Describing the Main Character

[LeeringCorpse]

Is there a right and wrong way to describe a main character?
I ask this cuz I’ve been describing my main character piecemeal over several pages and I don’t think I’ll get around to giving the reader a full description of the character’s physical aspect till page 10 or later. In most books I have read that are written in the perspective of 3rd person omniscient this doesn’t tend to happen.

I’m worried I might be doing a, “no, no,” by holding off and describing the character in drips and drabs. Any thoughts?

[gatordave96]

I think it's a fine line between being incomplete and an info dump.  You sort of have to play it by ear.  I think you at least need the basics in the first few pages:  age, gender, and general physical description.  But there are subtle ways to cheat.  For example, having someone brush hair out of their eyes and throw in the hair color.  Describing someone's walk as steady and confident implies health and maybe age.  You get the picture.

[The Deposed King]

you just have to find a place to do it once.  Then write that down on your cheat sheet list for future reference.  If you don't give a phyisical description lots of people will complain vociferously.  On the other hand you don't have to 'paint the walls' the more you leave up to the imagination the better if that sort of thing comes naturally.  They might still complain but they'll still read it and like it.  But you really do need to give a physical description at least once and do it early.


The Deposed King

[LeeringCorpse]

Thank you for the feed back Gatordave and The Deposed King.
I was doing something like you stated Dave, throwing in some stuff when it related to the character’s state of mind or interaction with environment. For example I started off by describing her posture and bearing as she stalked her prey with bow at the ready and arrow nocked. I then put in a two word description of her fingers when she moved the leaf to uncover an animal track. After I described the track and what information she concludes from it  I describe the color of her eyes when she scans the woodland for other signs of her quarry’s passing. After that it is largely describing her state of mind, history and then her patients as she sneaks up to within bow range of her target. I then tell the readers about her athletic prowess when her target bolts and she gives chase, so I’m sure the reader will come to the correct conclusion that the heroine is rather athletic in appearance, even if I don’t spell it out for them. I describe her clothing and it’s practically during the chase, but don’t allude to the shape of her body.

I wasn’t planning to give the reader a full accounting of the character’s physical aspect till the scene after the hunt when she is washing up. That way we get her physical description from her point of view. And, as I was typing this post, I though it might be fun to give her description again, but through the eyes as another, so the reader gets a bit of a contrast between how she sees herself and how others see her.

Even though I’m telling the story in 3rd person omniscient, the beginning is very much from the main character’s perspective and it just seemed, in my mind, to be a more intimate way to go about revealing the character to the reader, rather then the typical laundry list of things one types up to tell the reader what the character looks like.


But as you said, Deposed King, it might be best to rush the physical description. Maybe I can find a happy medium between getting the description done in a timely manner while still keeping the delivery a more intimate feel for the reader. Lots to think about, thank you.

[Wordmaker]

I'm going to go against the flow and say that you don't need a single moment with which you fully describe your main character. This goes for all characters, but generally you want to avoid rushing descriptions in or creating an artificial lull in the story to slip a description in.

Things like describing her eyes while she's scouting, or her fingers as she moves a leaf, are perfectly fine. I'd even go so far as to say they're much more preferable to a single block of description. It works because you're showing the reader what your character looks like and it feels much more natural than pausing to describe someone.

You do want to start describing early, but as DK said, you don't need to give away everything. I'd say that anything you haven't described in the first three chapters can be left to the reader's imagination. Readers don't mind filling in the blanks (most won't even realise they're doing it), but they don't like a sudden change in their expectation coming in out of nowhere late in the book.

Another thing I'd advise you on, is not to do the "description while looking in the mirror" thing. It's over-used and hard to get away with.

[LeeringCorpse]

Thank you for the insights Mr. Shortt. It is funny you should mention the mirror. It is one of the few things I know to be “poo poo” in writing, so I was going to tease the reader a bit with it. I was going to have the character move to a washstand and mirror. At that point I’m sure the reader will groan and say, “Oh no, not the trite ‘character gazes into a mirror and describes herself’ scene”, but in the next moment I would describe the mirror, a pounded, round copper plate, being tarnished and useless as a mirror due to neglect.

