Describing Your Characters (by inkfish7 on Deviantart)

When it comes to characters, we writers have a certain goal: to bring these people to life in the readers’ imaginations. But for this to work, two things need to happen. 

1) The readers need to be presented with the character’s personality.

2) The readers need to construct a physical, 3D image of that character in their minds.

The first is achieved through the tool of characterization, while the second is achieved by the tool of physical description. What I’d like to discuss in this journal entry, however, is that the tool of physical description is not only meant to create 3D images, but is also meant to reinforce character personalities. In other words, if you craft your character descriptions correctly, you should simultaneously be using the tool of characterization. This type of character description is the most effective of its kind.

Character Description:

Take a look at the following example.

1) When I entered Mr. Jed’s office, he stood and smiled at me widely. He had a fat nose and short, brown hair. He wore a dark suit. I shook his hand.

What do you know about Mr. Jed from this brief scene? The physical details I’ve given say that he has a flat nose and short, brown hair. He’s also wearing a dark suit. You have a decent 3D image of him forming in your mind; but can you tell me anything about his personality from these details, something about his life or past? I suppose you could gather he’s a businessman considering the suit and setting, but what does his fat nose say? His brown hair?

Although these details provide an image, what they don’t do is tell a story. Truly effective details do, and that’s what you need to strive for. With that in mind, let’s rewrite this scene with useful, story-telling details.

2) When I entered Mr. Jed’s office, he stood and smiled at me widely. He wore a black suit, with a crisp tie and golden cuff links. I shook his hand. The knuckles were rough, callused. His grip, crushing. 

Alright, now what can you tell me about Mr. Jed? Well, we can now see that he’s a fine-dressed businessman with that crisp tie, not just a man in a dark suit. He also appears wealthy, with those golden cuff links. The most startling addition, however, are his rough, callused knuckles. Are they the sign of a violent past, or a violent present? His crushing grip seems to attest to such an explanation.

You should now have a much more complete and compelling image of Mr. Jed living in your imagination. The key, once again, are details that tell a story. As for the details that don’t do that (for example, Mr. Jed’s fat nose and brown hair), simply cut them out.

Now that you’ve seen the difference between these two types of description, I’m going to give you an easy tip to follow that will lead you to the story-telling variety.

Be specific:

Not a dark suit, but a black one with a crisp tie and golden cuff links. Not just a handshake, but the feeling of callused knuckles. When you get as specific as in the above example, the details will begin to say something about your character (whether you want them to or not), because specificity forces you into characterization. For example, to hear that Lucas wears cologne won’t tell you much about him other than the fact he cares how he smells. But how do your perceptions change when you hear it’s Acqua Di Gio he wears? Or what if it’s a bottle of Axe: Dark Temptation? We humans are assumptive creatures, and we jump on any and every clue to make those assumptions. And hey, if the fish are biting….

One piece of warning: Be purposeful with your specificity. In other words, don’t randomly include a specific detail unless it somehow elaborates upon your character. Remember, you’re adding these descriptions to be useful in your characterization. If you just throw them in willy-nilly, you may craft your character into a jumbled mess of mixed signals. 

(People seem to be missing this upcoming point, so please pay attention to the next paragraph: it’s important.)

Not to say that you can’t give your character a personality that contradicts his appearance, because you most definitely can. This dissonance can actually be quite powerful (if dissonance is your goal). For example, a glaring man covered in battle scars who’s really just teddy bear on the inside is intriguing, not poorly crafted. I’m not asking you to avoid purposeful contradictions. I just want you to be aware of the image you’re building and to build it with a purpose in mind. In other words, put thought into your description. Not just random details. 

Deciding what details are appropriate:

To figure out the details that are appropriate for your character, you should sit down and really think about that character. Maybe go fill out a character sheet: dA has a bunch of them (but avoid transferring “checklist” details into your story, those useless images like Mr. Jed’s “fat nose” and “short, brown hair”). When you have a grasp of your character’s life and personality, try and imagine how those things could be reflected in his appearance or demeanor. 

The details you come up with won’t always be spectacular testaments to the characters. Know that, and don’t let it bother you, because you don’t always need the big details, like Mr. Jed’s callused knuckles. If there’s a big detail that fits, definitely go for it, but don’t force it into your characters. Subtlety isn’t a sin. One of your characters may simply wear wife-beaters to school, or another may enjoy wearing sweater vests and bow-ties. Just be certain those details reflect your character and aren’t the additions of a moment’s fancy.

But hey, let’s say your character’s clothes and appearance really aren’t important to who he is. Let’s say he’s actually pretty average. What should you do? Simple. Don’t bring the details up (unless you want to stress just how average he is). Your readers will fill in the mundane blanks with the rest of your characterization. It’s up to you to give them what they need and not bore them with what they don’t.

To make this idea easier on you, I’d like to remove an illusion for you. Character descriptions, to a great extent, aren’t necessary. Characterization is necessary, but character description is an aide to that characterization.

My favorite example of an author who understands this is Orson Scott Card. If you read any of his books, you’ll quickly realize that he spends little to no time describing his characters (you’re often only given age, gender, and ethnicity to go off of, if even that), but his characters still come to life. This is due to potent and plentiful characterization, particularly in his dialogue and his narrators’ internalized thoughts. We can already picture the characters, you see, on an intimate level, so we don’t necessarily need all those visual details. If you want to see this in action, I recommend reading Card’s Nebula and Hugo award-winning novel Ender’s Game.

Note, however, that I’m not arguing for you to cut off your character descriptions as completely as Card does. God knows I don’t. I’m not even asking the heavy-description writers out there to stop writing that way. All I want is for you to rid yourself of the idea that you are required to describe everything about your characters. You don’t have to tell us that Lisa is a brunette with hazel eyes and high cheek bones. Don’t force yourself into a checklist of details, giving us her hair color, eye color, height, weight, bust, yada yada, unless you have reason. The fault is often in the desire to recreate in words the exact image you hold in your mind. This is an honorable goal, but an incredibly lofty one. You’re working through an imperfect form, writing, and the best you can often do is portray the personality accurately. Sensually, you’ll have to leave a lot of it up to the readers’ own interpretations. All you can do is leave suggestions.

Here’s a phrase to live by in regards of description, whether it be for characters, settings, or what have you. “It’s not how much you describe, it’s what you choose to describe.” After all, you could describe every hair on your character’s head, every pimple, if you wanted to. But who would want to read that? So you need to just give the readers a choice number of details that act as a framework of both sensual and character perceptions, and then let them do the rest. If you have any doubts about a detail, simply ask yourself what that detail says about your character. If it says nothing or says something you don’t like, its time to seriously consider scrapping it.

The End:

Happy Writing!