McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Describing the Main Character

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LeeringCorpse:
Is there a right and wrong way to describe a main character?
I ask this cuz I’ve been describing my main character piecemeal over several pages and I don’t think I’ll get around to giving the reader a full description of the character’s physical aspect till page 10 or later. In most books I have read that are written in the perspective of 3rd person omniscient this doesn’t tend to happen.

I’m worried I might be doing a, “no, no,” by holding off and describing the character in drips and drabs. Any thoughts?

gatordave96:
I think it's a fine line between being incomplete and an info dump.  You sort of have to play it by ear.  I think you at least need the basics in the first few pages:  age, gender, and general physical description.  But there are subtle ways to cheat.  For example, having someone brush hair out of their eyes and throw in the hair color.  Describing someone's walk as steady and confident implies health and maybe age.  You get the picture.

The Deposed King:
you just have to find a place to do it once.  Then write that down on your cheat sheet list for future reference.  If you don't give a phyisical description lots of people will complain vociferously.  On the other hand you don't have to 'paint the walls' the more you leave up to the imagination the better if that sort of thing comes naturally.  They might still complain but they'll still read it and like it.  But you really do need to give a physical description at least once and do it early.


The Deposed King

LeeringCorpse:
Thank you for the feed back Gatordave and The Deposed King.
I was doing something like you stated Dave, throwing in some stuff when it related to the character’s state of mind or interaction with environment. For example I started off by describing her posture and bearing as she stalked her prey with bow at the ready and arrow nocked. I then put in a two word description of her fingers when she moved the leaf to uncover an animal track. After I described the track and what information she concludes from it  I describe the color of her eyes when she scans the woodland for other signs of her quarry’s passing. After that it is largely describing her state of mind, history and then her patients as she sneaks up to within bow range of her target. I then tell the readers about her athletic prowess when her target bolts and she gives chase, so I’m sure the reader will come to the correct conclusion that the heroine is rather athletic in appearance, even if I don’t spell it out for them. I describe her clothing and it’s practically during the chase, but don’t allude to the shape of her body.

I wasn’t planning to give the reader a full accounting of the character’s physical aspect till the scene after the hunt when she is washing up. That way we get her physical description from her point of view. And, as I was typing this post, I though it might be fun to give her description again, but through the eyes as another, so the reader gets a bit of a contrast between how she sees herself and how others see her.

Even though I’m telling the story in 3rd person omniscient, the beginning is very much from the main character’s perspective and it just seemed, in my mind, to be a more intimate way to go about revealing the character to the reader, rather then the typical laundry list of things one types up to tell the reader what the character looks like.


But as you said, Deposed King, it might be best to rush the physical description. Maybe I can find a happy medium between getting the description done in a timely manner while still keeping the delivery a more intimate feel for the reader. Lots to think about, thank you.

Wordmaker:
I'm going to go against the flow and say that you don't need a single moment with which you fully describe your main character. This goes for all characters, but generally you want to avoid rushing descriptions in or creating an artificial lull in the story to slip a description in.

Things like describing her eyes while she's scouting, or her fingers as she moves a leaf, are perfectly fine. I'd even go so far as to say they're much more preferable to a single block of description. It works because you're showing the reader what your character looks like and it feels much more natural than pausing to describe someone.

You do want to start describing early, but as DK said, you don't need to give away everything. I'd say that anything you haven't described in the first three chapters can be left to the reader's imagination. Readers don't mind filling in the blanks (most won't even realise they're doing it), but they don't like a sudden change in their expectation coming in out of nowhere late in the book.

Another thing I'd advise you on, is not to do the "description while looking in the mirror" thing. It's over-used and hard to get away with.

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