Shortening Character Descriptions

Some things like having four arms you could easily drop into just about any scene, via action or interaction with other characters. No need to present it up front as part of a "laundry list" of attributes. Same with its weapon stash. Someone else could spot his guns and remark on it, or make Pavuk check them at an entrance or something. Loads of possibilities.

After the bizarre preceding description, the "loose-fitting green shorts" made me snicker.

The first and most obvious way to shorten descriptions is the same way you shorten any other pieces of prose: condense sentences and choose snappier words. "Four arms sprouted from his sides; the top two were wrapped around a shotgun." I'm assuming you meant to say he had four fingers on his upper hands and not that he has an additional four hands growing out of his hands? In that case, that's such a fine detail that you can cut it. Focus on the overall impression. If it's your main character's first time meeting this new species, then it makes sense he would stop and take in the creature's rough shape, not knowing how much would be useful later, so this doesn't read as long to me. Just kind of flabby.

Another thing you can do is focus on how the character feels. Spiders are unsettling and creepy, and most humans have an instinctual aversion to them; how would your main character feel when confronted by a man-sized thing that has six arachnid eyes? Revulsed? Unnerved, yet diplomatic? Does he want to stomp it?

And who is the protagonist. Is he a detail oriented person who will notice every minute detail, or the moment he sees a shotgun (or green shorts) he stops there and notices nothing else?

Missed (for the first time) details like #of fingers can always be revisited later, so at first sight you aim at delivering the grand picture. A 'bipedal bug' gives me the impression this is an insect/lobster kind of thing and typically have 6 or more legs/limbs (so if time is tight, you can skip the exact #limbs till later). While I was reading it, my question was actually how big/tall it was.

Actually, I thought the description you shared was pretty good. Basically, your goal in describing a new character is to allow readers to "see" the character clearly and correctly from the start. I've known writers to hold back too much, which then forces readers out of the story to recalibrate once the truth is revealed. You push them out, they might not return. In this case, it seems a clear description of what your POV character sees, with the possible exception of the numbers of hands on each arm--counting them up isn't something he'd necessarily do immediately.

Another goal of description is to give us some information about the character doing the observing, since what we notice depends on who we are and what we're looking for. I'd gather from this that your POV character is observant, open-minded but wary, tasked with defense (his noting of the weapons)...not bad for a short description.

Rather than shortening your descriptions, you could aim to make them seem shorter, which is just as good if not better. One way of doing that is to work the descriptions into a bit of action instead of having them stand alone. Say your MC and Pavuk are on their way to the cafeteria. Pavuk is complaining gesturing with one of his four arms, etc. By working them into action sequences, readers will absorb the descriptions without losing the story's momentum.

Loved the green shorts.

MKnightium said:

Example:

The first of them was someone called Pavuk, a Gorgoite. The demented, bipedal bug creature had sickly green chitin covering his body, his body was gangly and lean, and his tail swished and swayed behind him, tipped with a menacing scorpion tail. His legs were double-jointed like a bird’s, his neck long and his head was elongated and sporting a gaping, tooth filled maw with six arachnid eyes on his head. The xeno had four arms, the upper set having four hands while the lower set had three while his toes had four. He wore armor consisting of a leather bandolier and metal shoulder pads and loose-fitting green shorts. In terms of weapons Pavuk had two, a strange sort of rifle on his back and a shotgun in his upper arms, the soldier spotting a series of syringes and darts adhered to the bandoliers across his chest, though he had no idea what the alien would use them for.

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You do repeat quite a bit of body parts, like head, body, neck, stuff like that.

You could possibly do something like this: The demented, bipedal bug creature had sickly green chitin covering his gangly and lean body, and his scorpion pointed tail swished and swayed behind him. His legs were double jointed like a bird's, his neck long, head elongated to fit his six arachnid eyes, sporting a gaping, tooth filled maw.

-- But, I don't think some of the description can be cut for the more general 'bipedal spider creature'. You could trim a lot more in here without a loss of understanding: 'He wore a leather bandolier, metal shoulder pads, and loose-fitting green shorts.

