Describing a person. What needs to be mentioned?
When describing the physical features of my more important characters, I often don't add much. I of course describe important features, especially if they will be relevant in the story. For example Harry Potter's scar. Part of my problem is my mental model of my characters is their personality and not their physical features.
As my readers, what is the bare minimum you need to know about the main character(s) physical appearance? Can I get by casually mentioning their height and gender and, if needed, their symbolic plot driving scar? Do you need more? If so what? If length is important, I am mostly interested in answers that focus on long short stories or novella length works. I would be curious to hear about other lengths as well if you have insight on that as well.
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I am much like you in my process in that I see my characters’ persona but not their appearance unless it is important.
I mention my MC’s height, his eye colour as that has bearing later on and that some regard him as handsome. I did a google search to discover that the eye colour I had chosen restricted his hair colour to three possibilities - I chose one. Later, a cousin of mine asked me to describe this character as he has a much more visual approach.
I have characters that are only described by something that makes them unique. I have one who wears very expensive suits and drinks only the best scotch. It is up to the reader to take him and colour him as they please. Is he short, tall or average height? I know what I think he looks like, but his words and actions are what matters. I give him a name and the reader can run with that.
Others, where it matters, I describe in broad strokes. Visualizing characters is something we all do.
Detailed descriptions can be great, painting a clear image of a character.
The freedom to make a character look how the reader pleases is something I enjoy. It allows the reader to invest those traits they imagine the character possesses based on hints given by the author.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44133. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Describe the important bits
In my opinion Harry Potter is actually an excellent example of how to describe characters. Harry is described in detail because his exact appearance has important bearing on the story. Ron's appearance is slightly less detailed but shows how he is clearly related to the other Weasley's. Hermione is describe as bushy haired with buck-teeth, nothing more is known about her because it isn't important. Rowling has said Hermione could have been black but since it didn't have a bearing on the story it was never included.
Don't add things later on
One thing you need to avoid in describing characters is changing that description later on. Within the first few chapters your readers will have developed an image of that character in their mind. This will be based on the details you gave and biased by their own experiences. If you later add details to the character that conflict with this vision they will reject is and may lose interest in the book entirely. This is known as 'breaking the contract with the reader' and should be avoided.
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