# Describing Characters



## Chessie (Nov 4, 2013)

Hi friends, I would like to ask how you all go about describing your characters in the flow of your story. I have a hard time with this because some advice says not to do it, while others say to do it minimally, and I personally don't like reading heavy descriptions of characters because I'll never remember it all anyway. 

But my beta readers seem to think this is something I need to work on. I don't describe how the characters look enough and they're left with questions in their minds. Anyone have good suggestions? And thank you!


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 4, 2013)

I'm a minimalist. I want to give the reader a few prominent details & let the reader fill in the blanks from their own experiences. I feel this is one of many ways to make the reader and active participant in the story.  

So, if I'm describing an old woman's face, what stands out as dominant? Does she have a long, hooked nose? Does she have bushy, unkempt eyebrows? Are the wrinkles running down the sides of her mouth extremely deep? Focus on a couple, no more than three for me usually, and let the reader paint the mundane details.  

For POV characters, I use even less at one time. I may mention a physical characteristic but many of the other features can be added by context. For example, if I'm writing a young woman, her deference to that old woman we described before (if written well) will tell us that our POV is younger. There are many sneaky ways to slip in these sorts of details. Be clever. Being sneaky with description can be a great component of storytelling if done right.


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## Chessie (Nov 4, 2013)

Absolutely, and thank you. I can do non-POV characters fine, its the POV that gets me. How does one describe their own self?


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## GeekDavid (Nov 4, 2013)

I just described someone as "A tall powerfully built man with hair the color of sunlight and bright blue eyes with a generous helping of smile lines at the corners," and I think that's good enough for my purposes right now.

Does it matter for the purposes of the story that he is exactly six-foot-whatever? I don't think so.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 4, 2013)

My theory is that I describe the character's appearance when I introduce them and then don't come back to it unless it's important to the story. The description is detailed enough that the reader gets a general idea, but vague enough to leave room for the imagination.
I believe that a reader will form an image very quickly and that everything that forces them to revise that image will annoy them. The first impression the reader gets will last. I think you can build on that impression without too much issue but you shouldn't try to change it.

For example, if you don't mention the color of a character's hair when they're introduced, don't mention it later as someone will have imagined them with a different color. However, if you don't mention that your character has the hair on their left leg done in a french braid style when you first describe them it's fine to mention it later - especially if you mention them wearing a long dress in the first scene (so the reader can't "see" their legs).

You can also pull attention to a character's appearance if you've mentioned it in the past - it will cement the reader's impression and that's not really a bad thing I think.
My character Jolene is described as having long, curly, blonde hair and that's something I keep coming back to; her blond curls bobbing as she walk, or blowing in the wind etc.

This is the paragraph where Jolene first appears in the story:


> He started awake. The most beautiful woman he'd ever seen stood right by his char, trying to talk to him. She'd just said something but he had no idea what. All he could think of were large blue eyes, curly blonde hair and round little cheeks that smiled like the sun.


It's very vague, but it's enough to give you an impression of the character. A few lines later I add another detail:


> Enar stared after her. With her golden curls bobbing in the wind and her long brown dress swinging back and forth to the movement of her hips she sure was a sight to behold. He wondered if she was single.


The dress hasn't been mentioned before so I feel it's okay to wait a little bit (5 lines of text) to add that bit. 
That's all the description there is of her and I don't feel there's more needed. I believe you already have a fairly good image of the woman in question.


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## Chessie (Nov 4, 2013)

But what about describing POV characters? I guess that's what my question is mainly about, sorry for not being clear enough.


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## GeekDavid (Nov 4, 2013)

Chesterama said:


> But what about describing POV characters? I guess that's what my question is mainly about, sorry for not being clear enough.



Well, for the abovementioned tall person, since I am writing it in first-person POV, I noted that the tall person had to look down to meet the POV character's eyes.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 4, 2013)

Here's how I described Enar (my MC). It's the second paragraph of the book:


> Enar was in his early thirties and, by anfylk standards, rather average. Perhaps he was a little rounder than what was perfectly healthy, but so were a lot of people these days. His hair was dark and unruly but respectably short if not recently cut. For the trip he'd dressed comfortably in a sweater, jeans and his favorite gardening boots. A heavy coat hung from a peg on the wall next to the window by his seat.



The story is written in third person so here's me as a narrator telling the reader what the guy looks like. Since he's the POV character I've added some things that aren't readily visible, like his age and the fact that he has a pair of favorite boots for gardening. I also tried to get the description to reflect some of his personality by adding that he's comfortably dressed and that his hair is respectably short but not cut recently. 
These are quite minor details, but I believe they may have a small but meaningful impact on the readers perception of the character.

This is the only description of how Enar looks.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 4, 2013)

What I think is important about POV characters is how they respond and react, not so much what they look like. I just wrote an introductory chapter for a collaborative work where I'm pretty certain I didn't describe the POV at all. Still, I feel some sense of the character's appearance slipped in. Her name is ethnic, she responds to elders who are described in a certain way, her thought processes are indicative of someone from her station, age group, and culture.  

There is a theory that states the more vague you are in describing your POV, the more likely your reader will be to imagine themselves in that role. I don't by that lock, stock, & barrel but the idea has some merit.   

Let's examine this from another approach though. Your POV should be involved in some pretty serious business, hopefully grave happenings right from the get go, or at least teetering on the edge. When you're in crisis, do you think about what you look like? I don't. That's an extreme example I know. However, the point remains. The physical description is less telling as a detail than the reaction to events. It's certainly less important or lasting. That's why I prefer the minimalist approach...one detail for my POV (or none) is my approach. This does change from story to story, character to character though.  

Lastly, I've read many stories where the image my mind created of a character was so far off from a later description. Guess which one survived the contradiction...the image my mind  created won out. That's the basic reason I feel these details are less important than context and reactions.


