Is my physical description of my character unrealistic/over the top?

I'm not going to go into too much details into my character, I don't want to make this into a full on critique for forum rules. However, for some context, he's a villain-protagonist, who is a very vicious and opportunistic highwayman/pirate type, who utilizes all manners of remote wildernesses (like jungles, mountains, deserts, tundras, etc.) as a base of operations. He lives a nomadic lifestyle, and migrates from place to place in search of settlements to plunder and victims to rob.

Here is an outline of his physical appearance:

Due to prolonged exposure to the elements, a poor standard of living, a very violent life, and health issues, he looks like a two legged feral dog. He is very gaunt and skeletal, has a mutilated body criss-crossed from head to feet with scars and bruises, and his lips and gums are swollen. Some of his body parts, including an eye, both of his ears, half of his nose, and a few fingers and toes are missing. [My character] is only somewhere in his twenties (his precise age is unknown even to him), but has prematurely aged to resemble a haggard middle aged man.

His shoulder length hair is mangy, stringy, and disheveled, and his clothes tend to be tattered rags. The man's default facial expression is a blank and dead “thousand yard stare”, and appears to be trapped in a never ending state of fatigue. A throat injury from a botched hanging has rendered him permanently mute, and is thus forced to use a trade sign language to communicate.

What I'm trying to capture with my description, is a man whose body has deteriorated from a lifetime of prolonged exposure to the elements, a poor standard of living, and extreme violence. How realistic is my physical description for an actual person? Or is it a bit too extreme?

 

Is that from the actual novel or is that more like something for a synopsis?

If it's from the actual text, it's probably too long, but it depends on what you are trying to do and your style.

Either way, long or short, it's too passive in my opinion.

 

It is more of an outline of a character, so "synopsis" might be the right description for what I'm going for. Thought, it wasn't what I had particularly had in mind. Not a sample of any particular book in progress.

 

I think based on the setting, especially time period, it might be realistic, but it runs the risk of sounding tropey.

 

Also, if he is solo, how does he communicate with his victims? And if he's not solo, similar to what @Selbbin said, he doesn't sound like an imposing leader.

 

It might be a bit too much details to add, but the dude also has a pretty nasty case of a roundworm infestation. That is what contributes to his scrawny, almost malnourished looking, build more then starvation.

In terms of clothing, I don't picture my character being that interested in luxurious goods nor does he really care about his appearance. With his stolen loot, he mostly prioritizes spending it on food and equipment.

 

He uses hand signals and a trade sign language (commonly used by merchants to communicate with others from vastly different kingdoms, tribes, and cultures) quite a bit to communicate with others. Usually though, he straight up ambushes and attacks his victims. He sometimes serves under a gang/crew, but often goes solo.

 

To me he sounds like Sandor from Game of Thrones and if you're story is set in a similar vain then everyone bar royalty dress only in rags so that wouldn't be important but this line really irked me

Not sure if it was the surplus of redundant words or the mention of meth that got me here. I had a piece of a story here for critique once upon a time and in it I mention something the size of an i-phone and my critiquers rightly jumped on me. The problem being my story was set in the middle ages and in the blink of an eye I took the reader back to the 21st century after working so hard seating him front row centre in the 14th century for no reason other than the lack of a better, and more timely, descriptive. The use of the word meth just did that to me. Apart from that, the image of the 2 legged dog on meth is reminding me of some cartoon dog; on hind legs, tongue out with bulging eyes, so again you've taken me out of your story for no reason. But I digress, my apologies you were not asking for critique of the piece, just the description of your character.

Like I said, reading his character put Sandor on the page for me but not half as bad off as your guy. For instance your guy is missing an arm, a leg, his ears, one eye, he's blind in one ear, mute since his bungled hanging, and he's dressed in rags, has stringy hair, looks hungry, he's terribly gaunt and goes by the name of lucky.

Personally I think he's a bit Mad Max/Sandor for me and I've nothing against stereotypical characters as long as they have something different about them. I want to tell my friend "Hey I'm reading this book by this guy and the main character is so cool - he's kinda like Mad Max but he has this (insert super hero power / evil bestiality trait here).

Anyway, whatever he does, he's not very good at it - poor guy is ready for the scrap heap by the sounds of it so I guess that's part of your story too - maybe you're setting the scene for his great comeback to fight the old man of the mountain under the next full moon - we don't know. But good luck and please give the guy something to go on - even if its 'only' his loving mother who watches his every step through her own glass eye, killing everything unholy in his path...

Oh and before I forget, if this is a medieval setting I'm not sure they had sign language or the wherewithal to learn it as I think the monks invented sign language for communicating during vows of silence.

Is wherewithall one word? Or is it hyphenated?

 

The description brings to my mind a victim who has had his butt kicked soundly and repeatedly rather than a villainous pirate/highwayman who makes his living by preying on others.

 

Inasmuch as I know, it is not hyphenated, just one word. Nevertheless, you should confirm with some online reference.