MKnightium said:

The first of them was someone called Pavuk, a Gorgoite.

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Given that you've dedicated an entire paragraph to a character description, the bolded above gives me the most pause.

Are you going to give the same treatment for the next two or three characters that have just been introduced? If so, that changes things, as you're likely dedicating a large chunk of text just to descriptions. If nothing else, you'll need to pare things back just for that reason alone.

WRT to the description itself, my advice is to cut about half of that out. If no other Gorgoites have been introduced, the physical descriptions are probably going to be much more jarring than the armor/clothes it wears and weapons it brings.

"Loose fitting green shorts" could definitely go. That's the kind of description you could attribute to a California surfer, after all. Scorpions tail? Not so much.

ETA:

Barbara R. said:

Loved the green shorts.

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LOL. Opinions will always vary.

The xeno had four arms, the upper set having four hands while the lower set had three while his toes had four. That sentence confused me.

Is this description written from an omni POV? - or are you writing from a character's perception?

Your description is probably fine for omni - but my opinion is that it offers up details that may not be necessary for the story. Why should your reader care how many toes a creature has? How does that fit in with the story?

If you write a description from a character's viewpoint you can gloss over some of it (like toes), and add mental commentary that tells a more visceral story and let's us know something about that character.

As others have said, pare it down first by eliminating descriptions of anything isn't immediately relevant. Also, think about combining things into a general impression--he had x limbs, with x fingers, and looked like he could do x (run a mile/slice an apple into wedges) in ten seconds flatt". Keep your POV character in mind: what is it about this new character that stands out to the POV character?

Most importantly, though, look at your sentence structure, specifically your verbs. Almost every sentence uses a form of "to be" or "to have". Rework these sentences with stronger verbs, and you may be amazed what follows--you might find you need fewer words or that the same number of words does much more work. Also, you want to vary the length as much as possible if you have such a long paragraph.

An example:

In terms of weapons Pavuk had two, a strange sort of rifle on his back and a shotgun in his upper arms, the soldier spotting a series of syringes and darts adhered to the bandoliers across his chest, though he had no idea what the alien would use them for.

Pavuk carried a strange sort of rifle on his back and held a shotgun in his upper set of arms. He had slung a series of mysterious syringes and darts across his chest on a bandolier, though [POV character's name] had no idea what they were used for. [I would even get rid of this last phrase, since the "mysterious" that I added basically conveys that message.]

Strong verbs can do A LOT of hard work, and you'll end up with more direct, crisper descriptions. Of course, the above is just my (clumsy) attempt to give you an example, and you will have your own way of writing it with your own awesome verbs.

I dunno, changing the green shorts to black removes a lot of its charm. Unless you weren't going for charm?

In the second para you've used 'see' and 'seeing' in the same sentence which is a bit repetitive (and awkward-sounding/possibly ungrammatical in the second instance).

Overall I prefer your first version - it had more energy and vividness, IMO.

MKnightium said:

Alright, I think I got something. How about:

His Xeno-Identifier told him it was a Gorgonite, a gangly, bipedal bug creature. Its chitin was a disturbing, sickly green color, with four arms jutting from its torso and a lengthy tail from its rear, tipped with a dangerous looking stinger. Its head was positioned on a long neck, the long head sporting a gaping, toothy maw, as six terrifying, spider-like eyes rested atop its head, making it impossible to see where the alien was looking.

As the creature ventured further into the room Jaspers could see it was barely clothed; clad in a pair of loose-fitting black shorts and twin leather bandoliers across its chest, the soldier seeing a series of syringes of varying colors and shapes. On its back was a strange, rusty rifle of some sort that looked like a fixed up medical syringer rifle, but he couldn’t be sure, nor did he want to be.


Better or worse?

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When you hit 50 posts (mods please excuse and correct me if I'm wrong) you can post in the show your work forum and get feedback.

