Characters description, how important are they?

[King_Willie]

How much time do you spend describing your character, building him or her up physically?

I've just noticed in my writing that seldom do I describe my key characters, unless it's a detail that I find cute or will be pertinent to the story later.
I tend to think that "Jack was a handsome prick" is more important than "Jack was a 6'5" 220lbs blonde hunk with chiseled features, penetrating green eyes and long fingers decorated with rings; he wore expensive Salvatore Ferragamo shoes and a tailored Hugo Boss dark blue suit, his unbuttoned shirt displaying a powerful chest covered in musky, manly bodily hair."

I like to leave a little (okay, a lot) to the readers' imagination so they themselves can join in in the worldbuilding.
My idea of an ideal woman may differ from anonymous#234's ideal, so I prefer to leave that out in the open for anon#234 to fill in the blanks to her or his liking.

Or am I wrong?

 

[SamScribble]

Unless it is part of the story, I leave it to the reader to form his/her own impression of what the character looks like. Hopefully, there should be a few clues in the characters' behaviours. Other than that ....

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have a bit of a hair fetish, I think, coz that nearly always gets a mention sooner rather than later, and usually my small breasted women get an early mention, just so big tit lovers don't get disillusioned later on. Eye colour and a vague reference to height, somewhere, but that's about it.

 

[NotWise]

How much time do you spend describing your character, building him or her up physically?

Not much, but maybe more than Sam. I give some description, usually distributed so it isn't a catalogue. How description is fit into the story may be more important than how much description is given.

For men I might describe hair, a smile, their hands, and their overall size, though it's all relative. For women I might describe their hair color and length, their eyes, their form, their movement.

I'm not going to pretend that my male characters don't notice tits. They're important. I liked writing this description of a female character's tits in my current work in progress:

There was no secret where I’d been looking. What I’d been thinking was, ‘more than a mouthful is wasted.’ Stephanie was very efficient.

 

[KeithD]

I keep it sketchy and inviting the reader to create a chosen image unless there's some specific characteristic that is needed for the story. Readers who read multiple stories of mine will catch on to how the characteristics I habitually include stack up to a character type.

 

[Jada59]

Depends on the character. In one of my novels, some of the characters are somewhat quirky and one is a person who is disliked. So I did spend a bit of time describing them. Without the description, the humor wouldn't work. In writing erotica? I don't think a lot of description is needed.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think this is a balancing act. I'm a visual person, so I like imagining how my characters look in detail. The details are important. At the same time, I don't want to alienate readers that like details different from what I like.

The key is to be selective. Reveal some things in detail, but not all things. Leave some things for the reader to fill in with imagination. But insert details if they turn you on.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I spend less time describing the character and more time telling the story. I do however give a hint that "she" is a beautiful women with green eyes and dark brown hair. And "he" is a blonde with blue eyes and stands a solid 6'2" tall.

I let the reader fill in the blanks with their favorite person, man or woman.

And those are the main characters. Lesser character get a name and sex and a pretty or handsome.

I do describe the sex between them. Sometimes in great detail, other times not. It depends on the story.

My petpeve - "she had 48DDD tits on her 5'4" frame." WTF? Oh "and she weighed in at a petite 98 pounds." WTF? Her tits alone weigh that much.

 

[HeyAll]

Imo getting their personality through dialogue and actions is far more important. People can imagine characters however they want.

 

[Hypoxia]

I keep it sketchy and inviting the reader to create a chosen image unless there's some specific characteristic that is needed for the story.

About the same here, except to distinguish between multiple players. Then I detail appearance and flavor a bit. I might go no further than "dark, craggy, and lanky", or mention general ethnicity, or skin and hair tones, and how they taste. But I use no tape measures, other than, "she was almost six feet and he had a few inches on her." Anatomy is adjectived, not measured.

But sometimes a story calls for more. I may sneak in a mention of a shaved head, a bushy moustache, a trimmed muff, an empty eye socket to be fucked by a short squat dick, a birthmark shared by mother and children, etc. And the yeti, of course.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

It's hard for me sometimes to give just enough detail. I was just reading my latest chapter to my daughter and I introduce new characters so I kind did an info dump and was hoping it wasn't too much all at once.
She said it sounded fine to her so I'm hoping it is.

 

[Professor_Chaos]

How much time do you spend describing your character, building him or her up physically?

I've just noticed in my writing that seldom do I describe my key characters, unless it's a detail that I find cute or will be pertinent to the story later.
I tend to think that "Jack was a handsome prick" is more important than "Jack was a 6'5" 220lbs blonde hunk with chiseled features, penetrating green eyes and long fingers decorated with rings; he wore expensive Salvatore Ferragamo shoes and a tailored Hugo Boss dark blue suit, his unbuttoned shirt displaying a powerful chest covered in musky, manly bodily hair."

