Just me, but...

[AsylumSeeker]

All of these social threads, although possibly intersting at times, offer no help to new authors. And it is my belief that they (new authors) have come here to learn something from those experienced, not read of the quibbling.

In that vein, an exercise of sorts. Provide a desciption of man (or woman) with as much detail as you can imagine.

This is intended as a writing exercise for the newbies, we need no heckling from the crowd.

My sincerest desire is to help someone write that otherwise would not be heard.

 

[sweetness6280]

OK, I'm game. I have already announced that I am new, haven't written creatively in a very long time, and I want to learn. Climbing out on a limb...



Her eyes kept returning to the man who sat in the booth diagonally to her right. His long legs stretched out into the aisle, and she guessed that he was around 6’3”. He looked comfortable and was casually dressed, though slightly disheveled. His jeans draped over his legs, unintentionally baggy, as if he had recently lost weight. All of his clothes seemed a bit too big, and slightly worn. He crossed his feet at the ankles, and his scruffy brown shoes sported a pair of slightly mismatched shoelaces. Under his plain brown blazer, she could see an old white t-shirt, frayed at the neckline.

In his tanned hands lay a well-used book by Nabokov, and he held the book as one would hold a familiar lover. His long tapered fingers caressed the pages as his eyes scanned the oft read passages. Such an unusual color, those eyes. Not quite blue, but not quite green; they were the color of the ocean where the shallow depths meet the deeper waters, and they seemed to hold as many mysteries as the sea. There were lines around his eyes, revealing a past filled with laughter, a past challenged by the sadness that now resided there. He smiled at the waitress as she poured him coffee, a bright, beautiful smile that did not quite reach his eyes. He lifted his right arm and ran his fingers through thick, wavy, brown hair. This man did not spend much time purchasing the latest hair products, in fact, those fingers may be the only brush he ever used.

He lifted the freshened coffee cup to his lips, the gray at the edges of his goatee revealing more age than his appearance otherwise implied. He turned his head slightly, noticing her appraisal of him. A slight smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and he winked at her. She smiled back, catching the glint of a diamond stud earring in his left ear, before she looked sheepishly away.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Ineresting

Very good in my opinion. Not that mine counts for very much as I have yet to be published.

But for those aspring writers who may be watching, why is this sequence of words so good?

Because the character is developed. The character has depth; the book instigates mystery, leading a reader to learn more, both about the character and his/her interaction with the world in general.

Just my opinion.

 

[DracheDD]

I agree. It is very good for all the reasons you said, but I'll add one of my own.

I like it better when a character description is intermingled with some sort of action or tidbits slipped in through the course of the story. It breaks up the monotony of the usual "He's 6'3", brown hair, tanned skin, etc., etc., etc." Things like that tend to make a reader impatient and I find myself skipping a lot of it just to get back to the story.

I know that when I write, I find myself doing that from time to time, but it never survives my first edit. I just find it annoyingly boring to do it that way. Sometimes as an author, I think we get wrapped around the axel trying to describe things we want readers to "see". It's fine to do that, but if you've lost the reader by the end of an interminably long description, then what was the point? Break it up and keep the story going.

In this example, as you've described it, I can also draw some conclusions about the waitress which is helpful. For example, it's obvious that she's observant and she likes what she sees. Yet, you didn't beat me over the head by explicitly saying that. Sometimes less is more.

Just my opinion of course.

 

[gauchecritic]

What? Us old timers don't need the exercise?

The weight of the greater part of the 20th century pushed down on her shoulders making the heavy wool coat appear to envelop her frame, and the sea turtle neck balancing her rounded skull only served to enforce the fanciful notion of hibernation which she emanated.

Nabakov seemed to be a very popular title these days and scrawny talons revealed and screened the name of the tattered copy she held, just as the drapery revealed and screened the stick figure inside the buttonless coat.

ETA Not as much detail as I can imagine, only as much as I thought needed to picture the person.

 

[matriarch]

The weight of the greater part of the 20th century pushed down on her shoulders making the heavy wool coat appear to envelop her frame, and the sea turtle neck balancing her rounded skull only served to enforce the fanciful notion of hibernation which she emanated.

Nabakov seemed to be a very popular title these days and scrawny talons revealed and screened the name of the tattered copy she held, just as the drapery revealed and screened the stick figure inside the buttonless coat.

ETA Not as much detail as I can imagine, only as much as I thought needed to picture the person.

Shame on you, you're not a newbie!! Good description though.