Describing Characters When Introducing Them

No. Not every author provides a short description. You're working from an incorrect assumption.

Nice description though.

Echo what Mscelina just said. Go look at some actual novels. Not only are a lot of characters not described when introduced, but many novelists don't do a lot of character-describing at all. Like anything else, the description of a character has to fit a story need, not just be there for decoration. And the timing of any description has to fit in a proper place as well, not necessarily right at the entry of the character.

caw

I like the description you wrote. I thought the shrunken heads part was cool.

But how much character description is enough, too little, or too much?

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The best answer I can give you is that if the description isn't interesting to read, then it's too long whether it's a paragraph or a single sentence. There really aren't specific guidelines like "You must write two sentences" or "You must describe the hair and the eyes." It can even vary from genre to genre. A description of a character in a romance novel is very different than one in a mystery novel. In the romance novel, it's being used to help build the romantic image; in a mystery novel, it's being used to help build a suspect list. I remember reading Pippi Longstocking, and the description was used to build how unusual Pippi was. It can do different things, depending on what you want to do with the story.

I also like the shrunken head thing, but it could work much better with the MC observing an interaction. So action instead of just narrating it. For example, if others think that as well and Judy had been reminded again and again, ad naseum, she could either get offended or come up with her own nickname. She could own her appearance and become an instant memorable character with a well-placed bit of dialogue or two.

Just a thought.

Elmore Leonard talked about this in his short book on rules of writing, suggesting that you don't give characters much physical description.

I've tried this.

FWIW, an example: in one of the scenes I'd not said anything about my MC's appearance until her lover brushed her hair out of his face so he could kiss her, indicating that her hair was long.... bla bla bla...anyway... I had some people read the chapter and they said that the lack of physical description wasn't missed.

I was writing it with this "rule" of his in mind.

Even when description of a character is necessary, less tends to be more. A classic example is Rex Stout's famous detective Nero Wolfe. It is important to the stories to know that he is fat, fastidious, and obsessive about wearing yellow shirts. And that's about the only description we get of him, in seventy-some stories.

The best reason for not over-describing characters is that it gives room for the reader to fill in the blanks. I remember having this image in my mind of classic bad-guy actor Sidney Greenstreet (think Maltese Falcon) as Wolfe, not because Stout had made Wolfe look like Greenstreet via description (other than being fat), but because Greenstreet's characteristic fussy acting behavior would so perfectly fit the character. But when a Nero Wolfe mini-series came out a few years ago, the actor who played him looked quite different from my image. It was still a pretty good series, but Greenstreet would have been fabulous in the role. Alas, he is long gone.

caw

The way the description reads, it's like the character is talking to us telling us about this woman. What I'd rather read is the character's internalization about this woman, because that allows me more of a connection with her than a monologue. For example, if you turn it into the character's observation, it feels different:

"She had a new hairdo that resembled a controlled version of electrical shock, everything standing on end, but very uniform. It worsened the situation already created by her incredibly small head and manly shoulders, and in fact, appeared as if she’d vacationed on one of the shrunken head island countries."

jana13k said:

The way the description reads, it's like the character is talking to us telling us about this woman. What I'd rather read is the character's internalization about this woman, because that allows me more of a connection with her than a monologue. For example, if you turn it into the character's observation, it feels different:

"She had a new hairdo that resembled a controlled version of electrical shock, everything standing on end, but very uniform. It worsened the situation already created by her incredibly small head and manly shoulders, and in fact, appeared as if she’d vacationed on one of the shrunken head island countries."

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I second this. The reason this works is because it's not just telling us what character B looks like, it's telling us about character A. How he/she sees the world. Which is far more important in your story than what character B looks like.

The amount of character description varies from genre to genre and also from character to character. You don't need to always devote a paragraph to description, and can trickle description out over several passages.

I've found that at the opening of a story it really helps to make the gender of your pov clear (unless there's a particular reason to hide the gender). It appears to cause particular dissonance to readers if the person they thought was one gender is eventually revealed to be another.

When meeting other characters, I tend to include a very brief description - "a short, grey-haired man", "an ugly little man", "a diminutive but attractive man" and then flesh them out later if their roles requires my pov to look at them in any more detail.

And of course some characters pay very little attention to other character's appearance, while others will care about their clothes, their cleanliness, some other aspect.

It all varies according to the story of the moment.

DwayneA said:

Whenever a new character is introduced in a book, the author always provides a short description.

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I don't. To be honest I only have a very vague notion of how my characters look at all. I know one of my MC's is pretty tall. And I think he has brown hair. Other than that, if it's not relevant to the plot or the character then I leave it out.

