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Physical Descriptions of Characters

Titus

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Hi there!

I am writing a novel but I never really know how much physical description of characters I need, especially the main character. I know I'll have to add more back in as I edit, but what is the best way to physically describe characters?
 

starrystorm

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It depends on the author. Some don't put any description in and let the readers choose. Some choose to go with body, eyes, hair.... I say only describe what's important As for me, the hair in my world was unique to the setting, so that was the only thing I really described except for scars.
 

WeaselFire

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Does the physical description matter? Is it important that he's big and overpowering? Does she need to be seductive? Will he shave that stupid mustache off in chapter 11? If it matters for the story, put it in.

Otherwise, readers will see the character they think it should be. They'll assign specific attributes based upon their reading and cultural norms. Tell someone a girl is young but wise or slim but not muscular and they'll fill in the blanks. Tell them the guy is ex-military and they'll see a different character than a retired baker. In fact, the biggest disappointment for many is that a movie character does not match their vision of the literary character (Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher...).

Jeff
 

BethS

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There's no rule. There's only what fits with your style, voice, and character viewpoint.

Speaking for myself, as not only a writer but a reader, I prefer some character description, because otherwise it's like watching people move around with entirely blank faces and unknown physical characteristics. My imagination will attempt to fill in that empty space but with no cues, what I see will keep changing. And also--it seems strange and inconsistent to me that some writers will take the trouble to describe the setting but not the people in it.

That said, you don't want to overdo. The descriptions should be more than a laundry list of characteristics (she was tall, with red hair and green eyes); instead, they should do some characterizing. The tall redhead could be of the opinion that she's taller than most men she knows, or think of her own hair as "harlot red." Or someone else could observe that about her. So you have to keep in mind what the viewpoint character is thinking or noticing, either about themselves or someone else. And if you're trying to describe a character from within his or her POV, you have to be careful that it comes across as natural. (Not, "I swept my long, blonde hair behind my shoulders." Because nobody thinks that way.)

in short, make the descriptions interesting and when possible make them say something beyond the obvious.
 
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Marian Perera

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A few thoughts on physical description...

1. Suit the description to the genre. Some genres call for more of it than others. The style of description may also vary with the genre.

2. It's usually better to work description gradually into the narrative than present it in a paragraph upfront when a character is introduced, especially because the paragraph is probably going to have too many details. If readers are told that a character has long wavy auburn hair, eyes the color of ice, pale skin, freckles across a narrow nose, a firm mouth and a stubborn chin, the readers will probably tune out before the description drifts down to the character's body.

3. On that note, don't feel you have to describe everyone, or even that you have to describe everyone the same way, e.g. providing hair color and eye color for every character. Sometimes, a single unusual and well-chosen detail works better. I can't tell you the color of Quasimodo's eyes, but I know he has a humped back, and that's far more important.

4. Don't try too hard to make your descriptions sound exciting. I'd rather read that your character has blue eyes than that your character has sapphire eyes.

5. If your character is describing himself or herself, anything like "I braided my blonde hair" will make me mentally add, "Then I put my brown hair in a ponytail, but I left my red hair loose." Make the description natural, in other words. If someone's had blonde hair all their life, they're probably not going to look in a mirror and think, "Hey, I have blonde hair."

6. Consider context. A character's drunken father is hitting her and she notices that his brown eyes are bloodshot. In the middle of a beating, is she really going to think about the color of someone's eyes?

Hope this helps!
 
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D. E. Wyatt

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To expand on what Beth mentions about POV, I try to avoid describing my characters when they're the POV. YOU know what you look like, so why would you bother describing yourself in your head (caveat: if there's some noteworthy change the character is specifically looking at IE a scar or injury they're inspecting, they're dressing and considering their wardrobe, etc.)? Whenever possible, I try to give my first description of a character from the POV of someone who is seeing them for the first time, because that's exactly who WOULD notice a "laundry list of characteristics." So it fits the headspace of the characters, gets your description across, and sometimes can open up some new storytelling possibilities with a change of POV.

Case in point, in my novella I described the main character from her own perspective, and it's one of a few things about the first edition I wasn't happy with because it honestly wouldn't make much sense for her to think about her own appearance in those circumstances. When I decided to rewrite the opening chapters, I switched up her first appearance so that it comes from the POV of a minor character who is checking her out, and it works so much better: The minor character becomes more of a living person than a blank face in a crowd, and the description fits the things that he WOULD notice about her, allowing me to establish a pretty detailed idea of what she looks like.