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## Penpilot (Nov 4, 2013)

Chesterama said:


> But what about describing POV characters? I guess that's what my question is mainly about, sorry for not being clear enough.



I'm a minimalist. I get comments from readers on how they want me to describe more, but I tend to ignore them because IMHO I've given them more than enough to get a general feel for what the character looks like.

But if you want to add more, think about presence. What I mean by that is think about how they interact with the world around them. Compare how a large person moving through the world is different than a smaller person. How do their foot steps sound walking on a wooden floor, etc. Also how does it feel to have certain traits. If they have a beard. Have the POV character scratch it, clean it, deal with it getting in their mouths when they eat, etc. Use these things as a way to get that detail out there in a more indirect way.

What a person wears feels and works different. Using this you can give the reader an impression of what a character is wearing. A long cloak feels different than a short jacket. Armor feels different than wool. Having lots of pockets may require a multi-pocket search for an item. If you mention armor squeaking as a character moves, you can get better mileage for your words than just stating something.


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## Chessie (Nov 4, 2013)

Thank you, all of these comments are very helpful. Penpilot, I tend to be a minimalist too and go for the feel of the character. In the particular scene I sent the beta readers, they mentioned that the POV character felt like a smaller woman, which is the case. They got her appearance down from what she was wearing and a mention about her race (things described about where she came from). I figured that was enough but since all of them implied the same issue, figured I would take a look at it.


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## ThinkerX (Nov 4, 2013)

I use between 'a few words' and 'a few sentences' of description when it comes to characters appearances.  This applies even to major characters.

I do have a large number of minor characters, many of them exotic or unusual to the MC's.  To set the tone, even these lowly extra's and bit players get a few words worth of description: 'line of skinny loincloth clad laborers' or 'skinny little shrew of a woman in a green and gold dress', for example.  To me, this is much better than simply going with 'laborers' or 'woman'.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 4, 2013)

I appreciate vivid prose a great deal, but I believe it works best if you can paint the clearest image with just a few powerful words, or alternatively scatter your descriptions of the same character. I'm not necessarily against info-dumps on principle, but I reserve those for moments when I want to slow the pace down.

For my current WIP's female protagonist, I'm scattering the descriptors. Shall I quote a few examples of my own writing in this thread?



			
				Chapter One's opening paragraph said:
			
		

> [Queen Nefrusobek's] dark cocoa skin sparkled with perspiration from the Kametian sun roasting overhead.





			
				A few paragraphs later said:
			
		

> "If it's any consolation, you look ravishing today, my Queen," Djadao said. "Your lithe curves glisten like polished ebony underneath the Creator's golden light, and it dazzles me to blindness."





			
				The next page said:
			
		

> Tears crept out of her eyes to drip down her cheeks' beauty scars.





			
				Opening paragraph of Chapter One's second scene said:
			
		

> After taking her seat, Nefrusobek put her blue-striped _nemes _crown over her frizzy hair and straightened her back up, beaming with regal pride. Gold jewelry inlaid with gemstones glittered all over her neck and limbs.





			
				The middle of Chapter Two said:
			
		

> Something clutched onto Nefrusobek's backside and groped it with giant iron fingers.
> 
> “I see what they say about the Kametian ladies' endowments is true!” a male voice growled in a thick foreign accent. “Never have I seen such a juicy rump!”



These descriptive lines are all spaced wide apart in my manuscript, yet I believe they suffice to paint a clear portrait of my heroine even if they're not all together in one info-dump.


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## Guy (Nov 4, 2013)

As a writer, I have a very specific image of my MCs in mind. As a reader, I want to know what these people look like. James Fenmore Cooper is an example of taking character description to extremes. He would get into every bead on a native's clothing. That's going a bit far, but I hate it when I'm reading a book and I have absolutely no idea what this person looks like. Even more bothersome is when the writer finally decides to tell me - at the end of the book. Usually, it turns out my image of the character was dead wrong and it completely nullifies the experience of reading the story. No reason you can't spare at least a few sentences. This is particularly true of races the writer made up. It bugs me to this day that nowhere in The Hobbit or the entire LOTR trilogy did Tolkien ever said what an orc looked like.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 4, 2013)

Guy said:


> It bugs me to this day that nowhere in The Hobbit or the entire LOTR trilogy did Tolkien ever said what an orc looked like.



When I was little this is what I thought orcs looked like (sort of):


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## Penpilot (Nov 4, 2013)

Chesterama said:


> I figured that was enough but since all of them implied the same issue, figured I would take a look at it.



When I get this, I have to decide if it's what they want vs. what's needed. Everyone when they read a story wants certain things to happen to their expectations or wants the story to delve in certain areas that interest them. Those don't always correlate with the story you're trying to tell and what you're trying to delve into.

Take for example Peter Jackson's King Kong. In the original black and white, very little time was spent on Skull Island. In the remake, tons of time was spent to the detriment of the movie. Peter Jackson was very interested in the stuff that happened on the Island, but most people weren't as interested as he was.


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## A. E. Lowan (Nov 5, 2013)

I tend to go with those characteristics that are defining, that stand out.  For a POV character, they may think of themselves a bit differently than they actually look, just like we all do, and this will say a lot about the character themselves.  For example, here is my FMC looking at herself through another's eyes.  Note, she's actually reading this guy's soul, but still her own opinion is coloring her impression.  Characters are very often unreliable, especially about their own characteristics.



> Winter knew why he was in doubt, knew as she looked into his wide eyes how he saw her.  Tall and skinny to the point of illness, wearing an old-fashioned dress and a bloody lab coat over an oversized sweater that had perhaps seen better days.  Pale skin, pale blue eyes, and long hair white as snow pulled up in a Victorian bun, a color and style completely at odds with her twenty-something face.  Just a beanpole of a girl, not much older than his own oldest daughter — how could she be the Mulcahy?