But how much character description is enough, too little, or too much?

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Again, it depends. I don't like alot of description. If someone tells me a character is beautiful then i take it as given that they are beautiful. Red hair? Blond hair? Brunette? Fine. Tall? Short? Fat? All fine too. What I don't need is three pages decribing how perfectly smooth and white and sparkly *cough* sorry about that. What was I saying?

Oh yes, too much is when it gets in the way of what you are trying to say.

• Whenever a new character is introduced in a book, the author always provides a short description.

Not true, I’m afraid. The author isn’t in the story, remember. If you stop the action dead just to talk to me about the character's looks, rather than what’s happening in the scene, how can your story feel real to a reader? I don't know about you, but I want to know how the protagonist <i>sees</i> the character. A very different thing. In this, it appears that to the character, what someone looks like is of more importance than who they are, which to me, was a turn-off.

• Judy is one of the strangest looking people I've ever seen in my life

Okay. What does this tell me that’s meaningful to the story? Everything else aside, I have no idea of what the speaker thinks is strange. Her dress? Her walk? Yes, you later tell us what the character thinks is strange, but the confusion is now. Had you simply told the reader what she looks like first, they might decide that she’s strange, without the confusion.

Why I mention it, is that if you bore or confuse a reader for a single line they’re closing the cover. And if they stop reading, does it matter that in what they didn’t read lies the data they needed?

And: “I’ve ever seen” is inclusive of “in my life,” and so, the ending is unnecessary.

I liek a bit of description when a character is introduced, or sometiem shortly thereafter. It should be brief, and there's never a need for it to slow down the story.

Good description has some detail, some memorable bit of show. Generic tell is as boring with description as it is anywhere else.

My favoriet bit of description remains "a big man with a mustache and an opinion."

DwayneA said:

Whenever a new character is introduced in a book, the author always provides a short description. Here's an example of my own that I wrote myself.
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When I went to McDonald's for supper today, I met a familiar face. Waiting to place her order was Judy, a woman I knew from a Get-Together meeting held every last Wednesday of each month at the Partners Office.

Judy is one of the strangest looking people I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exactly sure how old she is, but she's certainly older than me. What's strange about her is her head. It's smaller than mine and if she wasn't a living human being, it could be mistaken for one of those "shrunken heads" sold in some island countries.
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But how much character description is enough, too little, or too much?

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Nice description although I enjoyed it not so much for the description itself but for the glimpse it gave into your MC's thoughts. As others have said, some writers use little or no description and some are lavish with it. It's really very individual.

kurzon said:

I've found that at the opening of a story it really helps to make the gender of your pov clear (unless there's a particular reason to hide the gender). It appears to cause particular dissonance to readers if the person they thought was one gender is eventually revealed to be another.

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Boy, does it! Age, appearance, anything else but gender--I can adapt. But it's very hard to adapt when you've gotten the gender wrong.

My own pet peeve is the author's telling me how attractive the person is. I want to see the character interacting with others; if he or she is unusually beautiful or ugly, maybe you need to say. Maybe. Otherwise, as a reader, I imagine everyone as kind of goodlooking, unless told otherwise. Not movie-star gorgeous, but pretty nice-looking.

DwayneA said:

Whenever a new character is introduced in a book, the author always provides a short description. Here's an example of my own that I wrote myself.
********************************************************
When I went to McDonald's for supper today, I met a familiar face. Waiting to place her order was Judy, a woman I knew from a Get-Together meeting held every last Wednesday of each month at the Partners Office.

Judy is one of the strangest looking people I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exactly sure how old she is, but she's certainly older than me. What's strange about her is her head. It's smaller than mine and if she wasn't a living human being, it could be mistaken for one of those "shrunken heads" sold in some island countries.
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But how much character description is enough, too little, or too much?

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Take notes on how some of your favorite authors introduce their characters I'm sure you'll find they all differ.

DwayneA said:

But how much character description is enough, too little, or too much?

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I write a loooong list of their features. Like this:

When I went to McDonald's for supper today, I met a familiar face. Waiting to place her order was Judy, a woman I knew from a Get-Together meeting held every last Wednesday of each month at the Partners Office.