I do think establishing what a character looks like is important, as it allows you to establish recognizable traits. Using the above example, my main character is tall, striking, and athletic, with a heart-shaped face, green eyes, and copper hair. She commonly dresses in a long coat of brown leather. From that, I can do something like this:

Upon entering the tavern he looked to his left and spied a woman lounging at one of the tables. Her figure was obscured by a coat of brown leather that fell to her knees, but hair the color of burnished copper framed her heart-shaped face and naturally drew one's eye.

Since the reader already knows what the character looks like, I can now establish her presence in a scene from the POV of a stranger. The new POV may not know who she is, but the READER does, and that can be used to build up anticipation for how the scene will play out.
 
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Harlequin

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Description only doesn't matter if your characters are default white generic able-bodied, and/or you're happy for your readers to think of them that way.

If they're not, and you want people to notice, then yes, it matters.

I've readers get very cross at me because I didn't specify from the get-go that certain characters had green, blue, or yellow-brown mottled skin, and other such nonhuman characteristics. I also felt it was important for readers to know off the bat, for MS2, that the MC wasn't white.
 
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Ari Meermans

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Disclaimer: Not very good here at explaining things—not that I'm any great shakes as writer none, neither—but I do better at trying to give examples.

I think character descriptions are best done through the eyes of another character and in a way that tells the reader something about both characters and what's going on in the scene.

Off the top of my head and as a "for instance":

His father needed a haircut; his almost completely grey hair was now curling over his ears. Paul knew it wasn't that his dad didn't care, he just hadn't noticed. Yet when he looked into that sharp blue gaze, Paul knew the old man could still see right through him.
 
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Roxxsmom

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One way to work definitions in from the viewpoint of a given character is to describe the reactions others have to them (or, if they are inclined to self consciousness, the reactions they think others have to them).

If someone is very tall, for instance, or has a large frame, people may "make room" for them, or crane their necks upward to look at them during conversations. If the viewpoint character is very short, they may be the one craning their neck upwards, and they may notice the kinds of reactions people have to petite people. If the person has unusual coloring or appearance for the place the story takes place, that may be reflected in the way people react to them too.

The shopkeeper grunted and said, "We don't get many Threskans here." It would have been nice to pass unremarked just once, but my pale skin and red hair always gives me away. At least she didn't take a broom and try to chase me out of her shop, like happened to one fellow I know.

If their coloring is similar to those around them, they probably won't get much in the way of reaction, but they can compare themselves to others they are describing if it makes sense for them to.

The shopkeeper had Amber-brown skin, a shade or so lighter than my own. Her curly, black hair cascaded across her shoulders in impractical abandon. I could never wear mine like that. Even cropped above shoulder length, it likes to go every which way.


Also, the way the person interacts with the environment can provide clues. Holding elbows or sucking one's gut in in to fit through tight spaces, standing on tip toes to reach something on a shelf, ducking down to avoid hitting their head etc.

I agree with others that you generally don't need or want to provide a laundry list of physical traits. Some readers do care about description, though. I know some readers who put books down if they don't get some sort of image in their mind of what people, including the protagonist looks like. I've read books that are so sterile of any description that my own image of their characters morphs in and out like they were some kind of doppelganger, and the setting feels like a swirling, gray mist with very few props.

I also think it's important that if you have characters who aren't our society's (unfortunate, imo) default assumption of a character (white, youngish, able bodied etc), it's important to get that information out as early as possible.

Some writers go overboard, though, and it used to be more the norm to write in a sort of "omniscient light" that felt mostly like limited third, in that a single character was the focal point of each scene, but the writer included details they likely wouldn't notice each and every time they interacted with someone (his ice-blue eyes narrowed as she pulled the lockpick from her golden curls).

I'd also forgotten how a particular writer I used to read a lot hated brown eyes and brown hair for her characters (the rare characters who actually had the most common combination in the world always ended up being bleached out by magic--bleh).

Don't feel like you have to make every character have startling and "rare" physical traits to make them interesting or memorable to readers, or to provide an excuse for description.
 
