Character descriptions in 1st person POV

[HollyB]

Back with yet another question...

In a first person narrative, how do you describe your narrator without resorting to cliche (such as looking in a mirror)? Do I have to do it at all?

Is it different for a short story versus novel?

Thanks. In the 1st person POV short stories I've been working on, I haven't described my narrator at all, and a beta reader asked me about it. It hadn't occurred to me to do so!

Thanks.

[maestrowork]

Sometimes it's not necessary -- let the readers imagine what your protag looks like. You do have to give some sort of information such as gender, age, etc. but if the hair or eye color or weight and height are not important to the story, IMHO there's no need to mention to the readers.

Age, gender or race can easily be established in many non-intrusive ways:

- direct: My name is James, and in all of my 32 years as a stubborn Irish cop, I've never seen anything like this.
- dialogue, as described by someone else: "Hey James," he said,"Happy 5-0! You old dog."
- indirect: I tugged at my name tag, the word "James" written in bold letters, and realized no one had called me Jimmy since I left Dublin thirty years ago.



If you must describe the protag, choose the pertinent information and give it out as soon as it's needed. For example: I run a finger along the scar of my face, thinking back on the accident.

[Jamesaritchie]

I don't describe my narrator. Why would I want to do that? If you want to show your narrator is tall, have him reach something high up. If you want to show he's handsome or she's beautiful, have heads turn and people flirt.

I hate narrator descriptions in first or third person writing. They almost always get in the way of the story, and they take away the reader's imagination. Let the reader imagine the narrator looks just like them.

[maestrowork]

But do they turn people's heads because:

1) they look like quasimodo?
2) they look like Fabio?
3) they look like Kerry in a leather harness?

[Jamesaritchie]

"But do they turn people's heads because:

1) they look like quasimodo?
2) they look like Fabio?
3) they look like Kerry in a leather harness?"

I think this is pretty simple to get across, but I don't even want to think about Kerry at all, let alone in a leather harness. Talk about nightmares.

[HConn]

1) they look like quasimodo?
2) they look like Fabio?
3) they look like Kerry in a leather harness?

That depends on whether they turn their heads and--

1) curl their lips in disgust
2)giggle into their hands, or
3)begin posting frantic messages to freerepublic.com.

:grin

[evanaharris]

I agree with James' assesment. I rarely do descriptions, unless I can just slip it in without anyone noticing it. I find most descriptions overlong and boring, like a list of traits, and it does *me* no good, because I always picture whoever I picture in my mind when I read it. Why clutter it up with constant references to "His hair was brown" when the guy I see in my head when reading it very obviously has blonde hair.

However, I think Raymond Chandler did it best in the first paragraph of The Big Sleep:

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

And that's all you get from Phillip Marlowe, P.I. throughout the entire book. Look at how much he tells you without telling you.

First and foremost: He doesn't normally look like this. Being "neat, clean, shaved and sober" is an event for him. So you know his default appearance right off the bat.

Secondly: Since this is a pulp novel, you know right away that the hero's going to have a hard jaw and a little bit of stubble. That's a given. But you know from his line "I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be", that when it comes down to it, Marlowe can take care of business.

You find out later that Marlowe really IS a catch with the ladies, in much the way that James points out. After depositing one drunk sister who's just spent the better half of the hour trying to get into his pants off at her house, he comes back to his apartment and finds the younger sister naked, in bed. "The Sternwood girls were giving me both barrels tonight..."

If you're good, the reader will figure these things out without you having to tell them.

[Writing Again]

First off, we are talking short fiction here. If you are talking hard print economy of words is a must. Ezines may or may not be a little more lax, I've never dealt with them.

The same rule fits your character's description as fits any other description in the story. Keep it strictly to what is pertinent. In a novel you can show character just to show character if it holds the reader's interest. In a short story you can't waste the words.

If you choose well you can make a single feature do double work. White hair indicates both hair color and age. If at all possible make it a feature that plays a part in the story. An overweight detective might have trouble catching the bad guy who is running, could survive a fall that would break a skinny guy's back, might be able to hold down a perp even though he was tied and gagged just by rolling over on them and applying his weight.

Make sure your beta reader reads and enjoys short stories. Many people prefer novels because they do not like the brevity of short stories: the lack of description, backstory, etc.

[jwschnarr]

Have to agree there.

I generally don't give anything to description, and when i do it's the one or two things you're really going to notice on someone. A t-bar moustache, or a fake arm.

The reader will only gloss over your descriptive prose anyway, so why not allow them the chance to come up with their own character images?

Does the main characters shirt REALLY need to be red when it could just as easily be blue (or some other colour your reader prefers?)

the truth is, it doesn't folks read mainly for dialogue and action (with the occasional stop to appreciate a good sentence or two) hence the "show don't tell" rule and the "make good dialogue great" rule.

Reflecting back on a story they'll fill in all the blanks, such as the guy with the handlebar moustache must be a tall dude with red hair (doesn't matter if he was or not originally) and the guy with a fake limb looks a lot like this person that the reader went to school with in 6th grade.

See the idea? In his "On Writing", Stephen King wrote a perfect example of this exact idea relating to a mouse in a cage with a number 8 painted on it's back.

Everything else is just dressing.

B.

[John Ravenscroft]

The reader will only gloss over your descriptive prose anyway, so why not allow them the chance to come up with their own character images?

Exactly.

The pictures the reader builds as s/he reads are made up of the words on the page plus bits and bobs for Reader's life experience. If you give Reader enough info to make a character come to life, s/he will build a much sharper picture (and a much more personal one) than you could ever deliver.

As long as the image Reader builds of your character doesn't clash with any of your intentions in the story, you're in a win-win situation.

I've always thought that giving a detailed character description is pointless - unless there's something about the way your character looks that is really vital to the story.

And even then, it's better to get that info across via show rather than tell.

[jdparadise]

You can do it by way of comparison to the narrator character:

Her hair was shorter than mine, and much neater. Of course, she probably didn't run six blocks to catch up with a bus on the way to work.

You can also do it through action:
I scratched the scruff on my chin to cover the fact that I hadn't the faintest idea what to say.

I like to try to blend, blend, blend as much as possible, in any POV. Just a little bit of description, blended into the flow of things, and let the reader do the rest of the work (unless it's critical to give a more full description, for whatever reason). Doesn't make it the -right- way, but I rarely have critters complain they don't know what my characters look like.