Variety in Character Descriptions

Kristy S. Gilbert, Looseleaf Editorial & Production

Describing characters can be difficult work, but some authors unintentionally make the task more difficult by sticking to a driver’s-license-style checklist of traits about their characters—gender, hair and eye color, height, etc. This focus normally comes from an impulse to describe characters so readers will have clear images in their minds.

But using the same traits or describing characters solely in informational terms can make it harder for readers to remember things about individual characters and can hamper reader reactions and connections.

Instead, try out a few of these strategies to more efficiently create emotional situations and characters that delight and connect with your readers.

Vary the Things You Describe

The first strategy is to avoid checklist descriptions. You as the author may know every character’s eye and hair color, but if those are the two major traits you describe everyone with, your descriptions won’t mean much to the reader.

Consider four characters who are described like this:

1. Blond hair, blue eyes
2. Black hair, brown eyes
3. Brown hair, brown eyes
4. Auburn hair, gray eyes

Chances are, those characters will mostly feel the same. If every character is described solely by hair and eye color for no story-relevant reason, descriptions feel like a fact sheet rather than an introduction to a person. When characters are reduced to a list of similar traits, they feel similar—even when they’re drastically different.^[1]In N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, Jemisin almost always describes a character’s skin color and hair texture along with other character traits. This works mostly because this way of … Continue reading

Now try this on for size:

1. Clever, slender fingers
2. Crooked smile
3. Pristinely groomed and smelling of jasmine
4. Rough-worn skin

These characters are much easier to tell apart—even if they’re the same people described by the first list. One description emphasizes hand shape, another a smile, another grooming choices, and another skin texture. Even if all these people had the same eye and hair color, they would feel separate. Describing a different trait for each person and varying the senses you use makes it easier for readers to see each person as unique.

Add Character to the Descriptions

Beyond giving readers more distinct details to latch onto, this sort of variety makes it easier to begin adding character into the descriptions. Slender fingers could be described as delicate, clever, or gentle, and each could begin to hint at the personality of the person those hands belong to. Emphasizing a crooked smile lets you draw the reader’s attention to the character’s mood and outlook. Focusing on grooming and scent choices—actual choices, not inborn genetic traits—can hint at social class or at a character’s fastidiousness, emphasis on fashion, or keen awareness of how others perceive them. Rough-worn skin can hint at lots of time spent outside, rugged living, or age.

That’s a lot of information readers just can’t get from knowing a character’s eyes are brown. Especially if many characters have brown eyes—the deep-set brown eyes can seem a lot like the patient amber ones!

Be Aware of Stereotypes & Assumptions

When choosing physical traits for character descriptions, be aware of stereotypes. Making all the greedy characters fat and all the heroic characters lean is weak writing—the metaphors are obvious and overdone—and it can quickly alienate readers who find value and character judgments based on body shape problematic. Make your characters’ physical traits conscious choices, and don’t rely on stereotypes as shortcuts to your goals. You can be a better writer than that.

Similarly, be aware of your own default assumptions. If you only ever describe characters’ racial traits when they differ from whatever you consider “normal,” then you’re saying that your normal is normal. This can be used intentionally for certain effects, but if you do it accidentally, you can fall into stereotyping that doesn’t serve a purpose for your book’s message, characters, or theme—and that can hurt your readers.

Choose the Right Filters

Putting purpose into your descriptions is a matter of perspective. You could describe the same set of physical attributes with different words to create a different tone and image for the reader. To use a film metaphor, you get to choose where to focus the camera, what lighting to use, and which filters to run on the footage. With the right mix, it actually doesn’t matter all that much what an actor’s genetic traits are, because the camera and the actor’s chosen mannerisms can communicate buckets’ worth of character.

In the movie Captain Marvel, actress Brie Larson frequently seems tall, strong, and combative as the title character. That same actress in her role as Rachel on the TV show Community seems much shorter (in part because she’s often filmed next to a taller actor, but also because of different camera angles) and more casual, and she doesn’t seem to take up quite so much space in a room. These changes are a result of costuming, makeup, camera choices, and changes in posture and presence. Brie Larson’s driver’s-license traits—gender, hair, eyes, height—aren’t significantly different from one situation to the next, but her character is framed so differently that Captain Marvel and Rachel create completely different effects on viewers.

In written fiction, that could look like this:

Julie stood with her feet apart and arms crossed across her chest. I knew she wouldn’t budge. She kept scanning the room, her eyes vigilant even though there was just the one door, and it was locked.

Julie rested her weight on one foot, tucking the other behind her ankle. Her back was carelessly exposed to the open door, and her phone was inches from her face. She was a goner.

Neither of these examples tells readers much about this character physically—the character is female and has use of both her legs. Yet each set of two to three sentences conveys a very different character—one who is hypervigilant and solid and another who is carefree, casual, and a bit oblivious. I could add in more physical description if I wanted to fill in a few details, but if these are in my introductory scene for this character, I already have a lot to build from for the rest of the story.

Don’t Forget the Narrator

The two examples above not only tell readers about Julie, but they begin to give readers information about the narrator. In the first example, we know the narrator is less paranoid than Julie is—they trust the locked door to stay shut—and they’re not seeing eye to eye with Julie. In the second example, the narrator is more paranoid than Julie is and doesn’t have any protective feelings toward her—they’ve already written her off as a goner and not worth their time.

Everything in your book should do more than one thing, and character descriptions are no exception. An easy way for character descriptions to do double duty is to let them say something about both the person being described and the person doing the describing.

Cocreate with Your Reader

If you’re now stressed out because apparently you have to tell readers exactly what the character looks like and consider stereotypes and communicate character and use filters appropriate to the story tone and characterize the narrator … relax.

You don’t have to do all those things. In particular, your reader doesn’t need you to tell them exactly what each character looks like. Some characters have one line in the story, so readers don’t need to know a lot about them. But even major characters don’t need to be described down to every detail. Pick the most important details and then invite your reader to cocreate that character with you. Let readers fill in all the fiddly bits and particular details. The act of cocreation is part of what makes reading such an engaging and delightful activity, and authors can embrace that to ease their own descriptive burdens.

Pick the strategies and the details that are most important to your characters, scene, and story—and leave the rest of the imaginative magic to the reader.

Kristy S. Gilbert is a book editor and designer with Looseleaf Editorial & Production. Outside of books, she enjoys cooking, kayaking, and krav maga.