Physical Description Of Characters

How much physical description do you like to be given when you read about characters? Do you like to know exactly what they look like, or do you like to imagine how they would look based merely on your minds imaginings?

edited 4th Jan '12 9:00:44 PM by NoirGrimoir

A lot. I like reading physical description as long as it doesn't go all the way down to "exactly".

I think eye color, hair color, maybe skin color (assuming they're humanoid) is enough. Maybe not even that, since I tend to imagine what people in novels look like even when there's no description at all (I just make something up and if it turns out that's not what they look like, I change my mental picture).

If I'm not given an appearance, my mind makes up a generic one (usually Animesque, I'm a little ashamed to say) resulting in much of the cast looking very similar.

So, yes, I do like to be given an appearance. At least something like hair and eye color, hairstyle, clothing style, and perhaps other notable things.

Only the essentials. I'm hooked more with the character's personality than the inch-by-inch lavish description of their hair and clothing. The outward appearance is arbitrary, except when it reflects on the character.

edited 4th Jan '12 9:24:31 PM by QQQQQ

The essentials, here being basically hair color, skin color and anything unusual. I don't tend to rigorously visualize what I'm reading, so it doesn't really matter.

Minimalist. I tend to think that one should only write things which need to be consciously acknowledged. Very few people consciously acknowledge the various things that make up a physical description. They might occasionally fixate on one or two details, or it will sometimes suddenly be very important. But in the day-to-day of life it's usually not considered except in vague generalities.

It depends, although I think eye color is going too far in most situations. At least, I want hair color, build, and race.

But if there is physical description, I like it up front as soon as possible. I don't want to go half a scene thinking that a character's one race when he's actually another. Reconfiguring my mental image of a character can be jarring.

In terms of physical description in my own writing, on the other hand...it varies. But my narrator, Bryan, has virtually no description toward him. Neither does his parents. All you know that he's taller than average and generally looks good, but nothing more.

edited 4th Jan '12 9:35:07 PM by chihuahua0

I have provided literally no physical description for my protagonists in a few cases. I think this is probably too far, but overall I don't consider it that important to describe my characters in much detail.

We have a winner! This is a particularly good idea when you're writing a nonwhite character for a white audience who'll assume the character's white.

I tend to give bits and pieces as I go. It depends, really...

I've always had the problem of not describing what characters look like at all, so now I do a quick Info Dump when they're first introduced and only barely reference it ever again. I'm getting a little better about both of those points, though.

I tend to give really minimal description... or write for a while and realize I've described one character with reiterations of adjectives meaning about the same thing (or if sleep deprived, the exact same adjective over and over).

>_> It's partly due to the fact I draw a lot so I'm always supplying images of the characters so I forget to describe them in the actual novel unless they poke something on their person, something about their looks irritates someone else, or something like that.

I do it detailed once when the character is introduced, detail adjusted for importance, and only go back if it changes.

For instance, I have one girl whose hair keeps changing, each time only because the prior one wouldn't make sense in the scene. That said, I'm the kind of person who wants the reader to have the exact same image that I do in my head, which is a battle that none of us are ever going to win, barring those of us who draw comics.

At least the basics quite often more so. At least for greater characters than one offs.

Which means I'll usually throw stuff like age, eye color, hair color, sometimes dress appearance (not that it matters much since I work with a military setting so you the audience probably assume he/she's wearing a type of uniform), and sometimes little details out there like scars, height and more.

To be honest I'm not sure I can put every detail of a character to words.

Whatever the writer sees fit to give me, I'll take.

I like to have something to go on. But I think I like it best when a character is given only a few vague brushstrokes, allowing me to fill in the rest. For example... knowing that a character is slight and blond is enough, I don't need a paragraph of decription about the shape of their nose and chin and the exact style that they keep their hair in or whatever.

This is invariably the route I go with myself when writing, because I'm not very good at describing faces beyond 'kind of pointy' or 'round with dimples'.

I don't think physical descriptions are really that important unless they're unusual. I would like to know if a character has a missing arm, or is seven feet tall, or is a six armed green alien with three eyeballs. But unless they're physical appearance affects the plot or reflects on the character's personality is some way, I don't think they're necessary. There are only three things that I think are necessary to describe about every character: Gender, Age, and occasionally, Race, unless you're going for color blind casting. As for age, it's not important that it's exact, as long as it's clear whether they're a kid, teen, young adult, middle aged, slightly aged, or elderly.

—writes graphic novels lawl—

I like giving a lot of odd details for minor characters. To make them stand out a tad. Like a guy with big hands, just for no reason.

If it's a character who's going to be appearing a lot, I like to know enough to form at least a basic picture of them in my head. I also think that - especially in a first-person or limited third-person narration - not mentioning very obvious characteristics like having bright blue hair or being extremely tall is weird. But I don't like having characters introduced with a paragraph or two detailing their appearance. A line or two is fine.

I really appreciate relative heights and builds for a character, which I don't really see mentioned in here. Clothing, hair, and eye colors are really not important unless they further the plot or characterization.

Like, if one character is about five feet tall, and another is six and a half feet tall, that's going to affect their interaction more than whether one has green eyes and one has brown.

edited 5th Jan '12 9:44:47 AM by ohsointocats

It depends. When I'm reading something, I don't mind if the writer avoids describing the apperance of the characters, or if they describe them in great detail, starting with hair and eye color before moving to the brand and style of clothing. Whether or not those features are necessary is up for debate, but it doesn't bother me. Author's choice.

When I writing, I know I have to be more careful. I can visualize my characters down to every frivolous detail, and I love to play with descriptions, but I also know when it's too much. If I think there is something that can benefit characterization, interaction, tone, symbolism, or interest, I include it.

^^ I very much agree. In my own stories I treat things like hair and eye colour as barely important trivia and don't bother mentioning them most of the time, but I always make sure to point out the relative height and the build of the characters.

Pretty much this... most of the time. There are occasions during which I find myself describing a character's appearance in surprisingly intense detail, but this only tends to happen when some aspect of the appearance is of importance either to the story at large or to the character(s) from whose perspective we see this other person. I once wrote an extremely detailed passage, for example, from the point-of-view of an infatuated teenager staring at their love-object's cheekbones. Weird? Yes, but also important.

The amount of physical description I have depends on what character is narrating because some of the characters notice those things while others don't. For instance, the protagonist's love interest gives a lot of details about the protagonist's appearance because he's interested in her and he notices that sort of things.

I realized though that I needed to give a bit more when one of my readers said she imagined a character who's in her late 20's/early thirties as middle aged if not elderly. So I'm hopefully going to give the basics like age, skin tone, eye and hair colors when I go back and edit.

Out of the story though, I have drawings of practically all my characters, even the minor ones. I also plan on giving these descriptions on a website or something if I ever get published.