Character Description

[Jester85]

Same here. I can't stand reading about the shape of someone's nose unless it's particularly relevant. It's good to give your characters something distinctive, though, to separate them from the others in the reader's mind; even if it's hair colour, a scar, piercing etc

One of my main characters has amber eyes, which is an unusual color for his race, and another is an albino. Something distinctive about each of them.

Other characters I mention some specific detail, like their eye color, a scar, height, etc. Just enough to physically differentiate them.

 

[Mouse]

For myself though I'm handicapped when writing descriptions by the simple fact that I don't notice a hell of a lot about people. (Hey I'm a guy!)

I don't think that's just a guy thing. I couldn't even tell you what colour my dad's eyes are, for example. Or my step mum's. No idea.

I went touring around Greece on a bus a few years back - it'd always be the same people on the bus. My friend got on the bus before me once and when I asked if she was sure it was the right one, she said, 'Don't you recognise the people?' I'm like, There's people?!

 

[Alexander Lesnoy]

I write character descriptions as physical representations of what's going on mentally inside a character. I think actual physical action gives a better representation than physical traits like hair colour, eye colour, etc. One thing that can make hair or eye colour (and such) important is when there are actual cultural factors to consider, e.g. social stigma toward certain physical traits in the created world.

 

[Ivanya]

Actually I read an article about Twilight's success and one of the things it specifically mentioned as part of it was that the descriptions of the girl are vague at best. It means every reader can picture their own version of her - usually their own idealised version of themselves - in her place. Too much description may actually handicap the writer.

Personally, blank slate characters really annoy me. I want to feel like the author has taken some time to be creative, to have some pride in them rather than just allowing the reader to imagine themselves as the MC. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, the whole description via mirror thing is just as bad. Much better to drop in small details throughout the story, or even better, if you're having it told via multiple POVs, they can describe their own opinions on what they see of the others.

 

[Locrian]

I prefer to leave it vague, unless part of the physical description is somehow important for their characterisation. Sometimes I will briefly describe one important aspect of a character's appearance to help differentiate them though. Often things like a character's hair colour really don't matter, so I don't bother. Sometimes I write things that are very visual, in which case I will give a bit more description while trying to avoid things like describing their clothes in great detail.

 

[Sequois]

The best way is to describe as little as possible, fill in tiny details here and there. The reader will always picture characters in their own way, so just let them.

 

[ZombieWife]

When you're writing multiple-POV, it's easier. X character can describe Y character sometimes.

But, I guess I employ different techniques. If there's a reason to know a certain physical attribute, then I'll include it. Otherwise, I tend to avoid the police report descriptions. Paul was 5'6" tall, 175lb with blue eyes and brown hair. (Yawn)

 

[tinkerdan]

Although I do think that it's best to let the readers guess or make-up some of the character description, my simplest method has been to fix a description in my mind or preferably on paper and then keep it handy while writing.

Then I just target other characters and make a reference by way of the other characters height ;weight; stature; hair color; eye color; etc. base on comparisons and I always have my description crib card handy for when that rare moment comes when it's appropriate to actually mention the shape of their nose.

And yes, I recently read a book where there were several pauses for a full body description of the new characters in the story.

There is one of David Weber's Honor books where he devotes an entire chapter in Honor's head describing the main crew aboard her ship and all their skills and so on and so forth and though it was done quite well it still stood out as a risky thing to do.