Three Incredibly Easy Ways to Make Your Character Descriptions Pop

                                                            She had blue eyes, brown hair, a blue jumper and a look of boredom that had been there since she read this description of herself.

We've all been guilty of lazy writing like this before. So, what follows are three tips to avoid listing your characters' attributes and elevate your description to make it pop.

One

Select Meaningful Points of Focus

Think about what you are telling your readers with your physical description. Yes, you are telling us what your characters look like, but you could be showing us so much more. What would you like us to see about your characters that’s unique to them and builds on character development?

Think about that blue jumper. She wore a blue jumper. Anyone can wear a blue jumper, but ask yourself how your character is wearing it and what it says about them. Is it new or old? Tightfitting or loose and worn? Are the sleeves rolled up? This will give you a starting point, but take it further so this jumper could only belong to your character. Does it have stains down the front? Does she fiddle with the loose threads? Perhaps it’s not a jumper at all but a t-shirt with a slogan that shows your character’s unique perspective; a shirt that he sweats through within minutes of putting it on; a painters’ shirt with more paint on it than the canvas.

And those blue eyes? She had blue eyes. What are they telling us about the character? Seventeen percent of the world’s population has blue eyes (thank you, Google). What sets your character apart from the others? What are they expressing or looking at? Do they blink particularly slowly or quickly or linger, thirsty to drink in the world around him? Or maybe there is another focal point that will tell us more about this character? His/her hands, feet, necklace, tattoo, hat, teeth?

Carefully selecting focus points is a great approach to take when describing all other aspects of your book. Think beyond literal description and about what you would like to show readers. Think about the perspective of the character viewing the room or the dog or the sky; does it affect the way you describe it? Think about who the garden or car or phone belong to; what does your description tell us about them? Use description to your advantage to reveal and develop character and plot.

Two

Show Your Description in Action

I have touched on this in the first tip, when the character fiddles with the loose strand on the blue jumper or his blue eyes linger on the world around him. Adding movement/interaction will paint a stronger picture of your characters beyond 2D descriptions, and you are killing two birds with one stone: avoiding directly telling readers how a character feels (the greatest writing sin!) and creating more dynamic description. So, 'The nervous woman in the blue jumper' becomes 'The fidgety woman fiddling with the loose strands on her worn jumper'. 'The miserable-looking man at the bar with the blue eyes' becomes 'The man at the bar who hasn’t looked up from the glass of warm beer in his hand for the last hour nor taken a sip of it'.

Even when you are not particularly saying much of anything about a character with your description and you really do just want a character to have blonde hair and blue eyes, it will be more powerfully shown dynamically rather than in list form. So, ‘She had blonde hair’ becomes ‘I hadn’t noticed just how blonde her hair was until we were out in the light’. ‘He had blue eyes’ becomes ‘Those blue eyes got me every time. How could I say no?’.

Again, use dynamic description throughout the book, beyond character description, to elevate your writing.

Three

Use all the Senses

So far, we have only looked at visual description, but there are five senses to play with, and the other four are quite often forgotten. What sounds does a person make and what do they tell us about the character? Perhaps they are so softly spoken that it’s almost as if they don’t want to be heard. Perhaps they crack their knuckles so loudly that it makes her jump every time. Perhaps the suit was so cheap that it squeaked. What about smell? Everyone has a unique smell and every smell tells a story. There are obvious smells, like BO and perfume, but it’s the unusual smells that get the cogs turning: ‘It was an odd combination of cinnamon and WD40; don’t ask me what she had spent the day doing.’

The more intimate senses are useful when characters are up close and personal, but touch also has a place in general character descriptions. Think of a simple handshake and what this could tell us about a character. Is it firm or soft? Hot or cold? Rough or soft?

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Show Don’t Tell - The Writer’s Mantra! But When is it Okay to Tell?

‘Show don’t tell’ is the single most valuable piece of advice a writer can receive. Don’t tell the reader what’s going on, get out your box of paints and create a world that readers can disappear into. Don’t explain what’s happening, stay in the moment and allow the events to unravel, detail by detail. The closer you get to the action or drama, the more immersed your readers will become in your fantasy.

We all know the Chekhov quote now – ‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.’­ – and it’s a great illustration of the point.

Every time I assess or edit a fresh manuscript for a client, the words ‘show don’t tell’ will always pop up at least once in my notes, whether it’s simply a need to show the heat and tension on a character’s face rather than simply writing, ‘She was angry’, or a greater sin of completely lapsing into distant overview and summarising whole scenes when what we really need is to stay in the moment.

However, there is definitely a time and a place for telling. You just need to make sure you know when and where that is.

I am rereading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler and rediscovering what a masterclass it is on the subject. It’s hard to talk about the book without spoilers, so I will simply say that Rosemary’s story is unravelled throughout the early decades of her life, which Fowler achieves through a balance of scene-building and overview, showing and telling, both of which are necessary because of the scope of the story. The genius of this narrative is Fowler’s instinct for when to zoom in for a closeup of the moments of Rosemary’s life and when to pull away to show readers the bigger picture. She does so with a deft hand that allows her to skip from the past to the present, and uses the distinct first-person voice to colour her ‘telling’ with the opinions and character of her narrator that make the book so unique. I highly recommend taking a look.

Zooming in and out is a great way of addressing the showing and telling issue. For the most part, we obviously need to be zoomed in. This is where readers are flies on walls that you are creating, eavesdropping on the dialogue, absorbing interactions moment by moment, interpreting nuanced behaviour into character and plot (with no ‘telling’ from you). The telling comes in when you need to convey something that cannot be shown … and I mean really cannot be shown; this does not include explanations of what a character is feeling, unnecessary chapter introduction and summaries of what’s generally going on (which often show a lack of confidence in your ability and underestimate the intelligence of your readers).

So, when can you tell?

‘Telling’ often becomes necessary when there are gaps that need to be filled; either the past needs to be explained or time has moved on and your readers need to know what’s happened in their absence. This is where I encourage you to get creative and ask questions of your project. Do you need to tell as much as you think in the exposition? Would you be creating a more challenging read if background was implied rather than directly revealed? And when used, what can you do to create ‘telling’ that is as absorbing and compelling as the ‘showing’? Fowler and others zoom in and out even within exposition, often throwing in fragments of scenes and dialogue alongside summary to illustrate their ‘telling’; what can you do in this way to dissolve the distance that ‘telling’ creates?

This is especially challenging with first-person narratives, where you are firmly positioned inside your main character’s head and it is tempting to explain what they are thinking and experiencing rather than showing it, which is why it is so important to consider how you are going to approach this kind of commentary before beginning. Even if you have created a character whose thought processes, worldview and personal voice are so dynamic and captivating that we are hanging off every thought they have, we will still get closer to them if we are allowed to see out of their eyes and experience the world the way they see it, rather than simply being told about it.

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