I'll admit, I cheated here a bit, but you can do other things.  The old "stop and look in a mirror" trick gets used, but beware, that way lies clichÃ© and characters just standing around looking at themselves.  (Yeah, I did it, but I had a good reason.  Stop looking at me.)  Think about yourself.  What do you notice?  Your hands?  The way they begin to look like your parents' hand as you get older?  Are your knees crackling yet?  Aches and pains are good give-aways for age and experiences.  Hair in your face is a good chance to describe cut, color, and texture, as well as emotional impressions about it - not all of us like our hair, or the fact that we are balding or that we wish it would grow faster/more slowly.  The list goes on and on to the fit of clothing and so on.  Have fun noticing yourself for a day.


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## wordwalker (Nov 5, 2013)

Excellent points here. Description's best if it flows with the rest and contributes to it by making an impression -- the old "facial checklist" approach never struck me as anything but bulky literary tradition. 

All the same, if you don't give the reader enough of the basics of someone's looks, they're liable to feel disconnected from the tale. And it's *hard* if you like a strong POV, like I do. The "mirror trick" is so convenient it's become a screaming cliche.

A checklist I'm considering now:


colors (hair, eyes, skin): a big part of the basic image, but the only really tough thing to get in for a POV character. I'd say take the plunge and just pick an early, conspicuous moment where some of the other details come up and this can just be tacked onto it to complete the basic picture. 
One place these things might come up: whether he looks like his family, his people, or the folks around him. "So I'm not a blond noble like my friend, but just try to keep me out!"​
body (height, build, health, age): fairly easy to use, just the right mention of if he's taller/shorter than people or shelves, or a few words about these as part of how he walks. And age and sometimes health can come up many other ways through his background, social status, and so on.
clothes (and sometimes hair length and style): very easy. Just point out where he did/didn't have enough/too much of something on him today, and what that means: "Of all the days to leave my sword behind! At least with my hair braided I look more like a local and might slip by..." Really an organic part of the moment.


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## Chessie (Nov 5, 2013)

Awesome! Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts. I've gotten some good things from them. 

Jabrosky: you describe your characters in a spread. That's how I do it. To me, the story is most important but I find it much easier to describe non-pov characters with one swipe. This is how I've got my main character described in 2 scenes. I think this is enough but somehow my beta readers mentioned that this wasn't enough for them. Suggestions?



> She scratched at the circular tattoos on her chin with the back of her hand, jingling the copper bracelets on her arm.



Following paragraph:


> She said and leaned her sturdy body forward.



And the next:


> She said, tugging at one of her waist-length dark braids.





> Her upturned lips quivered.





> She slid forward and pounded one of her small fists on Matilda’s desk.





> She clenched her teeth and narrowed her light brown eyes



And the next page I describe what she wears:


> She slid her fingers underneath the silk scarf around her neck



Another paragraph down:


> She said, adjusting her leather blouse and tucking its sides into her wool skirt.





> Her sweaty feet itched inside her beaded moccasins.



EDIT: I placed these descriptions into a scene with dialogue because that's how the story started.


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## saellys (Nov 5, 2013)

As a reader, if I don't get a pretty clear description of every character shortly after their introduction, even the POV character in a limited-third-person perspective or first-person perspective story, I come away feeling cheated. In a fantasy world where literally everything else is, by necessity, lavishly described, leaving the appearance of your characters up to the reader is a bit of a copout. If you're describing their enchanted sword or ranger garb or desert hut or horse, why not their facial features, skin tone, hair and eye color, physique, and so on? Show me you really took the time to imagine every part of your world.

As a writer, I have very strong mental images for all my characters. Sometimes I "cast" actors that have the right look, but if I don't come across anyone who fits I can still readily describe all those same aspects, and I make sure to do so in the story (in as organic a way as possible, per wordwalker's excellent suggestions above). I don't want my readers to picture a minor character as gaunt and awkward when they're meant to be pudgy and graceful, or pale as birch bark when they're meant to be dark as mahogany. (The woes of casting Katniss Everdeen are a prime example of how easily readers can assume characters are white by default, even when the description is overt.) The same is true of any part of your world. If you wrote a towering city made of glass, you wouldn't let your readers get the idea it was carved from bone. Why leave your characters nebulous?


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## Chessie (Nov 5, 2013)

That is actually a very well made point, saellys. You've just given me a new perspective on the subject. I admit this is one of my weakest areas and that's why I posted this thread. I DO have a clear description in my mind of how all the characters look, and I describe them well. Its just the POV one that mystifies me because I want to stay in limited 3rd person. But you're right, everything else is described why not that?


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## saellys (Nov 5, 2013)

And that's definitely the trickiest situation, but when it comes down to that, I say bite the bullet and squeeze in a couple sentences somewhere that encompass your mental image, then let your test readers tell you if it's too much too fast. For the first chapter or so of _The Stone Front_, all our POV characters are in the same place, and four of them are related, and nobody is meeting anyone else for the first time, so there is a lot of "She had ___ hair and ___ eyes," and also a bit of comparing who got which traits from which parent. It doesn't flow into the narrative as seamlessly as many authors might want, but it does put all the description in one easy-to-reference spot and then the story can proceed. Tolkien spent like half a page on Boromir's clothes, so I think my co-writers and I are within our rights on this.


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## Ireth (Nov 5, 2013)

What if your POV character isn't in much of a position to notice or care what the person they're meeting for the first time is wearing or looks like? At one point, my MC has been brutally tortured, interrogated, and basically left to die before another character steps in to save him. The MC is in a heck of a lot of pain, can only see through one eye, and is currently trapped and helpless. Can I get away with not describing his rescuer in any great detail right away? In his current state, the MC's not going to pay attention to the cut of her clothes or the style of her hair. If anything he'll be mostly focused on the spear she's carrying, and how much the iron in the head of it is adding to his pain.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 5, 2013)

I'll comment a little on your description (keep in mind I'm in no way an experienced writer so read critically).



