whiz_bang

I'm not one for noticing specific details or even general ones for that matter about people I run across in my daily life. For example, if I were a witness to a crime, I might be able to tell the police that the suspect was kind of tall, not particularly skinny or fat, and maybe if the cops are really lucky, what color eyes this fellow had. That being said, how can I hone my skills, and how specific do I need to be when drawing out the physical characteristics of the people in my story? Some of the character charts I've seen ask about the character's skin tone, skin type, and I'm going, WTF?? Can anybody possibibly steer me in the right direction?

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Raith

for me, its always the face, nothing more.

eyes; sharp, daring, narrow, etc.
nose; stout, gaunt, etc.
hair; flaring, bright, deep-ebony... etc.

i always describe the eyes, hope that helps.

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americanwriter

Think about what your main character does for a living, or what his/her education or experience is. For instance, someone who works with measurements, say a builder can probably eyeball someone and give you height. If the witness is a doctor, police officer, or security officer they are trained to be highly observant. If the witness a dentist, maybe he'd notice the onset of mouth cancer because the perp chewed tobacco, or noted a broken tooth. Think about where your witnesses eyes might move first.

Personally, if the bad guy is a really gorgeous guy, I'll not only give you a good guess of his height, weight, hair color, whether he as a beard or mustache, whether he works out, where he likely shops by his clothing and footware, and may even be able to tell you what his voice sounds like. Just my opinion.

Where would your witnesses eyes go first? Eyes are attracted to color, head tends to turn in the direction of sound, nose will go to the odor, etc.

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blackswan

Little or no character description won't kill your story, but too much description will always make me cringe and throw the book down.

Like Stephen King said, if you want a item by item description of your character's clothing, go look in a J-Crew catalogue. Leave some space for imagination. A general idea will do it, such as (and I'm sure this is also from SK) the acne infested church girl in highschool. We all have our own ideas about what she looks like, and we know what he's talking about, and we can give her the face we want, leave only specific details that perhaps stand out...

After all, if you're just walking around and looking at people, you're not going to remember the exact color of their eyes or style of hair or outfit unless it really stands out (like a red mohawk...or something, but that's characteristic traits and even those can be left to the imagination).

Or at least that's just me. Just don't force the description if the character doesn't step forward...and please don't describe him/her while s/he's looking in a mirror. Too obvious and too horrible.

whiz_bang

All good suggestions, and I thank you. Please keep 'em coming. One of the characters I have in mind has these really awesome dimples when she smiles, but how much more can you get out of describing dimples? I told you, I'm really really lousy at this.

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lisajane

I don't describe many facial features. I don't do it unless neessary and I feel like it needs to be written down. Sometimes I give vague ideas towards what a character may look like, but sometimes I never even describe the character in physical terms.

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Nazareth

Blackswan that's good advice-

Also- you need to get into your characters head & think about how they might react to things- doing so will bring out character description that is subtle yet powerful- I wrote a critique earlier & will repost it here because we get a good look at the character & what she is like & how she reacts- I'll add a little more for this topic here though to give a little bit of description of her physical description.

a key to good writing is to inject description almost so it is subconsciously noted rather than writing big blocks of it- You'll basically be adding description in little bits and pieces throughout the story & remember- use descriptions that are true to your character- If your character is a tough biker dude- then throughout your story interject small descriptions like :

"Bong grabbed the skinny clerk by the throat and yanked him across the counter. Phil -- which was the name printed on the clerk's shiny new tag pinned to his chest -- squeaked in horror. He was two inches from Bong's grungy black leather vest, and he couldn't help but gag at the smell of rot. He glanced up into the gang bangers face and choked back the bile that rose to his throat. Lodged in Bong's teeth was what looked like a cockroach leg. His beard was even worse. tucked inside the mass of unruly red whiskers was a slice of peperoni, a glob of something gray, and a bud of pot. Phil felt his bladder let loose and run down his fifteen dollar store issued kakis. He glanced down and noticed a dark stain that followed the neatly pressed crease all the way to the foot. His foot felt warm. Tears began to well behind the coke bottle glasses.

