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Character descriptions
I'm just curious, how detailed a description of the characters do you like? Do you like to know everything from their hair and eye colour to their height and bone structure, pretty much down to their inside leg measurement from the get go with a paragraph of description or just subtle hints as to what they might look like, a throwaway comment about their eyes or their hair so that it builds up in your head as you learn what your character is like?
Comments
Personally I feel it depends on the story.
Now this is just my view, so take it as such.
If I have a reason for describing with more than a casual, in passing comment about some feature/s, then it would be because it's getting a specific image or impression over for a good reason- for example, you want to induce fear in the character/reader faced with them, or it is vital you get that into the readers mind for later.
Normally I'm a drip-feed type- a few specifics to give the reader an impression, but not so precise they can't imagine for themselves, and put it together as they go along.
Does anyone actually remember these descriptions? Do people actually flip back through the pages to remind themselves of his hair colour?
We have a huge data base in our brains from our experience, a few well chosen words should evoke a ’type’, and we fill in the details ourselves. I have listened to The Archers on and off for years and have a clear picture of what the characters look like. There are no descriptions on radio. Even though the actots sometimes appear in magazines or on television it doesn’t change my mental image of the character.
The best writing does not contain such detailed descriptions. I recently read ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ a short story by Hemingway. The characters are not described. Only once does he give a name to one of the characters. I have a clear picture of the two characters and their location.
A story by Doris Lessing [or Katherine Mansfield, not sure] where two people, a man and a woman, arrive at a station from different places. They are both changing trains. They travel on the same train until the next change and go their separate ways. They have a conversation on the train. I have a clear picture of them. The writer says ‘her’ ‘him’ ‘she’ ‘he’ no description, age, colour, nationality.
The Sunday Times Short Story winner - no description of the characters.
http://www.esquire.com/fiction/nirvana-adam-johnson
As some have suggested, drip bits in if necessary, and obviously if important [plot or other] some hint about social status or age group.
“hi, I’m Joshua Pennington Page.”
“Blimey, you would’ve been beaten up at my school, mate.”
I think you’d form an opinion about those characters before you read further.
There’s a guy called Dave who fixes cars.
There’s a man called David who is a solicitor.
I wouldn’t need a detailed description about their eyes or hair to get a picture of ‘Dave’ or David.
Well said.
Plain blatant blow by blow description is a turn off. Character traits etc should come out in the actions and dialogue. Give the reader the opportunity to 'bring something' to the reading experience.
Hope this makes sense.
I think if you have a plot point late in the book that relied on a character being particularly short (John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany" springs to mind), or hugely overweight, or having incredibly long hair, you really need to get that in as soon as possible after he or she is introduced. Otherwise, as Phots-Moll says, you get wrenched out of the story when it suddenly becomes important and totally wrecks your mental image of the character.
You also have to stay true to your viewpoint character, if that's the way you're writing it. So a young man might notice more about the way a woman close to his age looks, but barely register a pensioner. Or a police officer might pay more attention to the way somebody's jacket hangs if they think he's concealing a weapon.
My rule of thumb is to imagine you're sending your reader into a crowded room to find your character. What's the minimum amount of information you need to give them to ensure they identify the right person?
When I write, I drip feed those things in later if the character stays in the story long enough.
As long as the reader can understand why they are unpleasant. A nasty soul is still nasty whether they're attractive or not.
Even the hero doesn't have to be all out attractive. Scarred heroes are popular in some quarters...
Those who still cling to the belief that physical description is necessary, write something from 1st POV of a blind person.
No need to speculate on how/if permanently blind people form images, if we write from pov of blind person readers will create images, just as they do when listening to radio drama. Just write what you hear. Useful exercise.
And if there's something about their appearance that marks them out as different from the 'average' person - or perhaps a better way of saying it is 'not the assumed norm in fiction' (i.e. in my current w-i-p I have a young and rather nerdy computer scientist who is also black*) - I do think you need to mention that at the first opportunity. Readers do form pictures in their heads of characters as they go, and while they're not likely to get too annoyed about finding out a character has brown eyes instead of the blue they'd pictured, they'll be thrown for a loop if the character they'd pictured as being tall, lean and athletic-looking turns out two-thirds of the way through the story to be short, balding and built like an oompa-loompa. A lot like dating, really.
*Apologies if 'black' is not the politically-correct term - I'm finding it hard to keep up with that, to be honest. 'Person of colour' sounds strange to me - like they've been painted or something - and I didn't want to use the term 'African-American' for my character because he's never been anywhere near Africa in his life. My eight-year-old son uses 'brown' for his friends at school - but I didn't want to sound like an eight-year-old either. If anyone has any other suggestions I'm all up for that!
anything else sounds twee and/or pretentious to me.
As long as 'black' isn''t accompanied by an insult, what's wrong with the word? Some Politically Correct stuff is just that - Stuff and Nonsense.
(End of rant!)