I like to leave a little (okay, a lot) to the readers' imagination so they themselves can join in in the worldbuilding.
My idea of an ideal woman may differ from anonymous#234's ideal, so I prefer to leave that out in the open for anon#234 to fill in the blanks to her or his liking.

Or am I wrong?

I wrote a story that had quite a few naked characters but only fully described the main female. One person thanked me in the comments for allowing their imagination to fill in the blanks. I spent far more time describing their emotional processing or what bodies did together than the physical description and it seemed to work out well.
As a new writer, one capable of humility, I admit that wasn't my original intention as I was trying to finish it on a deadline but it'll be a consideration with anything I do from now on.

 

[Kantarii]

Here lately I’ve found using the dialogue instead of narrative to develop and describe my characters works more effectively for me than using cardboard cutout descriptions. In some cases that works effectively to convey the character to the reader. Other cases, the cardboard cut out might work to some advantages. I steer clear of trying to make it look like a grocery list: He was 6’3” 220lbs. with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Something simple as maybe one character complimenting another’s hairstyle, perfume, etc. or using adjectives such as his husky build, broad shoulders; her adorable, round face, happy-go-lucky attitude, high-strung temperament, or things of that nature.

Anyway, I love seeing good character development in stories that I write as well as read. It helps give to give a story an added layer of depth having well defined characters in my book.
Kant

 

[ElectricBlue]

I liked writing this description of a female character's tits in my current work in progress:

There was no secret where I’d been looking. What I’d been thinking was, ‘more than a mouthful is wasted.’ Stephanie was very efficient.

Nice!

 

[Bramblethorn]

I keep it sketchy and inviting the reader to create a chosen image unless there's some specific characteristic that is needed for the story.

Yeah, this. The characteristics I do mention will usually be those that reveal something about the character - tattoo, religious garb, etc. etc.

Some readers do enjoy detailed description of cup size, etc. etc. but it's not my thing.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Like many, I keep the physical descriptions to a minimum. I typically point out a distinguishing characteristic or two so I can indicate action without writing the character's name over and over. For example, "His long fingers . . ." can tell the reader "Oh, that's Bob." (Or whomever.)

My problem is when I introduce a physical trait late in the story, because then I feel obligated to back up and include a mention of that physical trait earlier in the story, too. If the reader has been able to fill in the blanks for half the story, suddenly learning, "Bob has long blonde hair" could be jarring.

 

[LupusDei]

Depends on the story of course.

I believe one could, at least in theory, get away with saying absolutely nothing about the lead. Reader will fill in, and the only risk is to later contradict that perception too sharply (unless you deliberately fuck with reader and reveal in the ending the whole story was from a pov of a haunted teddy bear or something). However, I'm very visual and like to watch, so some key details are rewarding, but they don't even necessary be those details.

Then as more secondary characters there are as more important descriptions become, as they do help to get noticed and memorised and to keep track of who's doing what, and recall it later. Boy and girl cast away on an uninhabited island, who cares how they look actually (unless that's the only thing they think to talk about). Boy settling in all girls boarding school, it becomes much more important to describe at least few of those girls, preferably in distinctive enough terms (so, unless they're all clones of the author's narrowly defined beauty ideal anyway, what happen a lot well outside of sy-fy one would expect clones to be contained to).

Tertiary characters especially if episodic, may again get away with very little. If you fucked her once in the middle of a massive orgy while stoned and can't recall anything else than an impression that she was a stunning beauty, that's exactly enough already. Especially if it's bound to be revealed not to be true later, what again don't really need a lot of description, we will know what you're talking about anyway.

And yes, I too dislike numerical info dump representations, they do not really help to create an image, at least for me, and are too prone to the mentioned inadvertent cloning as they can feel copy-pasted from somewhere and never really thought about even.

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

I generally prefer to let the reader map their own preferred physical traits on to my characters, especially my narrators when I write in first person. But I also have stories where physical traits are key to the plot it character development. In one, the woman's breast size is essential to the plot. In another I contrast the blond bombshell with her mousier best friend, and their physical attributes mirror their personalities.

From reading the responses, it sounds like that us the general consensus.

In addition to giving readers more freedom to imagine, I also like the economy of words. I like short, tight stories, so I don't see a need to waste words on describing something irrelevant.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I think most here have about the same minimalist-but-depends-on-the-situation rule. I see no point for instance in detailing bra cups or willy size, but have no reason not to work in a general description when and if necessary.