This looks like a lot of phisical description, but really, all you have learn about Bong is that his beard is red and scraggly, and that his vest is leather and grungy. For the clerk, I only mention kakis and coke bottle glasses. In our mind, we see a big intimidating figure, Someone who doesn't take bull from anyone, and someone who doesn't care about his appearance. Next, we see a small skinny clerk who doesn't mind being a nerd & taking on a job that makes him wear store issued junky/dorky clothes (Actually, what else is accomplished here is the fact that I've compared 'the freedom to wear and do as you please' to 'the humiliation of having to work 'for the man' and having to submit to rules)

It's more important I think to get into the mind of your characters and to ask yourself how that character would react in certain situations- Learn to describe their feelings & you will develope you character far better than any physical descriptions could.

Don't just say: Tom was dressed in a leather jacket, black denim jeans, a cotton teeshirt, and a bandana. Standing across from him, Henry was dressed in a white pressed shirt, a garish gray tie, blue slacks, and designer shoes. Tom asked Henry what had happened the night before. Henry became nervous and stasrted to blab on about how he wasn't to blame for what he and Tom's sister had done. Tom listened for awhile, but became so enraged that he smacked Henry across the mouth causing blood to spurt in every direction."

Describing an action scene in detail can give tyou wonderful insight into characters even if you don't give much description of the characters phisical traits and clothes- Tell us what the punch looked like- How the puncher and punchee thought or felt about the punch- How they reacted etc. Here, I'll rewrite the above:

Tom flipped the faded collar of his leather jacket up and listened to his friend's convoluted speach about the events of the day. His face got redder and redder the more he heard Henry blabbed on about how it wasn't his fault. He glared at his friend, and thought, I'm going to rip that fat little face of yours right off your shoulders.

The more Henry talked, the deeper he dug himself. He had the annoying habbit of shifting from foot to foot whenever he was nervous, and today, he was doing some kind of new Rumba. He yanked on his putrid gray tie in an effort to straighten it, and he swiped at hte sweat that that soaked the rediculous perm thaT made his hair look like Bozo the Clown's wig. He looked up at Tom. "You have to beleive me. If she had said 'no', I wouldn't have."

Finally, Tom had heard enough. He was shaking so bad that he couldn't stand it. He cranked his arm behind his ear, balled his fist into a knot, and let it rip at Henry's face. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. His swing sliced through the air in an almost sureal, exaggerated arc. Henry had just enough time to read the tatoo on Tom's knuckles as they sailed through the air. He never moved except to listlessly lift his arms to his face. His mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened as the impending blow neared his nose.

Crack. His fist hit Henry right below the left nostril. Pain shot up Tom's arm clear to his elbow. He yanked his hand back, shook it as if he were trying to dry a wet towel, and then tucked it under his armpit. Henry lay on the floor in a heap, too scared to move. His stupid gray K-Mart tie lying across his face. Blood covered the walls of the cubical.

Tom set his steel toed boot across Henry's neck. "If I ever catch you with my sister again, I'll break your dorky little neck."

He grabbed Henry's office chair and slung it at him. He whirled, kicked the cubical, and threw his fist at the wafer board as it toppled in front of him.

Several heads popped up behind the other pannels in the room. "What are you looking at? Shows over." He poined at Henry and said, "Just remember what I said," and then stormed out of the building.

Maybe not the best example- but if you're gonna have fight scenes, make the most of them by stretching them out and using the scene as an oportunity to describe the character of your characters. The leather jacket and tatoos on Tom's fingers tell you he is a rebel at heart, that he probably rides a bike, and that he likes being outdoors- the perm, the tie, and the heavy condition of Henry tell you that he probably likes sitting around, looking important- doesn't get a lot of excersize. Not alot of phisical description here, but they tell you alot about the characters.