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maggiee19

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I'm going to be watching this thread because a beta reader told me that my writing was bad because I didn't physically describe the characters and told me that in order to get into the story, she needed to know what the characters looked like. It's weird because my second beta reader, that's reading the same manuscript, did not complain about that, but about other issues. I guess to each their own, right?
 

kmarcks

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One thing I would do, if you're going to give a description, is do it as early as possible after the character is introduced. If done later, the reader may have already formed a picture in their mind of the character which may be distracting if you now describe them as something very different.
 

CalRazor

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I don't really describe the physical characteristics that much and have to usually force myself to do that later. I'll randomly add a trait or two if doing so would emphasize the character or somehow complement the atmosphere in some way.
 
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maggiee19

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One thing I would do, if you're going to give a description, is do it as early as possible after the character is introduced. If done later, the reader may have already formed a picture in their mind of the character which may be distracting if you now describe them as something very different.

That was exactly my reason for not describing my characters when I wrote that book I'm talking about back in February of 2014, because I want the reader to decide what the characters look like. Physical appearance to me is not important in the story unless the characters are of superhuman or subhuman species and they have special characteristics that help them stand out from everyone else. If the characters are superhuman, but they have human faces and bodies, like my characters in my series, I don't describe them. If I say somehow that my character is super gorgeous and hot, by having them sleep with the whole cast, which I don't do, for example, and then go into a description of someone I think is gorgeous, the reader might not think the character is as gorgeous as I'm trying to make him or her out to be.


I don't really describe the physical characteristics that much and have to usually force myself to do that later. I'll randomly add a trait or two if doing so would emphasize the character or somehow complement the atmosphere in some way.

:Thumbs:
 

Marian Perera

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I'd also forgotten how a particular writer I used to read a lot hated brown eyes and brown hair for her characters

Heh. In the novel I'm working on right now, there's a secondary character who has brown eyes and brown hair. Her looks are far from exotic and she can do a very good hausfrau impression, but she leaves a trail of seductions and broken hearts, because men always lower their guard around her.

Moral of the story : brown eyes and brown hair rock. So there.
 

Marian Perera

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If I say somehow that my character is super gorgeous and hot, by having them sleep with the whole cast, which I don't do, for example, and then go into a description of someone I think is gorgeous, the reader might not think the character is as gorgeous as I'm trying to make him or her out to be.

In Hart's Hope, by Orson Scott Card, a character called the Flower Princess is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Card rarely describes characters, and in this case, the narrative says "she is the most beautiful woman in the world, because she has never told a lie."

And that's it. But IMO, after setting the Flower Princess up on such a pedestal, the no-description approach works better than giving details. Likewise, in Richard Adams' The Girl in a Swing, the main character falls in love with a woman whose hair and face and figure are never described. But her clothes, mannerisms and personality come across so vividly that I didn't notice the lack of description elsewhere - and the woman is meant to be enigmatic, so this worked well for me.
 

Bufty

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Hair and eye colour must be the most boring details to use.

Unless there's a reason story-wise for me to know about these details (or for another character to notice them), let me decide how I want them to be.
 

BethS

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Hair and eye colour must be the most boring details to use.

Unless there's a reason story-wise for me to know about these details (or for another character to notice them), let me decide how I want them to be.

Heh. We are completely opposite about this.:e2shrug:

And I suppose the moral there, folks, is that no writer will ever please every reader.
 

K.S. Crooks

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Give your readers a way to distinguish your characters from each other. Their "appearance" can also be in their choice of clothing, the way they speak or sense of humor.
 

Layla Nahar

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I'm like Bufty here! In general, unless it's important to the plot, I get distracted by excessive character description - like, why do I need to know that a walk-on character is middle-aged? (perhaps to show me that not all soldiers in this world are young - do they have a shortage of people? Or are they very open-minded?)

Same with description of place - I can tolerate a little more indulgence here but it has to be important to the story - why is a given character noticing the environment? Has he ridden through it for the first time? Or been riding it since he was a child? etc.

Clothing - however, I can tolerate ridiculous amounts of description.
 

Bufty

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:Hug2:

Heh. We are completely opposite about this.:e2shrug:

I don't think so, Beth. I'm talking about cases where hair and eye details are thrown in at random for no apparent reason at all.

