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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 beari...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-20T00:53:25Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44128 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T11:33:09Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44128 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
## 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](https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/678888094339366914?lang=en) 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.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-03-28T04:02:03Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 19