The ultimate sin when describing characters in a novel: writing a long list of physical attributes that are mentioned once when characters are first introduced and then never again. Seriously, readers will forget all these details.
When you stop the story to describe a character in extensive detail … the story literally comes to a standstill.
This is not good.
You want readers to feel compelled to keep reading a novel, and every time the story pauses, all the momentum the author has built is lost.
An author might feel compelled to describe characters in extensive detail because they want their readers to see them exactly as they see them.
Encourage them not to do this to their readers! It robs the reader of the chance to engage their own imaginations.
So, what could they do instead?
One effective method is to focus descriptions on one uniquely defining feature.
Use specific adjectives as well as metaphor and simile to make the description more original, creating further connotations that hint at the character’s personality.
Compare these two descriptions to see what I mean:
My father is tall and slim and has a thin nose, greying brown hair and pale blue eyes. He wears wireframed glasses, and today he is wearing a blue shirt and brown trousers. There is a small ink stain on the pocket of his shirt. He is holding a cigarette.
How boring does that read?
Do we really need to know what he’s wearing? Is there another (more interesting) way we can get a sense of what this character looks like? Can we make this description work harder so it not only gives us a picture of the character but tells us something about who he is?
He carried the aroma of his desk covered in paperclips chains, ink from the pen that spots his shirt pocket, and the cigarettes he can’t smoke in front of men like my grandfather without looking ashamed.
— Something Like Breathing by Angela Readman
The length of someone’s hair or the colour of their eyes rarely add anything to our sense of character. Key choices in posture, movement, scent, facial expression, action and speech pattern are often much more evocative.
It’s not about communicating the most information.
It’s about choosing the features that tell us the most about the character.
Encourage authors to make these distinct and scatter them throughout their novels and readers will enjoy building vivid pictures of the characters in their heads.