MKnightium said:

Example:

The first of them was someone called Pavuk, a Gorgoite. The demented, bipedal bug creature had sickly green chitin covering his body, his body was gangly and lean, and his tail swished and swayed behind him, tipped with a menacing scorpion tail. His legs were double-jointed like a bird’s, his neck long and his head was elongated and sporting a gaping, tooth filled maw with six arachnid eyes on his head. The xeno had four arms, the upper set having four hands while the lower set had three while his toes had four. He wore armor consisting of a leather bandolier and metal shoulder pads and loose-fitting green shorts. In terms of weapons Pavuk had two, a strange sort of rifle on his back and a shotgun in his upper arms, the soldier spotting a series of syringes and darts adhered to the bandoliers across his chest, though he had no idea what the alien would use them for.

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This would not work even in the pulp sci-fi era. This is often called "a data dump," and writers avoid this these days.

Character descriptive are generally relegated to active scenes, where the character's physical attributes are part of the prose; if you read modern books you will see characters defined by what they grab with (four fingered mandibles for example); height by if they need to stoop to enter a low-slung roof or not; other characters looking up or down at the character; what color hat the character picks up off the rack... character descriptive is scattered among the story, as are their abilities, skills, weapons, etc.

When I see a data dump like above I stop reading.

MKnightium said:

Alright, I think I got something. How about:

His Xeno-Identifier told him it was a Gorgonite, a gangly, bipedal bug creature. Its chitin was a disturbing, sickly green color, with four arms jutting from its torso and a lengthy tail from its rear, tipped with a dangerous looking stinger. Its head was positioned on a long neck, the long head sporting a gaping, toothy maw, as six terrifying, spider-like eyes rested atop its head, making it impossible to see where the alien was looking.

As the creature ventured further into the room Jaspers could see it was barely clothed; clad in a pair of loose-fitting black shorts and twin leather bandoliers across its chest, the soldier seeing a series of syringes of varying colors and shapes. On its back was a strange, rusty rifle of some sort that looked like a fixed up medical syringer rifle, but he couldn’t be sure, nor did he want to be.


Better or worse?

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I like this one better--but I'd personally rather see some interaction between the POV character and the description like Barbara suggested. Just one or two nuggets to keep us in the right perspective.

MKnightium said:

His Xeno-Identifier told him it was a Gorgonite, a gangly, bipedal bug creature. Its chitin was a disturbing, sickly green color, with four arms jutting from its torso and a lengthy tail from its rear, tipped with a dangerous looking stinger. Jaspers held his sword a little more firmly. Its head was positioned on a long neck...

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One of the best pieces of writing advice I've ever gotten was, as much as possible, you should filter description through the mind of your POV character. What you have here is mostly straight description, which is why an earlier poster asked if it was omni POV or not.

The only line that sort of gets into the character's head is this one:

On its back was a strange, rusty rifle of some sort that looked like a fixed up medical syringer rifle, but he couldn’t be sure, nor did he want to be.

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And even this is mostly descriptive. What does your character think about this thing? Is it ugly, frightening, silly looking? By filtering the description through his thoughts we get vital information about the creature's appearance and the character's personality, not to mention it's just more interesting to read. Break up these thoughts and descriptions with action and you can go on for a good long time without losing our interest.

Here's your description as is:

His Xeno-Identifier told him it was a Gorgonite, a gangly, bipedal bug creature. Its chitin was a disturbing, sickly green color, with four arms jutting from its torso and a lengthy tail from its rear, tipped with a dangerous looking stinger.

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Something like this might work better:

The word 'Gorgonite' flashed in bright, red lettering on Jasprer's Xeno-Identifyer. An involuntary shudder ran through him. A bug creature. Jasper hated bugs. They were as ugly as they were dangerous. He glanced over the wall-ridge. Good God. It was like a six-foot scorpion with a vomit-green shell, four long, segmented arms and a nasty stinger-tipped tail.

Obviously, this is just my guess at what your character might think, but you get the idea.

Also, don't forget about your other senses. Tell us what it sounds like as his tail scrapes along the floor or if he smells as if he's spent the day frolicking in a dung heap. This will make your descriptions much richer and more three-dimensional.

I hope that helps!