Like before, I was planning to stick with descriptions that relate to what she is doing and leave out things that a person might not contemplate during the act of washing. For example, I’m going to leave out the shape of her eyes, but put in that the character feels her long nose, overly long in her mind, gets in the way and makes the act of washing her face more of a chore. Stuff like that. So it will not be a full reveal, just a more complete one.

Your comments on flow, Mr. Shortt, have also gotten me thinking. Flow is very important in the visual arts as well and something I almost neglected when thinking out the length and delivery of the scene I am talking about. Thank you for mentioning it. My knowledge of creative writing is laughable, so I really do appreciate what everyone has said to me, or will say to me. So again, thank you all for your comments.           

[Wordmaker]

No problem 

And hey, I use the mirror thing myself in my second book, so just as guilty of it as anybody else. Though I suppose since this is the sequel, it's a little better since it's not the first time the reader gets to find out what Nathan looks like.

[Sir Huron Stone]

The way i wrote it in one of the (many) stories i wrote (and never finished), was give little bits and pieces, then about three chapters in, the character got arrested and the interrogator went through his very long rap sheet and did the whole physical description. Probably not gonna work in most stories, but it fit pretty well in mine.

[LeeringCorpse]

And hey, I use the mirror thing myself in my second book, so just as guilty of it as anybody else. Though I suppose since this is the sequel, it's a little better since it's not the first time the reader gets to find out what Nathan looks like.

There are always exceptions. I guess it might be said that the hard and fast rule is to never include something in your story for the ease of it? I'm sure the mirror thing is an easy way to get a character's physical description into the story, but one that --unless mandated by the circumstances-- is ultimately lacking in feeling and individuality, two things you don't want a story to have.     

[Wordmaker]

Exactly. In Silent Oath, the reason I used the mirror was because I wanted to highlight how Nathan has changed as a person. Where once his hands used to shake after being in a fight, he now regards the scars on his body as hard-learned lessons from past mistakes. It also gave me the chance to remind the reader of a particularly important scar from an injury at a pivotal series of events in the first book.

[Carnifex:Pacifex]

I've always given the description in short, but meaningful "dumps" and try not to cause "suprise" characteristics later. by suprise I mean, for a random example, it turns out the protagonist's face has been covered in scars the whole thyme and the reader doesn't learn it until chapter 18.

[Wordmaker]

Bingo.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Description is voice. Voice is characterisation.

Whether you're in first person or in third, every choice you make is characterising the person doing the description, because it's telling you something that person thinks is important.

You can make books with highly detailed descriptions work. You can make books with minimal description of central characters work - Glen Cook does, for example.  What matters is what's important and relevant to the character.

[Carnifex:Pacifex]

The way i wrote it in one of the (many) stories i wrote (and never finished), was give little bits and pieces, then about three chapters in, the character got arrested and the interrogator went through his very long rap sheet and did the whole physical description. Probably not gonna work in most stories, but it fit pretty well in mine.

actually, I find that to be rather clever.

[Dom]

I find myself irritated with overt "mechanisms" of describing a character.  Not the description itself...but the mechanism used.  Which isn't to say they can't be done well...I'm just a cynic about them.  It could be mirrors, photographs, or some alternate POV character giving the main a once-over.  I also find myself irritated when some trait of a character is described in loving detail, and is supposed to make them hot or attractive or something, and I don't find that trait particularly appealing.  In urban fantasy you run into a LOT of stories where a character is attractive due to their body alone, usually for stereotypical reasons, and are never fleshed out very much beyond what they look like, or given an "odd" body type, or whatever.

That said, what is worse is getting halfway through the book as a reader, and discovering your mental image in no way matches with the character.  There's one or two cases where that might be the POINT of the story, but outside of that, I don't like thinking a character has, say, green eyes and curly red hair only to find out they really have straight black hair and brown eyes.

I'm far more forgiving about narration that gets in there, gives a description, then gets on to the next thing.  If that makes sense.  Like, I would prefer the narration points out they have black hair and orange eyes, and moves on, than the author setting up a scene or "mechanism" for the sole purpose of describing a character.