enough time calling up the specific features of people I actually know in my head -- my characters never really get the chance to become more than apparitions.

inanna · Oct 15, 2005

I agree with those who said they like to let readers fill in the blanks. Ironically, as a reader, I usually find that the more detail an author uses to describe a character, the harder it is for me to picture them--it pulls me out of the story as I stop to try and put the puzzle pieces together. As a writer, the more detail I use to describe my characters, the more it feels like that "laundry list" syndrome I hate so much.

I think characters come to life in readers' minds when you give them a few key visuals and let them make the rest up on their own.

Maryn · Oct 15, 2005

What Face-Assembling Program?

azbikergirl said:
My characters tell me what they look like, sort of. I have a program that lets me assemble faces from various parts ('jaws' and 'mouths' and 'eyes' etc), and I experiment until I get it right. When it's right, I just know it. Sometimes I'll have most of it right, but the nose is wrong or the eyebrows aren't quite like that, so I'll change until it's close enough. It helps me to have something visual to refer to, but I don't plan to ever 'publish' these renderings.

I don't know that I'd use it for my writing, but this program sounds like fun. Can you tell us its name (and maybe what you paid for it, where you downloaded it, or anything else that might matter)?

Maryn, whose Cosmopolitan Makeover program won't run on XP (although Mr. Maryn didn't make a very pretty girl in Windows 98 anyway)

Saanen · Oct 15, 2005

I rarely describe more of my main character than height and maybe hair color and length. I let the reader fill in everything else unless there's a physical component of the character that's important to the plot. Any other characters the MC comes in contact with get described mostly in relation to the MC--taller or shorter than him/her, attractive/unattractive to him/her, etc. I try and keep a really light touch on character descriptions--unless, of course, I'm describing an alien being or a dragon or something, and then the reader has to know details. But even then I try and keep the descriptions brief and to the point.

Renatus · Oct 15, 2005

I usually have a good idea of what my characters look like down to skin, eye, and hair color, height and build, and general manner of dress. Some characters I can see in more specific detail, but I never put a full description in the writing; I may mention a detail here and there as it comes up or if it is somehow important, but otherwise I'm vague because I know it's more fun to see characters in one's own way, rather than have the writer tell exactly how they look down to the smallest tiresome detail. When I encounter long, tiresome character descriptions I always feel like I'm being forced onto a very small mental path, and I wouldn't want to do that to a reader.

Sometimes I try to draw them. My skills aren't always up to the task, and sometimes the characters prove elusive to capture on paper. I don't let that bother me, since I really see more of their minds than their outsides. *g* It doesn't really matter if I don't know what shape their nose is or if their teeth are crooked if I really know who they are. Any window dressing that turns out to be important usually comes up on its own in the writing.

I only have one project where I try to capture the character as exactly as I can when I draw them, because the artwork is integral for it. I've planned it as sort of an illustrated online novel... well, I could natter on about it but since there isn't anything to show yet, I won't bore everyone!

scarletpeaches · Oct 15, 2005

I usually have a particular 'look' in mind for my characters, blonde, brunette or whatever, height, weight, etc, but other than that, I leave it up to the reader. If, in the telling of their story, their looks are briefly described, so be it, but you can't do all of your reader's work for him. They need to use their minds too. Often I have been reading a book and the character's looks are described, but by that time I already have a contradictory picture of that person in my head. A lot of the time it's best to concentrate on the character, rather than the outer shell, i.e. face, height, weight.

Sage · Oct 15, 2005

Wow, I've always worried that I don't provide enough physical description in my stories, especially on things like characters, which I had always thought needed to be described so that the person sees them the same way you do. This thread will probably help me stop worrying about it. I mean, I will still make an effort to describe things, but now I see that even other authors feel that some things should be left up to the imagination. I've certainly got enough description of my main characters already that I feel that I can just stop worrying about them.

Of course, I say this, & now I'll find another reason to describe some aspect of them at another point of the story. :Smack:

SC Harrison · Oct 15, 2005

As a reader, I've never really enjoyed too much physical description with characters or settings. It may be that I am mildly ADD, but excessive visual details take my concentration off of whatever conflict is moving the story.

I believe we all have easily accessible images stored in our memory, from things we have actually seen. With a small amount of description, these stock images will pop into our head (whether we want them to or not). The more a writer details the scene (or person), the more we have to rearrange what we think we are seeing. It may get to a point where we can no longer even "see" where the story is taking place, or the characters who are supposed to be there.

I can vividly picture the characters I write about in my own head. Many have facial features very similar to people I know or have seen in movies or tv; seeing their faces helps me make them more real. Even if I wanted to describe them in minute detail (which I usually don't), I'm not sure if I could even pull it off. As others have stated, I'd rather spend my time shaping a unique personality that will help drive the narrative.

Steve

Sage · Oct 15, 2005

Yes, one of the reasons I obsess so much about adding physical description & feeling like I don't do it enough, is that when I read, & I get into a section of really long description, I just kinda skim it & get on to the action & dialogue. It never occurred to me that others probably do that too, so maybe there was such a thing as too much description. I just assumed that I felt inadequate about it because I personally didn't take the time to experience reading it as thoroughly as other parts of a book.

SC Harrison · Oct 15, 2005

I'm sure if someone were to critique my writing, my lack of imagery and description would probably be mentioned. I'm still kinda feeling my way around with it. The thing is, I'd rather keep it minimal than get it wrong. I also do some skipping when I read an overly descriptive passage, and I have a feeling it's more complex than some would think. I've read posts from many who believe the more the better, so the reader can "see" what the author sees. I'm not really sure I want that. I want them to see something that makes the story more real for them personally; if it doesn't strike a chord, the music won't play.

I don't know what that last part was about. My stupid analogy machine has been acting up all day, spitting out inappropriate references like a manic-depressive teen. There goes another one! I'm just going to turn it off.

AdamH · Oct 15, 2005

I imagine in my head what I'd like them to look like but generally keep the description to a minimum unless it's relevant. I figure that it gives a reader the freedom to imagine what they think they look like.

unthoughtknown · Oct 16, 2005

Sage said:
Wow, I've always worried that I don't provide enough physical description in my stories

Yes, me too ;-)

I'm really glad I posted this topic.

Aside from the basics, I am going to leave it up to the reader then.

(Have I already mentioned this forum is a godsend?)

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