I probably don't even know which most styles are called. lol. I usually get character art and show it off instead. You may ask then "How do you describe it to get character art?" Answer: I trust artists. lol Actually I have used description but it tends to be vague terms like. "This character is pretty or would be if she cleaned up. She doesn't care about appearances and likely would appear somewhat messy." I entrust the artist to pick clothing that captures that theme. On a side note since I have seen the it casually mentioned. How good is it to descript a new character in a scene? Visually speaking. One friend says I should like spend a page going from there head to there toes with as much detail as possible. I always thought he was a tad extreme but my own poor visuals tend to make it where I forget to describe them at all. What is the right balance do you think?
a page describing a new character's looks in minute detail seems a bit excessive. Unless the description needs to be there to detail certain things that are important to the story. But - as I think someone mentioned earlier - you need to be careful that you don't stop the story to insert a description which is not really needed as you risk losing the reader's interest and ultimately, the reader themselves who put down the book and never pick it back up. Some characters need little more than a base description which you can then leave up to the reader's imagination. One of my new characters describes a man she meets as "noticed that even with his face covered in blood, this man with the blue eyes and dirty blonde short wavy hair was attractive in a way that screamed your mother would love him and your best friend would try to steal him."
It never ceases to amaze me how reading the posts on this forum make me aware of how complex writing a story actually is. I never give clothes a thought and now I will probably see descriptions in books that I would have previously just read past. I would only think of the clothes if they are part of the story such as wearing a hoodie, or low slung trousers making it hard for someone to run away, or in my WISP Spoiler work in slow progress a particular character's Confederate flag decorated t-shirt has an impact on the story. Keep up the good posts cutecat22.
@GuardianWynn - good luck to your friend with getting readers. If I came across a book with an entire page describing a character's every physical detail, I'd definitely put the book down. There's a reason why I'm reading rather than looking at a piece of visual art. @cutecat22 - I know you didn't ask for this, but I think your description needs an edit judging from this: "dirty blonde short wavy hair". That's literally an explosion of adjectives, none of them too visually striking. If all these descriptors are necessary, I'd encourage you to expand and give it several sentences and make them visually pleasing to read. If several sentences to describe his hair are not necessary, then I'd venture a guess and say neither are so many adjectives in one (very big) cluster lol Anyway, for myself, I actually rarely describe my characters. I rarely find a natural point in narrative to actually stop and do that, and it's probably my own bias coming through too because I personally can never visualise characters by their physical details anyway. It doesn't matter how hard the author tries or how good the writing is - if it's concrete piece by piece details, I can never see it. I rather get a feeling for the character and that feeling stays with me - and that's how I "see" the character no matter what the description for them is. So when I describe characters, I stick to one or two striking details unless another character is actively observing the person being described, say in a romance scene.
lol. So you think not describing physical details is fine? I thought I just sucked at it. lol I mean you don't think some description is needed at some point? Example, it can to the attention of a beta reader that through out 30k I never mentioned anything about how the character looked. Like what she wore or her hair style or color. Shame on me? I did mention emotional expressions like her crying and such.
From the reader's POV, we actually know exactly what the character looks like as he's already a firm, well known character in book one, this description is what a new character's first thoughts are about him and - drawing from real life here - if I were to describe the real-life person he's based on, my first thought would be "dirty blond short wavy hair and blue eyes ..." From a writing point of view, it may seem like an explosion of adjectives, from a real life point of view, that is how we think and speak and as the description is in a person's mind/thoughts, I want it to be a real life description. This is the big difference between readers and writers and why you should get more readers than writers to look at your work. Writers will pick up on what they would term, overuse of adjectives, and anything else they think is wrong whereas readers will look at it and think "oh, he sounds lush" or "that's just what I would say, too." But thanks for your thoughts!
It's not important to me, for some reason - and I've also had comments from people about my work how I haven't described a character lol. If I get comments like that, I tend to find the most appropriate spot and insert 2-3 sentences. The only descriptors I give are usually hair and eye colour lol, and for girls, hair length If I do describe somebody, I don't like to go for physical piece-by-piece details. So, for example, when my MC first appears, I gave him 2 paragraphs of description, but only because it was a romance section and the POV character is the female love interest. So the physical description was important, hence I slipped it in: If you think about it, my description wasn't really that descriptive - you get that he was tall, you get he's wearing a sleeveless shirt, trousers and heavy boots (all fairly generic if you think about it). The rest of it is my POV character's opinions and perceptions, not really exact details, and my exact details are fairly general. And I prefer it that way. I get a feeling from it - and I can visualise much better from the feeling it gives me than if I'd decided to write out the exact style and colour of everyting and how many buttons there were or the exact colour of his hair or hairstyle. Although, feel free to tell me if it needs more work hahaha but I think you can see the guy fairly well from the above? Anyway, I've seen books where little to no descriptions had been given to characters before and I don't miss them. Include them only if they're important, I think. If possible, sure, insert one or two details - like I say, whatever is striking or particularly unique to the character only if you're gonna mark the detail out. But otherwise, I don't see the need much personally. In fact, thinking about it, it's been 22k in my WIP (where the above description came from) and not once have I described the female love interest...
