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This question was raised as an aside by @consciousdreamer a few days back, and I figured it could be good to spend one of our Monday lessons on it.

All too often, you can be reading a book and then have to put it down and rub your eyes because the writer just had their entire cast described down to every freckle in one chapter. You have all of this information that part of your brain wants to retain, but the rest is kinda just like, “So what? Let’s get on with the stooooory.”

On the other hand, you can have cases where you just don’t know anything about the characters’ appearances. They just don’t get a mention. So much action, but hard to imagine the scene due to not knowing what it is that you’re imagining.

So today, I figured I’d do a quick summary as to weave in character descriptions in a natural way that doesn’t slow down the plot.

 

1. Don’t make the mistake of having your character instantly analyse everyone’s appearance as soon as they see them. I mean, to be dead honest with you, I rarely think about everyone I meet hair colour, height, eye colour, skin colour, freckles, blemishes, clothes. I notice the things that stand out. Let’s look at Fred today.

“I blink as the 6’5” man offers his ebony hand that is so coated in grease that it’s hard to tell if it is his skin colour, or just stained. His fingernails are perfectly trimmed and filed—an obvious contrast to both the grease and the scar running all of the way up his muscular arm. I grimace. What happened to him? I take his hand and meet his warm brown eyes, little golden flecks dotting them, but somehow clouded by an ever-present lurking of suspicion—of guarded thoughts and words. Wavy black hair falls over his forehead, brushing against his bushy eyebrows.”

That was an overload, and no way in the world would’ve Fred noticed that much. Some people would say, ‘just change it to similes or metaphors to make it work.’ *sigh* Doesn’t work like that. Allow me to demonstrate.

“I blink as the man—who is as tall as a giraffe on stilts—offers his ebony hand that is as grease coated as the floor of McDonalds, only, with tractor grease. The black of his skin and black of the grease merge like fog drifting over water. His fingernails are perfectly pruned plants…complete with the thorn cutting its jagged way up his arm that is as muscular as a horse’s neck. I grimace. What happened to him? I take his hand and meet his eyes which are the colour of logs sitting beside a fire on a winter’s night, little golden flecks of magic and sunshine dotting them like sprinkles on fairy-bread, but somehow darkened by the storm of suspicion that loomed over him like the clouds he storm was made of. Black hair falls over his forehead like waves lapping at the shore, foam on the edge—bushy like his eyebrows.”

That was painful. No way is Fred going to think like that. No way at all. Nuh huh. Instead, cut back on how much the readers know, and just tell them the basics.

“I blink as the man offers his hand to me. I take it, his dark, grease coated hand in contrast to my own pale one. He grips my hand firmly, the scar on his arm whitening. I crane my neck back to look up at meet his dark eyes. Who is this man?”

Suddenly, that became more realistic. Why? Because he wasn’t noticing everything. Anything that seemed superficial or typical was excluded, aside from his eye colour. Why? Because he just looked into them, very specifically. Even his height was mentioned, but we’ll get to that later on.

 

2. Be a vampire and make sure that there are no mirrors. Those mirror scenes disrupt the text. We do not need this:

“Fred stood in front of the mirror, glaring at his blonde hair that stuck up from where it had settled against the pillow last night. His pales blue eyes seems to be too small on his face, that or his forehead was too wide for his eyes. Bits of stubble speckled his chin—the awkward stage where there isn’t enough to grow anything, but enough that it needs shaving…complete with a few scars from the earlier stages where his hand had slipped. He grimaced at his reflection, and it imitated him, revealing a chipped tooth to complete his appearance of utter dishevelment.”

I repeat: We do not need this. Spare us. Waaaaay too much info, probably dumped in a scene right near the front. This not only is bad in general, but that first chapter is where you need to hook your readers.

If you spend a paragraph of those precious thirty or so in front of a mirror, then you probably spent another one or two in bed, another three on getting ready for the day, and maybe one on grabbing breakfast. That’s about six paragraphs that are not helpful and probably won’t interest the reader in the slightest. This doesn’t make for a well paced first chapter, or scene in general.

 

3. Weave in those descriptions naturally. You want the readers to know he has blond hair? Feel free to have him shove blond hair out of his face, or look through a haze of blond strands.

“I fall to my hands and knees and look up through a blur of blond. My gaze meets the pair of eyes as vividly blue as my own and I swallow. Not here. Not now. I tear my gaze away, panting. The grandeur of the palace looms over me, trying to swallow little me in my shabby clothes. Always second best. Never good enough.”

Not only are these descriptions natural, but some of them seem to help set the mood and develop on the plot. This means that they do more than just describe the character so that the readers can imagine them. There should always be more to it than just that side of things.

 

Your task today is to have a character description in a 500 word snippet that manages to do these things. Describe a bit of the character, but don’t kill the pacing or clog up the story. Weave it in, don’t use a mirror, and make sure it is relevant. Have fun as always!

 

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