As a writer, I am not one for a tremendous amount of description. I’ll use the description of a character as an example of what I do. I would not write, “Sue was 5’7” with brown hair and green eyes. She was wearing Bermuda shorts with the colorful polka dot design. She had a white blouse that was sheer enough to show her bra underneath, which was bright red– and so on and so forth, blah blah blah, ad infinitum. I’d instead let the reader use their imagination to fill in a character. If the character is a major one, I will spread out information about them early on in the novel in bits and pieces. I will often let the reader see an important individual through someone else’s eyes. Let’s keep Sue as an example. Here’s how it might go – “Joe found her smile inviting. She was dressed for some casual summer fun in a simple blouse and Bermuda shorts.” And then, a little later – “As they talked, Joe found himself lost in her blue eyes.” The reader can tell that Joe was fascinated with Sue, perhaps enough to invite her out on a date. The reader is also able to start building up in their mind a picture of Sue. I want to be careful not to destroy that image of Sue that the reader has.
What more might a reader need to know? What kind of person Sue is will be revealed automatically as she interacts with Joe, and it does not need to be described. Is there some physical characteristic of Sue that the reader should be told of? I think it’s only essential if it’s part of the story. If she is very skinny, it might mean she has an eating disorder important to the story. The same is true if she’s obese. In other words, most physical characteristics do not need to be described in great detail. Let’s go back to Joe and Sue, and so far, we have seen Joe’s “fascination” with Sue. Let’s use that fascination to provide one more bit of information for the reader to build their image of Sue – “As Sue walked away, Joe watched with fascination as Sue’s hips swayed below her narrow waist. He knew he could never get enough of that view.”
I think by now, the reader will have built a pretty solid image of Sue. The only thing that might need to be added is her height. Unless Sue is very tall compared to Joe or equally the other way around, that’s an unimportant detail. Most readers will assume that Sue is smaller in stature than Joe because that’s the norm between males and females. In other words, you want to give the reader enough “clues” to develop their image of Sue. I have always operated on the principle of what can I leave out and let the reader supply?
Questions? Comments? How do you like seeing a character described as a reader?
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I’ll have to remember that tip!