I would keep the details to a minimum for another reason, one that nobody has brought up.
Picture for me, if you will, Helen of Troy, allegedly the most beautiful woman who ever lived. What does she look like? Size, shape, hair color, hair style, facial features, eye color, blablablah. How much of her can you describe? And how much of it can you count on The Reader agreeing with? "Yes, yes, that is what the face that launched a thousand ships looked like!" Yeah, that's what I thought.
Now, everyone has qualities they like, even if they don't fit their "ideal woman". My Helen has pale skin and dark hair, tied together by deep blue eyes... but my first love was blonde, and of course redheads are hot too and I've always wanted to date one. I like women who are less-endowed, but my most recent lover was a C-cup, decent handfuls, and I know I'll miss them. You can't have it all, not on one woman, and as such people have more than one "ideal" they go for. But I digress.
Because every Reader has qualities they like, you can allow them to fill in the blanks. When I say, "Shaina was heavy-hipped, with a clear roll to her stride, and a curtain of gold hair she liked to toss over her shoulder with a practiced motion," the woman you are seeing in your mind
is not the same as the one I am seeing in mine. But the one you're seeing is more attractive
to you, just like the one I'm seeing is more attractive to me. I've provided just enough information (if I've done my job right
) to engage the thing that every author wants to: your imagination. And if I succeed, then it--your imagination--will do a
much better job of creating an attractive-looking character than I ever could. I mean, of
course it is!--why on earth should it be the other way around?
So, that is my advice. Don't describe the character very much: create just enough of a coathanger that The Reader can take it and run with it. Let their imagination do the rest. Helen of Troy looks different in every single person's mind. Let her.