 

The "feral dog" thing was inspired by feral dogs my older brother and sister encountered frequently in their religious missions in Latin America. A lot of the feral dogs they met were diseased and emaciated, covered with scars, and were extremely aggressive. My brother encountered one so malnourished or injured (can't recall the exact details at the moment), that the animal's bones were exposed. Another one my brother encountered, if I'm remembering the details correctly, was missing an eye. Being a dog lover, it made my brother extremely sad to see them in such a state.

They also were a dangerous nuisance, especially to my older sister. The dogs were so vicious that they tend to attacking anyone that came too close to them on sight. She and her "companions" frequently had to fend them off by squirted water at them or making threatening "gestures". That was usually enough to scare them away. My sister's friend who went to Peru, wasn't so fortunate. I can't remember how badly harmed she was, but I think she got some nasty bruises on her legs (if I am remembering correctly). Her friend was on the headlines in the local news.

I wanted make my character essentially a human version of those dogs, hence the analogy.

 

Is that what you took from my critique?

 

Not really, when you brought up "feral dog" in your first paragraph reminded me of the stories they told about them. I just felt like discussing them and the influence they had shaping my character. That is pretty much it. My apologizes for it being a bit of a non sequitur reply.

 

the dog wasn't really the problem, it was the meth. You de-aged your story by dragging us from the medieval setting back into the 21st by the scruff of the neck. But little old spot did remind me of a tweaking cartoon dog

 

Okay. I see what you're aiming at. Is your character then both victim and predator?

 

I had similar thoughts, but the OP's question was more about the character as described 'working' or being over the top. The description in the book wouldn't necessarily match what is shown here.

 

you are correct - the OP was 'Is my physical description of my character unrealistic/over the top?'

I'd say he is neither - more of a stereotypical Mad Max meets Sandor meets Shark Victim type character.

 

That's good stuff! If you can get something like that in the book then by all means do so! Exposed bones is far more powerful than 'on meth' as a descriptor. I can see it—the skin around the exposed bone dead and dried out like old leather, flies keep landing on it.

You should have feral dogs in the story, and keep having the character and/or other people compare him to them, as if he and they associate him with the poor curs. Keep coming back to that as a theme, a mortif (hah! typo, but it seems fitting—a morbid motif), and let it build poetic associations. Something like that can bring excellence into a story that you didn't even have in mind when you started writing. This could become a powerful tragic/pathetic character, much of his plight shown through the actions and desperation of the dogs always underfoot, scrabbling for scraps of food and usually just getting kicked or worse, and getting absolutely no sympathy. Maybe he sympathizes with them when nobody else does, and it's his own misplaced self-sympathy that he never allows himself to feel in all his iron-hard willfulness. They're the only things his heart has the slightest empathy with, and he doesn't allow himself to see that they're stand-ins for himself. People generally aren't aware of their own psychological mechanisms, if they are it loses all power.

Edit—In fact, this just occurred to me. Maybe tone down a bit on his physical description, don't go as far as you did above, but gradually let readers 'get' the connection between him and these dogs that keep showing up briefly. They become externalized self-images, representing his physical state, but of course more properly his internal state, where he's probably more scarred and deformed than they are. So you're displacing the description from him onto the dogs.

And he sounds less like the leader of an outlaw band, more like a member of it that's low ranking and persists in seeing himself as powerful and vicious but everybody else sees through it.

 

As inspired by my interpretation of your response, I'm going to try tone it down a bit. In particularly, I edited out the "meth" thing. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post.

 

In a way, yes. He has been abandoned by his parents/only known relatives as a young child, was press-ganged into his nation's navy as a preteen, and then deserted after being left to die by his officers. Even in his life of crime, he still remains rather low in the pecking order. The man has no safety nets or any other support in his life, and thus has resorted to crime to etch out a living. As it is the only thing he has the skills to do, and obviously has nothing left to loose. His entire existence is on a razor's edge, and will stoop to any lows to even slightly increase his chances of survival.

His resentment towards his miserable and precarious life has cause some rather extreme anger issues. For all the real and perceived wrongdoings done to him by, he wants to lash out at anything near him.

 

Thanks. Now I get it. (I am a little slow on the uptake sometimes). I like the explanation immediately above very much. If you cared to combine it with a modified version of the physical description in the first post, I'd get a good clear idea of the person in my mind. The first very detailed physical description puts me off a bit. My brain struggles to develop a mental image to match the description instead of having just enough information to allow my imagination to spontaneously form an image of the character and go on with the story. I hope that made sense.

 

Frankly, it's the job of the reader to decide whether he's pretty or ugly. Some people may like that kind of person - could be their nearest and dearest you're describing. And, he's a villain?! Perhaps he had a difficult upbringing, did you consider that?! Sorry, I am joking! History is great to write because all sorts of liberties can be taken, such as freely using terms like villain, and even -gasp- miss, mistress and master!

I'd describe him in this way: he saw himself as comely, even darkly handsome, but the first looking-glass that confronted him, he shot into piece, dead. Though now, to him, he deemed it told a thousand lies, but he considered not one, grinding them beneath his boot. Probably later, mentioning that he attracts flies would be useful, ie: Flies seemed to prefer him, rather than generous mounds of dung nearby, which the black stones embedded in his skull; set either side of his nose, did malevolently consider.

So win, win, it doesn't say he's smelly or ugly. ^^