You make a good point. Maybe my friends are just weird. Me personally I would be the type that would like to include pictures in a book. Not because I can't describe the but because if I want to show them so completely then why not actually show them completely. Hadn't done it yet but my idea is to give her a scene in which her appearance is notable. In this case being a scene were her clothing makes her mad as it reminds her of something and she rips it off before changing.
I think clothes generally fall into four categories: - There are those who want to identify with a particular group and their clothes are about a sense of belonging. They include, goths, emos, skinheads, bikers. There are those who take a great deal of interest in fashion and the way they look and their clothes choices are usually a form of peacocking. There are those who aren't particularly interested in how they look and will choose to wear something practical and comfortable. There are those who truly do not care about their appearance and will smear their rolls of fat into leggings. While this is interesting up to a point, I am unlikely to get any great insights into my character from them, beyond first impressions.
Hmmm - I'm not so sure. Can I add: 4. those who wear a particular uniform or type of dress for the kind of work they do but then change into something completely different when they come home. 5. those who don't take a big interest in fashion, but do take an interest in looking good and wearing what they consider to be decent clothes, made well but not the most expensive or outlandish. Personally, I can't put myself into any of your groups as I can't afford designer gear, like to be comfortable but also like to look nice and decent! xx
I can't say I've ever thought in that way that would cause me to say "dirty wavy short blonde hair". Truth be told, if you're going for real life, nobody would think that because nobody thinks to themselves: "Oh wow his hair is so dirty wavy short and blonde!" If they found him attractive, they'd think: "Oooh lush hair - I want to touch that!" Rarely do we describe things unless we're trying to tell someone else of our opinion or story - and when we do, we rarely say it like that either. We'd probably say, "That was the waviest blonde hair I'd seen in ages!" I'm not sure just because I'm a writer that somehow discredits my thought that it's too many adjectives. It's true readers wouldn't know to term the problem as such, but that hardly means there isn't a probem.
Oddly enough, I have a project wherein, fashions actually are my characters...I love clothes with detailing, and as such, it's something I pay attention to when I write.
I was actually considering narrowing the whole thing back down to point 1; which I think essentially describes all the groups we identified (I kind of intended to include 5 in 3 as well, but worded it badly, this is the group I belong to, except when in a suit and then its probably 2).
I decide on what they wear based on what I like relative to the setting of the story and the character's own interests. For example, a character in a modern setting whose favorite color is black may be described as wearing business formal attires in all black. I usually only vaguely describe a character's outfit in a sentence or clause to give an idea of what they are wearing. I do not usually go into detail unless it serves a purpose or I just really want to do it. I am not that good with clothes to be detailed anyway.
no no no, Dirty blonde, not dirty. It's a shade of blond, of which there are many, including platinum, ash, strawberry, bottle, chamois ... It's a kind of blond which is not bright but more lighter than light brown. OK, describe this guy:
Not discrediting your thoughts at all, I'm just showing the difference in the way people think. Just like with dirty blond, the first thing you thought of, was dirty (mucky) hair rather than the name of a shade of blond.
"noticed that even with his face covered in blood, this man looked like Simon Baker and was attractive in a way that screamed your mother would love him and your best friend would try to steal him." HAHAHA!
"He was undoubtedly good looking, although I might describe him as suave bordering on smarmy. His hair was that carefully styled brand of messy that suggests vanity."
Which is how he starts out. At the beginning of his story, he's a womaniser, a ladies man, a 'next notch on the bedpost' kind of man until he meets a particular woman who he falls for big style.
I'm trying to remember what I've seen him in, some zombie thing, I know he is in some procedural I've never seen- The Mentalist (I assume that is what you are referring to), I can't think what else... I think he is just one of those names/faces in the public consciousness.
I first saw him in The Guardian around 2002. He played (I think) a high profile lawyer at his father's firm (or his dead father's firm). He was a kind of "I own the world and can do what I want" type of character but then something happens and he gets arrested. Here's what IMDb says about The Guardian. Nick Fallin is a hotshot lawyer working at his father's ultrasuccessful Pittsburgh law firm. Unfortunately, the high life has gotten the best of Nick. Arrested for drug use, he's sentenced to do 1,500 hours of community service, somehow to be squeezed into his 24/7 cutthroat world of mergers, acquisitions and board meetings. Reluctantly, he's now The Guardian - a part-time child advocate at Legal Aid Services, where one case after another is an eye-opening instance of kids caught up in difficult circumstances So, he naturally, meets people who he used to thing were totally beneath him and has to fight their legal corner for them, which, ultimately, changes his view of life and more importantly, himself. I saw him in Devil Wears Prada, as a bit of a back stabbing womanizer ... So yeah, that is a little bit like my character, Greg.