> She scratched at the circular tattoos on her chin with the back of her hand, jingling the copper bracelets on her arm.



From this line I get the impression of a slender dark skinned woman. I don't know for sure where I get the idea she's dark skinned. It could be that I associate jangling bracelets with dark skinned women or it could be that I saw a comment from Jabrosky earlier (that's the power of association for you).
There are more reasons for why I picture her as slender. Firstly, it doesn't say anything else. Generally, (I think, not sure here) if a woman isn't slender (she's chubby, fat, round, anorexic) it's pointed out. Slender women as important female characters seems to be something of a norm so that's the conclusion my brain jumps to if nothing else is mentioned.
Secondly, her bracelets are dangling, which indicates they're larger than her arm. Again, I'm assuming that if she had thick arms you'd have mentioned that as it deviates slightly from the norm.
Thirdly, she scratches her check with the back of her hand. This, I feel, is something of a dainty gesture and it fits better with a slender woman. 
I also get that she has circular tattoos on her chin. This isn't something I have any frame of reference for. I picture it as two circles about the size of coins (smaller than a quarter) with some kind of pattern inside it. It's not something I'm really putting too much attention to though (again, it's because I haven't seen it before so I have no clear image of what it'd look like).

That's all the information I get from that line. The rest I make up myself based on my own experiences and preferences. So I picture her with an angular face, a sharp nose an straight black hair that falls down her back. Since she's facing me (I imagine) I have no clear image of how long her hair actually is, but it disappears behind her back.
I don't really have any description of her clothes, but I'm thinking it's a warm climate and that she's wearing some kind of light fabric (or possibly leather), probably white/yellow-ish or red/brown. 
I also imagine that she's sitting.

As you can see. from that sentence I've filled in a whole lot of blanks that aren't mentioned. I already have an idea of her clothes, face and hair. I haven't really thought about her eyes as that's not something I pay much attention to in real life, but I imagine they're some kind of dark-ish color.

Bearing all this in mind what I'm thinking is that your readers used the first line only to build their image of the character and then didn't make the connection with the rest of the details you put in.

I guess I should learn something from this as well, as I used a similar method when describing Jolene. I first put in the phase and then only later added the dress.


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## Chessie (Nov 5, 2013)

Wow, Svrtnsse, you came really close! I'm impressed.  She lives in a cold climate, and I'm glad you mentioned something different which tells me yes, I should add more description in.  I redid a couple paragraphs and this is what I have: 


> She sat on the edge of a cushy chair in Matilda Lievics’s office, her bouncy legs crossed, her sturdy back erect and leaning forward. She tugged at one of her two waist-length braids, black as the mid-winter night sky, wrapped in reindeer hide leather straps. Her light brown skin tone, a characteristic of her indigenous people the Tsy, meshed softly with her yellow silk blouse and flower-patterned scarf. She scratched at the red circular tattoos, the size of small pearls, on her angular chin with the back of her manicured hand, jingling the copper bracelets on her arm.
> The tightness in her petite chest allowed her to only suck in a shallow breath. Her deep set brown eyes hovered in sadness and desperation.





> She said, pulling at her dark blue leggings underneath her itchy wool skirt. Her sweaty foot tapped against the floor inside a hand-crafted and beaded moccasin.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 5, 2013)

saellys said:


> As a reader, if I don't get a pretty clear description of every character shortly after their introduction, even the POV character in a limited-third-person perspective or first-person perspective story, I come away feeling cheated. In a fantasy world where literally everything else is, by necessity, lavishly described, leaving the appearance of your characters up to the reader is a bit of a copout. If you're describing their enchanted sword or ranger garb or desert hut or horse, why not their facial features, skin tone, hair and eye color, physique, and so on? Show me you really took the time to imagine every part of your world.


I do believe that modern Western society's cowardly stance towards racial discussions reinforces many writers' reluctance to describe their characters physically. When one of my aunts taught as a schoolteacher, she read an excerpt from a book which simply mentioned the characters' skin colors, and one of the students cried racism. The irony is that this kind of phony "colorblindness" that tells people not to mention skin color actually strengthens white privilege, because it means you can't describe a person as anything other than the white default.


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## saellys (Nov 5, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> I do believe that modern Western society's cowardly stance towards racial discussions reinforces many writers' reluctance to describe their characters physically. When one of my aunts taught as a schoolteacher, she read an excerpt from a book which simply mentioned the characters' skin colors, and one of the students cried racism. The irony is that this kind of phony "colorblindness" that tells people not to mention skin color actually strengthens white privilege, because it means you can't describe a person as anything other than the white default.



Not to turn this into another "Sensitive Topics" thread, but I think you're not far off. The thing is, there are ways to describe characters' skin colors that could piss off your readers for very good reasons. For instance, food descriptors are tired and clichÃ©, and also rather dehumanizing. I try, when describing people of color, to think of how I would describe my own skin tone, and it's staggeringly difficult because I _am_ the default and I have never had to think about it before. Past a certain point my brain just switches into Crayola mode and I'm apricot, which doesn't solve anything.  

There are some lazy descriptions out there, and there are some pretty decent descriptions out there, and at the end of the day there are some very straightforward descriptions that _still_ get ignored by readers and casting agents and actresses. Suzanne Collins described Katniss and Gale and almost everyone else who lived in the Seam area of District 12 in _The Hunger Games_ as having olive skin, dark hair, and grey eyes. That was a really cool part of Collins's post-apocalyptic worldbuilding, with suggestions of First Nations heritage or Indian-American or thoroughly blended races, and I've seen fancast versions of Katniss that embraced all those possibilities (Q'orianka Kilcher is still my favorite), but the casting call scrapped all of that and specified Caucasian and we ended up with Jennifer Lawrence. 