 

[Scareltt]

I think...

How much time do you spend describing your character, building him or her up physically?

I've just noticed in my writing that seldom do I describe my key characters, unless it's a detail that I find cute or will be pertinent to the story later.
I tend to think that "Jack was a handsome prick" is more important than "Jack was a 6'5" 220lbs blonde hunk with chiseled features, penetrating green eyes and long fingers decorated with rings; he wore expensive Salvatore Ferragamo shoes and a tailored Hugo Boss dark blue suit, his unbuttoned shirt displaying a powerful chest covered in musky, manly bodily hair."

I like to leave a little (okay, a lot) to the readers' imagination so they themselves can join in in the worldbuilding.
My idea of an ideal woman may differ from anonymous#234's ideal, so I prefer to leave that out in the open for anon#234 to fill in the blanks to her or his liking.

Or am I wrong?

I would rather use my imagination.

A general description is fine, hair color, eye color, height and weight. But leave a few things for my imagination.

 

[NotWise]

When I do give descriptions, I like to do so through actions, like:

She tucked one hand around my bicep and tried to wrap it with the other. Her fingers wouldn’t touch.

 

[Polyacrylate]

The best answer is, as always, that descriptions should be done in a manner that suits the story.

It is a fair rule that any descriptions should take place relatively early in the narrative to avoid later confusion. For some reason, I'm a lot less interested in descriptions in a story written in first person than I am a story written in third person.

A major preference of mine is to work in a description relatively organically in the story rather than having the paragraph long description.

For example, I'm not a fan of this: 'My coworker Abby is married, but gorgeous. She's got blonde hair, a petite frame, blue eyes, and flawless skin and teeth. Her C-cup breasts look great on her 5'1" frame, and she clearly works out regularly. She also wears the sexiest clothes! It was so nerve wracking when I asked her for help at the gym!'

Rather, I prefer something like this:


"Got a minute, Abby?" I asked, after taking a deep breath and walking into her office.

"Sure," she said, turning away from her computer, and flashing that beautiful smile. I noticed an ad in the corner of her monitor for a revealing Prada dress that matched the one she was wearing. It was clearly a recent purchase.

My eyes met hers, those blue spheres that sparkling in the light, just like the diamond on her left ring finger.

"I was thinking I could use some help, whenever you have the time... I need some help... God, this is so embarrassing..."

Her face took on a concerned look, her skin slightly blushing, like she may be embarrassed by what I was about to say. It made a nice contrast with her blonde blocks, pink-red against yellow-white. "I would be glad to do anything, just tell me what."

"I need some help... working out. I'm afraid I don't know what I'm doing, and you clearly do, so..." I let sentence trail off.

"Is that all?" she said with a laugh. "Come on, let's go to your office and have a look at your calendar so we can make a plan."

She stood up, and it struck me how, when standing, she wasn't much taller than sitting. Also, seeing her upright made me jealous of her breasts, bigger than mine, even though I was taller.

"We're going to whip you into shape in no time, Christina," Abby said to me, as we walked down the hall together.



Neither is "right" (and in my opinion, neither is an example of good writing, just something I tossed out), but I don't have much patience for the format of the first. Granted, the breast focus and jealousy in #2 is a telltale sign of a male writer trying to write a female perspective, but I'm just trying to make a point.

And with all that said, one could tell Abby and Christina's story with less description than I gave up there, and this is just a preference, anyway, so what do I know?

 

[KeithD]

It is a fair rule that any descriptions should take place relatively early in the narrative to avoid later confusion. For some reason, I'm a lot less interested in descriptions in a story written in first person than I am a story written in third person.

Yet again, I posit, an example of "there are no structure rules" in writing fiction. It can be quite effective not to reveal a characteristic until a later dramatic point where it stands the reader's whole understanding of what/why is happening on its head.

 

[ElectricBlue]

In addition to giving readers more freedom to imagine, I also like the economy of words. I like short, tight stories, so I don't see a need to waste words on describing something irrelevant.

And now he tells me this!

EB laughs with manic glee, hahahaha, having trapped Loqui in EB-world for ten pages to write about two girls on a beach. With a man, a spider, and clothes being taken off, again. And again, and again. Funny, he didn't complain at the time .

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

And now he tells me this!

EB laughs with manic glee, hahahaha, having trapped Loqui in EB-world for ten pages to write about two girls on a beach. With a man, a spider, and clothes being taken off, again. And again, and again. Funny, he didn't complain at the time .

LOL Yeah, you may have broken me of that habit. My current WIP is up over 22k words and only just getting to the end game. Still, not a word was wasted on anyone's hair color.