Descriptive Passages

[Ireth]

Some physical descriptions can be simple. You don't even need another point of view looking at them, and you can do it without the cheesy mirror. You just have to find an excuse to bring up those traits subtly.

You can do it through action as follows:

-She huffed the blond curls out of her eyes.
-He ran his thumb across the scar on the side of his face.
-He whistled through the gap in his teeth.

Or you can get it across through their thoughts and character. Revealing the same three physical traits as above, you can say stuff like this:

- Betty couldn't believe she said something so stupid. Even though she was blonde, she never thought she fit the stereotype. She was not dumb... maybe.
- People began staring as soon as I stepped into the room, eyes locked on to the giant scar on the side of my face. I met each of their gazes and dared them to say something about it.
- They offered me an apple. I waved it away. Bloody wide gap in my front teeth made the sensation of biting into stuff like apples, corn, and pears feel... awkward. I don't like awkward.

Thanks, Penpilot. I do try to do like your examples say, but I find some things difficult when I'm trying to describe the POV character from his/her own perspective. Here are examples from my own story.

-First the mirror passage: "[Vincent] really did look awful: hair tousled from tossing and turning all night, face sickly pale, eyes bleary and sporting dark circles, stubble starting on his chin." (Nothing too purple here, I think.)
-[Vincent and Dom] sat glowering at each other across the table for a moment, two pairs of bright blue eyes burning into each other.
-Ariel scrambled to get past [Fiachra] and to the pan, and cried out in alarm as his long fingers closed around her braid. She pulled desperately away from him, feeling the wig come off and her own blonde curls fall freely down her back, and thought for one wild moment that she would be free.

I hope you can see the difficulty here. The latter two examples of physical description, especially the third one, come from the noted trait being mentioned in comparison to something else (Vincent's eyes being the same bright blue as Dom's, and Ariel's hair being blonde and curly while her wig is blonde, straight and braided). Most if not all of the other examples of physical description in the story come second-hand: eg. Vincent's POV describing Dom running a hand through his long dirty-blond hair or wiping bacon grease from his moustache, Ariel's POV describing the villain's dark hair, narrow nose and high cheekbones, or Dom's POV describing Vincent's build as lean.

 

[Graylorne]

-First the mirror passage: "[Vincent] really did look awful: hair tousled from tossing and turning all night, face sickly pale, eyes bleary and sporting dark circles, stubble starting on his chin." (Nothing too purple here, I think.)
-[Vincent and Dom] sat glowering at each other across the table for a moment, two pairs of bright blue eyes burning into each other.
-Ariel scrambled to get past [Fiachra] and to the pan, and cried out in alarm as his long fingers closed around her braid. She pulled desperately away from him, feeling the wig come off and her own blonde curls fall freely down her back, and thought for one wild moment that she would be free.

The first two say far too much.
[Vincent] really did look awful, with that sickly face and his hair all mussed-up, as if he hadn't slept for a week

[Vincent and Dom] I'd scrap those blue eyes as irrelevant for this scene, it's a distraction.

In scene three it's OK by me.

Personally, I only describe characters that have something noteworthy. I've described a young mage because he's very vain and has an elaborate hairstyle and robe. But that was directly at first meeting. Same with a girl who looked like an emo-goth.
My MC's I don't describe at all. Unless it's something like: 'they had a friendly tussle and Olle, because he was bigger, won as he always did.'

Wiping grease from his moustache, is all right, but that long dirty-blond hair is too much. Your character can say something about his hair when they first meet, but later on it breaks the attention of the reader.

 

[Penpilot]

I hope you can see the difficulty here.

Yeah, I can see it. BUT from the passages you've shared, I think you handle them very well, nothing even close to purple. On their own each snippet stands up quite well as a piece of unobtrusive description. Length of the description is fine, depending on your intent and how it fits in with the rest of the text. Just like anything layer it on too thick and it can get heavy.

 

[Ireth]

Thanks again, Pen.