Judy is shortish. But not really short. Just kinda short like a shorter person. She has brown hair, but not really dark. Kinda like the color of my desk, not the paneling in the den. Also she's old. Not really old like my grandma, but older than me with lines on her forehead and boobies that are starting to sag. She has two knees and two elbows and says the funny bone only works on one of them. I like her knees. They make me feel funny. Not like a clown funny, but like I just drank a whole Coke then got on a roller coaster and practiced kissing my arm--with tongue. Judy wears bright orange dresses. They clash with her eyes and her lipstick. Plus it gets on her teeth. Her lipstick, not her eyes. In spring she wears a yellow cardigan. It matches her teeth. Her legs are hairy. I like to count the hairs. Sometimes it's an even number, sometimes it's odd. She drives a Honda and owns an angry cat named Mr. Sugarmuffinickypoo.

I like cats, but I can't eat a whole one.

That's how you should do description.

bonitakale said:

My own pet peeve is the author's telling me how attractive the person is. I want to see the character interacting with others; if he or she is unusually beautiful or ugly, maybe you need to say. Maybe. Otherwise, as a reader, I imagine everyone as kind of goodlooking, unless told otherwise. Not movie-star gorgeous, but pretty nice-looking.

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How other characters react to other characters is a good way to get the reader to picture if someone is gorgeous, just pleasant-looking, or not-so-gifted with looks. So-called "beautiful people" get the world handed to them and niceties abound. People watch what they say and kiss ass. With a person seen as not so good looking, tongues may not be held as much and service may be hard to get.

Anyone who aims to offer something refreshing to readers should try to find different ways to paint a picture in the reader's minds than simply telling them about their awesome dirty blonde hair (dirty blonde cause it's different than just normal blonde, get it? ORIGINAL! [sarcasm) and stunning (insert noun and/or adjective here) blue eyes.

I don't see any problem with fitting some descriptions into the introduction, if it doesn't stop the plot moving. We do that with settings, so why not characters? As long as you do it well.

And I think your passage reads just fine.

DwayneA said:

Whenever a new character is introduced in a book, the author always provides a short description. Here's an example of my own that I wrote myself.
********************************************************
When I went to McDonald's for supper today, I met a familiar face. Waiting to place her order was Judy, a woman I knew from a Get-Together meeting held every last Wednesday of each month at the Partners Office.

Judy is one of the strangest looking people I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exactly sure how old she is, but she's certainly older than me. What's strange about her is her head. It's smaller than mine and if she wasn't a living human being, it could be mistaken for one of those "shrunken heads" sold in some island countries.
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But how much character description is enough, too little, or too much?

Click to expand...

I like the shrunken heads part, too. How much description to give is up to you, and you can't please everyone. Personally, I like it when authors give a decent description of their characters; I need that description, and I want to know along the lines of how the author envisions the character(s). I don't need a lot of detail, but enough to draw a good picture in my mind.

I've seen different amounts of description from different authors, so do what's best for your novel.

I am not sure I would call this describing a character as much as fleshing out a character's character.

Why?

The example gives a biased description of a person the protag is observing, and therefore is more an example of the protag's character than a true description, rather snarky.

I think it works well in this context...

I only describe a character when it is relevant. I try to use as much of the readers own preconceptions as possible, so they can make it their own story more. It speeds up reading for the reader and means that I can skip bits that don't matter. When writing, it does create somewhat of an abstract image of white spots on the map, but I think it makes for a better story. Ivanhoe-type descriptions I think slow down stories way too much. It's just boring to read, and above all redundant.

Erotica authors are among the worst offenders here. It's also baffling, since one would have thought that in, more than any other genre, erotica is about the reader's own sexual fantasies... not the writers. We just provide a suit the reader can wear when... doing their thing.

One of my WIPs has a mute character and although he takes in a lot, I found characters are not described for 2 pages when they're introduced. He picks up on the details. The grumpy mood of the salesmen, the smell of the harbour, the throbbing pain in his head when he falls and hits his head. I use the way people act and speak as a sort of introduction and leave out the physical characteristics unless they are somehow important.

DwayneA said:

Whenever a new character is introduced in a book, the author always provides a short description. Here's an example of my own that I wrote myself.
********************************************************
When I went to McDonald's for supper today, I met a familiar face. Waiting to place her order was Judy, a woman I knew from a Get-Together meeting held every last Wednesday of each month at the Partners Office.

Judy is one of the strangest looking people I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exactly sure how old she is, but she's certainly older than me. What's strange about her is her head. It's smaller than mine and if she wasn't a living human being, it could be mistaken for one of those "shrunken heads" sold in some island countries.
********************************************************
But how much character description is enough, too little, or too much?

Click to expand...

It says that she's one of the strangest looking people 'I've ever seen in my life' but then you only say that she has a weird head. And it being smaller than the narrator's head is not only a pointless observation (are we supposed to think that the narrator has a very small head?) no one measures their head against other people's head.