It is, no doubt, enough to put a writer off describing characters entirely, but I still think the effort toward inclusiveness and well-crafted description is worth it.


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## Steerpike (Nov 5, 2013)

Skin color is one thing I do generally describe with my characters, because it is a physical trait that is immediately recognizable. My MC is of Mayan heritage. Her skin, hair and eye color reflects that, for example. Another character is black. It makes sense to describe that. But on the whole, I tend to leave out physical descriptions, save for just a few characteristics. I like to let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks on the exact appearance of the character.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 5, 2013)

saellys said:


> In a fantasy world where literally everything else is, by necessity, lavishly described, leaving the appearance of your characters up to the reader is a bit of a copout. If you're describing their enchanted sword or ranger garb or desert hut or horse, why not their facial features, skin tone, hair and eye color, physique, and so on? Show me you really took the time to imagine every part of your world.


Lavish description in fantasy is a style choice only. Many authors approach setting in a minimalist fashion, same as character description. This is a more modern trend, and the bedrock of the genre did normally incorporate a more generous descriptive style, that's certain. It isn't necessary for a good story though, personal preferences not withstanding.



Jabrosky said:


> I do believe that modern Western society's cowardly stance towards racial discussions reinforces many writers' reluctance to describe their characters physically. When one of my aunts taught as a schoolteacher, she read an excerpt from a book which simply mentioned the characters' skin colors, and one of the students cried racism. The irony is that this kind of phony "colorblindness" that tells people not to mention skin color actually strengthens white privilege, because it means you can't describe a person as anything other than the white default.


I don't believe this is the reason for minimal description. Rather, it is a theory geared to involve the reader more, immersing them into the story, making them an active participant by filling in details from their own experiences.


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## Chessie (Nov 5, 2013)

Saellys, your point about Katniss happens to be one of the reasons why I don't describe characters often. Readers get an image in mind and there it goes. A long time ago, I wrote a short story about a character who resembled someone of Greek heritage. A human. One of my readers kept thinking she was an elf...although there were no elves in that story. *shrugs*


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## saellys (Nov 5, 2013)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Lavish description in fantasy is a style choice only. Many authors approach setting in a minimalist fashion, same as character description. This is a more modern trend, and the bedrock of the genre did normally incorporate a more generous descriptive style, that's certain. It isn't necessary for a good story though, personal preferences not withstanding.



Fair enough, but you don't have to be lavish or even generous with description to carry a solid image. "She had creamy, silken skin and hair like honey just off the comb," is a long way from "She was pale and blonde". Same image, different stylistic choices--still counts as description. 

An author who consciously decides to not describe anything at all and write nothing but straight narration makes me feel as if I have been plopped down in a Langoliers-esque world of haze and formlessness, and the story tumbles straight out of "style choice" and into "poor writing".



T.Allen.Smith said:


> I don't believe this is the reason for minimal description. Rather, it is a theory geared to involve the reader more, immersing them into the story, making them an active participant by filling in details from their own experiences.



That makes me wonder who the writer is here. 



Chesterama said:


> Saellys, your point about Katniss happens to be one of the reasons why I don't describe characters often. Readers get an image in mind and there it goes. A long time ago, I wrote a short story about a character who resembled someone of Greek heritage. A human. One of my readers kept thinking she was an elf...although there were no elves in that story. *shrugs*



And sadly, there is little writers can do about something like that. In fact, if we protest too much about readers' willful misinterpretation, we tend to wind up looking like jerks.


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## Ireth (Nov 5, 2013)

saellys said:


> And sadly, there is little writers can do about something like that. In fact, if we protest too much about readers' willful misinterpretation, we tend to wind up looking like jerks.



Indeed. You really can't help what goes on in people's heads sometimes. I was part of an RP once that took place in a magical-school setting, where the school was divided into four houses: "normal" humans, mages, vampires and shapeshifters. One of my characters was a "normal" human professor, but somehow one of the GMs always thought he was a mage, even though he had demonstrated absolutely no magical talent or even an inclination toward developing any, until I finally pointed that out. Though said GM then went and turned him into a mage anyway (with my consent, of course), so... moot point, I guess.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 5, 2013)

saellys said:


> Fair enough, but you don't have to be lavish or even generous with description to carry a solid image. "She had creamy, silken skin and hair like honey just off the comb," is a long way from "She was pale and blonde". Same image, different stylistic choices--still counts as description.


Agreed. As originally stated in this thread, I'm an advocate of a few key, and prominent, details.



saellys said:


> An author who consciously decides to not describe anything at all and write nothing but straight narration makes me feel as if I have been plopped down in a Langoliers-esque world of haze and formlessness, and the story tumbles straight out of "style choice" and into "poor writing".


I'm not advocating straight narration either. How can one describe nothing? No, I'm talking about minimalist description, small details that do a lot of powerful work.



saellys said:


> That makes me wonder who the writer is here.


I'm not sure I understand. Are you asking me who believes, or generated, this line of thought? Are you asking me for examples of writing like this? Or, are you trying to say that writers who believe in this approach come from a certain mindset or social group?



saellys said:


> And sadly, there is little writers can do about something like that. In fact, if we protest too much about readers' willful misinterpretation, we tend to wind up looking like jerks.


I believe that clarity is king. If your reader is not understanding the distinct image you're trying to convey, you have failed...not them. In my view, this is another argument for minimalist description. The image that moves around within their story is the one the reader created with only minimal, but powerful, input from the writer. That image, in the reader's experience, is dead-on accurate.


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## saellys (Nov 5, 2013)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I'm not sure I understand. Are you asking me who believes, or generated, this line of thought? Are you asking me for examples of writing like this? Or, are you trying to say that writers who believe in this approach come from a certain mindset or social group?