Nazareth

Whiz- the dimple description will be enough to characterize your character throughout the novel- just keep bringing up that when she smiles, her dimples appear (Just don't over do it) Show how people react to her dimples & how she feels about how people react- for instance, She might not like the attention that boys give her all the time because she is so cute. Or, she might love the attention, and use her dimples to flirt, knowing that the boys will melt- you could write something like:

She walked into school dressed to kill. Her mother had warned her not to wear the shiny black mini skirt that her older sister had given her, but Kia was determined to live her own life. She smoothed the Lycra fabric aver her curvacious rearend, and lifted the hem another inch. She flipped open a cosmetic mirror, removed a passion red lipstick, and circled her mouth with it. A quick dab on a Kleenex, and she was ready to hunt.

"Hey."

She whirled around and saw Bob standing at his locker. She arched her back and smiled. "Hey, yourself."

Ah, those dimples, Bob thought. If only she wasn't in the Sophomore class. "Where's you friend? Sue, I mean."

Kia glared at Bob. How long would she have to play runner up to [i]Sue[/b]? Beautiful, busty, Sue Atkins.

Here- I show you Kia is curvascious, but rather than say she is small breasted,(Which she is self conscious of- which I would show in other parts of the novel) I show you that she is small breated by implying she is jealous of Sue who large & who attracts more boys. I also show you that she is young and trying to act more 'mature' and more sexy than she really is- I don't do a lot of describing of the features except for her butt. We can all get an image of a young good looking girl trying to be more than she is & can picture what she might look like. If you want, in other paragraphs, you could work in details about her long black hair, her high cheek bones (She brushed the blush over her face and stared in the mirror. Her Cheroke cheekbones bounced the Halogen light over the lime-green eyeliner and made her face look almost oriental.) I wouldn't describe any more after that though in the same paragraph. I'd go on to how she is frantic to get ready for a night on the town (Against her mother's wishes) and show her short-temperedness as she has to wait for her younger brother to finish showering before she can use the shower- I'd build up her inner character for the rest of the paragraph of scene.

Anyways- hope some of this is helpful.

die_daily

ditto lisajane's comment.

lists are for lazy writers. i don't care that your character is 6'1", i don't care that he has red hair and a hooked nose. i want to know what he's about, and if you can get your language to reflect your character then you've got something really special. because honestly i dont think many peoplecan do that, and maybe that approach only works well for stories in first person. but that is all i care about and the best stories i've ever read never included lists. i always imagine the character based off the attitude i pick up from the language. read jesus's son, by denis johnson. the narrator is a guy named Fuckhead. it's beautiful.

Novicewriter

Well for me since I tend to write more screenplays (and from what i've read) you shouldn't go into a huge lengthy description of someone. I think that you should leave some imagination to the reader. Besides when you are writing a screenplay you don't really have an idea of who will be playing your character Just a general idea... for example.

A young man in his early thirties. He wears blue jeans and black t-shirt.


As far as a novel/short story, well I don't describe the character in detail... I do describe them some, but not all at once....spread it out

Hope that helps.

NW

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Scratches

In a similar vein to what everyone else has said, my tips are:

- Enter details sparsely and at appropriate times; if a 1st person view character looks down at the ground and notices someone's odd-looking shoes, it's a better time to note it than in a big block of description before the action actually continues
- Don't write as if you're in love with the character, and don't make them too dashing, unless it's integral to the plot. It gets plain irritating to read, "His chiseled face was etched out in the moonlight, his deep-set eyes glinting attractively."
- Avoid giving someone's features more than two adjectives in the same clause, e.g. "Her soft long jet-black shimmering hair."
- I don't think you need to think about details like skin tone. I think the goal is to give enough description for the essence of the character to show through, whilst leaving room for readers to use their imagination. They're never going to all be picturing the exact same face anyway.

Sorry, rambled. Good luck...

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whiz_bang

Heh, you kids are awesome. I've found some great suggestions that I'll be putting to use as I create my characters. And as always, your input is graciously appreciated and accepted

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Nazareth

Scratches- you bring up a nother good teaching tool- that is to show how bad something can look- along with showing good examples, I've found that reading examples of bad writing helps just as much sometimes.