And I suppose the moral there, folks, is that no writer will ever please every reader.
 

maggiee19

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When that beta reader told me that she needed to know what the characters looked like, I thought, "Why?" That was the only beta reader in 20 years that told me such a thing. I've had close to 100 beta readers in the past twenty years and they pointed to other flaws I made in the books. I personally prefer it for the reader to form pictures of my characters in his or her mind. Yes, my characters do have a physical appearance when their scenes are in my head, but the reader might not like how the characters look to me, so I leave descriptions out.
 

Lakey

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I think character descriptions are best done through the eyes of another character and in a way that tells the reader something about both characters and what's going on in the scene.

I agree with this! You don’t have to just dump descriptions into your text, but you can use them as a tool for all the other things you are trying to do in your scene - conflict, characterization, and so on. I went digging for an example I gave in a similar discussion some months ago:

"Jane had always envied tall women like Anne. The crisp crease in Anne's trousers struck Jane as a personal affront, as though Anne were intentionally flaunting her elegance." (describing Anne, characterizing Jane)

"Anne sat on the couch and stretched her long legs in front of her, carefully arranging the crease in her trousers. It had taken fifteen minutes with the iron to get that crease just right, and she wanted to keep it tidy." (both describing and characterizing Anne)

In both these cases, there are bits of physical description (Anne is tall and wearing trousers with a crisp crease down the front), baked into what is really a moment of characterization. Note how the second example is all about the POV character, while the first example describes a separate character while characterizing the POV character.
 

BethS

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Yes, my characters do have a physical appearance when their scenes are in my head, but the reader might not like how the characters look to me, so I leave descriptions out.

Please don't take this as anything other than me expressing a general opinion. You're free to take whatever approach you like, obviously. :)

But I will admit that worrying about a reader not liking the way a character is described (because for whatever reason they want the character to look differently) is something that would never occur to me to either wonder or care about. As a writer, part of my job is to create a world on paper. Characters are part of that world. They have substance. They have an appearance, just like real-life people do. I cannot imagine why anyone would object to a certain amount of appropriate description, particularly if given early in the story before the reader has a chance to form contrary ideas. Too late in the book and you do have a problem. I read a trilogy last year where I found out somewhere in the second book (I think) that one of the main characters was bald. Which I had never imagined. And trying to rearrange my image was painfully distracting and annoying.
 
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angeliz2k

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I've found that it's important not so much to describe exactly what a character looks like, but to describe their presence. What kind of impression do they give, intentionally or otherwise? How do they interact with/fit into the world? What messages are they sending (or trying to send) by how they present themselves? What do other people think of the MC simply by the way the MC appears?

Sometimes, this will involve a straightforward physical description; sometimes it isn't necessary. For example, I have one character whose hair is described several times because it is always very precisely styled, and her clothes are always precisely in order, all of which says a lot about her. But another character is described as a golden bear, which gives an impression of him as being blond and large but doesn't say so--it gives an impression of his presence. In another WIP, the female MC isn't described at all, but I allude to her presence through her physicality and words: at the beginning she boldly confronts the soldier at her door and gives him some sass, and she's forever plunging right in, verbally and physically. Her nephew is described as red-headed mostly to make him stand out when the male MC is searching for him.
 

autumnleaf

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It really is a matter of writing style. Reader preferences differ, and genre expectations also vary.

My personal preference is for some degree of physical description, but interspersed with the action. So instead of "she had brown eyes", say "her brown eyes narrowed with suspicion". POV also affects how characters are described, for example one character might see "elegantly painted nails" while another might see "gaudily colored nails". I find unexpected details, such as a strawberry birthmark or small ears, are more memorable than the obvious things like height and hair color.

Readers will fill in the blanks. So maybe you see the character as a blonde but the reader sees her as a brunette. Maybe that doesn't matter. Or maybe it does: she's tired of people assuming the "dumb blonde" stereotype and this affects her character. It's up to you to decide what's important.

Typical readers tend to have "defaults" for character traits. So if you don't specify that the character is short or tall, most readers will assume medium height. And as some people have already pointed out, unfortunately many readers "default" to white when they view a character. So if you want your character to be seen as a POC, and there aren't other cues like an Asian name or an African setting, you probably need to describe them.