I'm trying to say that a writer who leaves a character's entire appearance open like a Mad Lib blank for the reader to fill in is leaving their job as a writer unfinished. When I start reading a book, I do not want to be an active partner in describing these things that I have never encountered before. Again, this is the same for every part of a fantasy world. Enchanted sword? Describe the runes or the jewels in the hilt or the tassel or the scabbard. Towering city? Tell me what it's made of and what kind of people live there. 

There's a certain threshold where I can say "Oh, interesting, based on this description it's fun to picture Locke Lamora as resembling Dev Patel," but I needed Scott Lynch's description (which was pretty minimal, by my standards) to get there. Any less description than that, and I'm not engaged. 



T.Allen.Smith said:


> I believe that clarity is king. If your reader is not understanding the distinct image you're trying to convey, you have failed...not them. In my view, this is another argument for minimalist description. The image that moves around within their story is the one the reader created with only minimal, but powerful, input from the writer. That image, in the reader's experience, is dead-on accurate.



And again, there are loads of people who walked away from _The Hunger Games_ thinking Katniss was white, despite straightforward description. That's not Collins's failing.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 5, 2013)

saellys said:


> I'm trying to say that a writer who leaves a character's entire appearance open like a Mad Lib blank for the reader to fill in is leaving their job as a writer unfinished.


No one said anything about leaving a character's entire appearance open.



saellys said:


> When I start reading a book, I do not want to be an active partner in describing these things that I have never encountered before. Again, this is the same for every part of a fantasy world. Enchanted sword? Describe the runes or the jewels in the hilt or the tassel or the scabbard. Towering city? Tell me what it's made of and what kind of people live there.


A personal preference to which you're entitled. However, that level of detail isn't necessary for all readers to enjoy a good story.



saellys said:


> And again, there are loads of people who walked away from The Hunger Games thinking Katniss was white, despite straightforward description. That's not Collins's failing.


Although I read this book, I don't recall much about it. I didn't like it nearly as much as most people. I'd have to re-read the story to determine if the description caused image confusion, or if it was reader projection (which is what I think you're implying). I'm not likely to look into deeper as I find the story a tad boring & predictable.

Also, I'm not trying to generate a discussion on this author or that author. Rather, I'm making a case for clarity & the effectiveness of minimalist description done well.


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## Steerpike (Nov 5, 2013)

If an author wants to leave appearance entirely open-ended, that's fine. Why not? In Jeanette Winterson's book _Written on the Body_​, as I recall the MC is not only not described, but the gender isn't even given.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 5, 2013)

> Any less description than that, and I'm not engaged.



I'm the complete opposite.  As a reader, I couldn't care less about descriptions of any kind.  They are much more likely to bore me, thus reducing my engagement, than to do the opposite.

That's one reason why writing is so tough.  Even if an author produces the absolute best work of genius ever in the eyes of one audience, other audiences will not like it at all.


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## Addison (Nov 5, 2013)

There are several ways to describe a character but let me make one thing clear first, there's no set rule that says you must describe the character height to hair in one paragraph. You can do it differently and then some in one of three ways. Each of them describes the character effectively and in more dimensions. 

1. Interaction with self. I read this example in a writing book, I forget the book exactly-it's buried in the pile behind me-where this is usually done when the character is dressing. In the book's example it went something like; "He picked up the only clean shirt and slipped it on. Looking at himself he realized he matched head to toe in his given color; s#$% brown. @#$ brown shirt, #$%#$ brown eyes, @#$3 brown hair and @##$ brown shoes to match. All on a body shaped like a turd." So here, however gross (I didn't write it) we get the character's physical description and a clear view of their mentality. 

2. Interaction with others. This is usually done with the character comparing themselves to or against others. "I always envied Jenny with her long, straight blonde hair, willowy figure and strong cheek bones. Compared to me, sister of the seven dwarfs. Small, big build with short curls and bouncy cheeks." Who the character compares themselves to and how tells the reader different things. This can also be used as comparing and contrasting to environment, usually in a career. If it's a fire fighter they could say their hair is as black as the smoke or something like that. It can be used as they're on a camping trip, their eyes as blue as the country sky...whatever. 

3 In dollops. In both above examples the description is still in one paragraph, you can do it how you please. But you can describe different parts in different ways through the first two or so pages. "The eager beagle pawed at the blankets, uncovering a head of blonde hair......he opened the cabinet and hopped as high as he could to snatch the cereal....he locked eyes with his sister, her blue eyes at war with his green eyes." Here we learn he has a puppy, he's not a morning person, he's short and has a sister with a typical sibling relationship. 

There's no rule for how or how fast you describe a character, these are just examples. Hope this helped.


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## buyjupiter (Nov 5, 2013)

Slight disclaimer: I belong to the minimalist approach of writing.

Since you're writing a limited 3rd you actually have a few more options than if you're writing in 1st person.

In a first person narrative (or a really close third person), I find it incredibly self-absorbed to do a descriptive passage. Most people of my acquaintance are not going to describe themselves from head to toe, to themselves. Unless something is wrong.

If your character has just been through a horrible physical experience, like the magical equivalent of a car wreck, I can see the need to go into a description. But it has to make narrative sense for me to do it, not just because I feel the need to check something off the narrative checklist.

I choose to focus on unconscious gestures in any POV. Some people like to tap their feet. Others push back their hair. Some people rub the bridge of their noses. All of these things tell me as a reader (and writer) far more about the person than "raven black hair" or "cornflower blue eyes that matched my gingham apron." I tend to stick to unconscious gestures because it makes more sense to me as a writer/reader to have description where it makes sense. 

Another cue for me to write description of my main character is when I'm having them meet people who are the complete opposite of themselves. I think that is a valid time to bring in description as well. Not only does a writer have to describe things/people but they have to distinguish them to prevent confusion as to who is doing what thing to whom. And as a reader, that makes narrative sense as well. I'd expect descriptive passages at these points.

In short: I think that I personally have two qualifications for writing character descriptions.
1. Is this appearance different from their normal, everyday appearance?
2. Is this a scene with more than one person of the same gender/socio-economic status/etc? If it is, then I need to distinguish between characters. Physical description is one way to do this.

Now, if I'm writing a minor character, they get even less physical description than the main players. But that's a choice of detail thing, not a how to place character description problem.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 5, 2013)

> She sat on the edge of a cushy chair in Matilda Lievics’s office, her bouncy legs crossed, her sturdy back erect and leaning forward. She tugged at one of her two waist-length braids, black as the mid-winter night sky, wrapped in reindeer hide leather straps. Her light brown skin tone, a characteristic of her indigenous people the Tsy, meshed softly with her yellow silk blouse and flower-patterned scarf. She scratched at the red circular tattoos, the size of small pearls, on her angular chin with the back of her manicured hand, jingling the copper bracelets on her arm.
> The tightness in her petite chest allowed her to only suck in a shallow breath. Her deep set brown eyes hovered in sadness and desperation.
> 
> She said, pulling at her dark blue leggings underneath her itchy wool skirt. Her sweaty foot tapped against the floor inside a hand-crafted and beaded moccasin.



I'm thinking that in trying to put in some more description you have gone a little overboard and overdone it a little. I'd try to determine what's essential to form an accurate first impression of her, include those pieces and cut the rest. If this was my story, here's how I would split it.
Things to keep.
 - She's nervous.
 - Physical appearance: Light brown skin, long black hair (braided), tattoos, frame/build, eyes.
 - Bracelets (these were in the original version so I take it they're important)
Things to fit in if the opportunity arises:
 - Clothes
 - The straps on the braids.
Things to skip
 - Bouncy legs.
 - Tsy
 - Manicured hand

Maybe I'd go for it a bit like this:


> Back straight she sat on the edge of a chair in Matilda Lievics’s office. She'd pulled her braids forward so as to not sit on them and now they coiled like black snakes in her lap. She rubbed at her face to try and bring some warmth into it, the little red tattoos on her chin a stark contrast to her pale brown skin. The copper bracelets jingled against each other on her bare arms and one of them snagged against her scarf. Dark eyes squinting she managed to untangle it and let her amrs fall to her sides.



There are several pieces missing here and there's still room for improvement, but I think it cuts an image of the girl similar to the one in your version. It's not exactly the same, but it's at least similar.


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## Butterfly (Nov 5, 2013)

I'm thinking of an alternative solution. This is going to be a book, right? So what a book needs is a cover and an illustration... say the main character... Looking at it that way, do you really need to describe the MC when you can stick his/her face on the front of the cover?


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 5, 2013)

Butterfly said:


> I'm thinking of an alternative solution. This is going to be a book, right? So what a book needs is a cover and an illustration... say the main character... Looking at it that way, do you really need to describe the MC when you can stick his/her face on the front of the cover?



It's an alternative solution, but I can't help but feel it's a bit like cheating. :/


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## Penpilot (Nov 5, 2013)

saellys said:


> I'm trying to say that a writer who leaves a character's entire appearance open like a Mad Lib blank for the reader to fill in is leaving their job as a writer unfinished. When I start reading a book, I do not want to be an active partner in describing these things that I have never encountered before. Again, this is the same for every part of a fantasy world. Enchanted sword? Describe the runes or the jewels in the hilt or the tassel or the scabbard. Towering city? Tell me what it's made of and what kind of people live there.



It's not about describing  nothing. It's about giving just enough so that the reader gets a specific image and feel for the character that you want them to get. When ever I read things like "His hair ended six inches below his shoulders. His green tunic was embroider with gold swirls and silver buttons. With eyes one inch apart, his stern look struck fear in to foe. His hands were callused in the palm but soft as silk on top. His pants were form fitting but not too tight as not hinder him...." zzzzzzz... I fall a sleep. The specifics of these types of images never stick with me unless they are specifically important. The feel of them is what's important for me. 

When I read, I the impressions and feel of the character on the page forms an image. It doesn't matter if the author specifically states that a character has brown hair. If my impression of the character has black hair, that's what I see. If the color of that character's hair doesn't play a role in the plot or is an important attribute worthy of multiple mentions in the text, then it doesn't matter to me if it's brown, black, green, or purple.


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## Malik (Nov 5, 2013)

I describe each character once, and quickly. The rest is up to you.

_Nearly seven feet tall and so immensely muscled as to appear capable of pulling locomotives with his teeth, his head and goatee were shorn equally close and flecked with gray. Tanned biceps the size of footballs shoved at the rolled-up sleeves of his T-shirt, a vast expanse of black across which faux bloodstains marred the stencil GET UP.  _ 

If you can't picture him by now, I can't help you.

The rest is mannerisms, and little things that a POV character might notice as the story goes along. Nails bitten to the quick, a scar they hadn't noticed before, the actual color of their eyes. Because how often do you really, honestly, take a hard look at someone and remember them head to toe? Writers do that. Readers don't.

You're not gonna stare too long at a guy who looks like this, anyway, for fear he'd pound you into the ground like a fence post. In the real world, anybody with an instinct for self-preservation gives a guy like this a passing glance: "File under _Do Not Antagonize._ Got it."

I prefer it when the author gives me some leeway in picturing the characters. In fact, I get disappointed when the author furnishes me with a drawing or cover art.


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## Malik (Nov 5, 2013)

I read a great description, i forget where, though. It was something like, 

_He looked like the kind of guy you'd expect to see standing alone in the middle of a wrecked biker bar, calmly sipping a beer as the sirens got closer._ 

You don't need to tell me anything more. I've got everything I need, right there. 

Now, if I could only write like that.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 5, 2013)

Malik said:


> I read a great description, i forget where, though. It was something like,
> 
> _He looked like the kind of guy you'd expect to see standing alone in the middle of a wrecked biker bar, calmly sipping a beer as the sirens got closer._
> 
> ...



I know that guy.

Edit: "know" as in I know exactly what he looks like.


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## Malik (Nov 5, 2013)

Right? I could draw him from that one sentence.

You'd draw someone else. That's what's beautiful about it.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 5, 2013)

Malik said:


> I read a great description, i forget where, though. It was something like,  He looked like the kind of guy you'd expect to see standing alone in the middle of a wrecked biker bar, calmly sipping a beer as the sirens got closer.  You don't need to tell me anything more. I've got everything I need, right there.  Now, if I could only write like that.



That's a great example of description by context. Each reader fills in the details. The image they produce is accurate, and true, for their experience within the story.


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## skip.knox (Nov 5, 2013)

The thing I keep in mind is that I don't have to do all the describing at once. Give the reader a tag, some piece, or even a few pieces, at a time. The same goes for describing places as well.


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## A. E. Lowan (Nov 6, 2013)

Butterfly said:


> I'm thinking of an alternative solution. This is going to be a book, right? So what a book needs is a cover and an illustration... say the main character... Looking at it that way, do you really need to describe the MC when you can stick his/her face on the front of the cover?



Bearing in mind that, especially if you go with traditional publishing, assuming there is even a character on the cover (and today's trend is to go fairly abstract), they very rarely look as they are described in the book.  The reason?  The artists don't often read the books they're doing the covers for.  They don't have time.  To have a matching cover is a rare thing.  It's perfectly normal.  And if you're going the self-publishing route, unless you're sitting in the artist's lap while they're working, at some point your visions will diverge and you'll have to agree on a happy medium.  So, don't count on cover art to do your work for you.


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## oyler44 (Nov 6, 2013)

In describing my characters, I select 3 distinct features that are fairly unique. I select these during my building a character phase. Before I even begin the REAL writing. Then when I come back to my pre-built character once the writing has started I can use those 3 features to describe. Leave everything else to the imagination.


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## skip.knox (Nov 6, 2013)

Selecting a couple of distinct features, as oyler44 does, is quite the right thing to do. I tend to pick one or two up front, but as I start writing the character I'll sometimes find something additional. One of my characters is in a fight early on. He's not a fighter and it was sheer impulse; for most of the story he struggles with a basic fear of violence. Sort of out of the blue I had him get wounded in that early fight, from a knife. A deep knife cut will hurt for weeks, even months. So he acquired a nasty gash on his left hand that I can use throughout.

The place where I have more difficulty is in supporting characters, the kind that pop up in a few, scattered chapters. Giving them a useful tag, whether physical or mannerism or speech, is more of a challenge, for me. At least in a fantasy world we have the additional crutch of being able to pick a different race!


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## Chessie (Nov 6, 2013)

I prefer describing characters through their personality vs looks, but its something I'm working on as of the beginning of this thread. My readers got a similar image of the main character that is not who she is at all. To me, it matters that they get a good image of all the characters as I have thought them up and spent X amount of time detailing things about them so they are real people. First impressions and all.  I have found this thread useful, so thank you everyone. It seems more of you agree that they should be described/given the face time like any other world building or plot detail in the story.


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## saellys (Nov 6, 2013)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> A personal preference to which you're entitled. However, that level of detail isn't necessary for all readers to enjoy a good story.



I can grant this if you're working with a 1500-word limit and you have to push the maximum amount of plot. A lack of description could be used to great effect in a parody, too. But if you're writing a novel and you use boilerplate like "enchanted sword" and "towering city" (let alone "young hero" or "beautiful maiden") in a fantasy world that is meant to be rich and unique, you're doing your reader and yourself a disservice.



T.Allen.Smith said:


> Although I read this book, I don't recall much about it. I didn't like it nearly as much as most people. I'd have to re-read the story to determine if the description caused image confusion, or if it was reader projection (which is what I think you're implying). I'm not likely to look into deeper as I find the story a tad boring & predictable.



Or you could take my word for it, but here, I'll save you the trouble. From the first chapter: 



> I watch as Gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes. But we’re not related, at least not closely. Most of the families who work the mines resemble one another this way.
> 
> That’s why my mother and Prim, with their light hair and blue eyes, always look out of place. They are.



This will probably get more heated since character descriptions are tied directly into issues of representation, and everyone here just _loves_ to talk about that, so I'm going to duck out now.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 6, 2013)

> I can grant this if you're working with a 1500-word limit and you have to push the maximum amount of plot. A lack of description could be used to great effect in a parody, too. But if you're writing a novel and you use boilerplate like "enchanted sword" and "towering city" (let alone "young hero" or "beautiful maiden") in a fantasy world that is meant to be rich and unique, you're doing your reader and yourself a disservice.


Again...no one is talking about using generic description like "enchanted sword". I'm talking about minimal description where the prominent, specifically chosen details perform a lot of work. The reader fills in the remaining blanks which are of the more mundane sort...or not prominent or important.



> Or you could take my word for it, but here, I'll save you the trouble. From the first chapter:
> 
> I watch as Gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes. But we’re not related, at least not closely. Most of the families who work the mines resemble one another this way.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the example. Your point is well taken & your assessment appears to be accurate in this instance. I wouldn't fault Collins here. Still, I don't think it applies across the board.


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## skip.knox (Nov 6, 2013)

Rather famously, Mickey Spillane never describes his main character. Not in any one of his books. He did this deliberately (all the stories are first person), so the reader could imagine himself as Mike Hammer.

Now, I'm not claiming Spillane as Great Literature (!), but it does show that a minimum, as in zero, amount of description is possible. It really is all in the telling.


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## lonelyboy1977 (Feb 13, 2014)

*Very Helpful Thread*

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread; you've helped me a great deal with my current WIP. Not to mention I don't need to start a new thread asking questions that have been answered here.


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