The Importance of Describing Your Characters

I’m not talking about the character looking in the mirror describing herself idea. Character description is more than hair and skin color, eye color, body shape, etc. It’s also about attitude and personality. It’s sharing something important and internal about the person. And about sharing details appropriate to the setting that are character related.

Let’s examine this description in the first chapter of Katherine Reay’s book THE PRINTED LETTER BOOKSHOP: “He and his sister share the same deep-set eyes, eyebrows, and nose. Her ‘Irish twins,’ Granny Caoime called them. They looked alike, walked alike, laughed alike. Both bit the side of their cheek when deep in thought, narrowed their eyes when something didn’t sound right, and laughed loudest at their own jokes.” So first the main character narrator is telling us how her father and aunt were similar. We don’t get eye or hair color, but don’t you feel like you could see them a bit? Now look what the author does: “Though, if I remembered it correctly, Aunt Maddie’s laugh was more of a contagious giggle that held strong until you caught on and joined her. Dad’s, I knew from experience, held a slight condescension—you simply hadn’t caught the brilliance of his humor.” Wow! Which one would you prefer to be friends with? It also gives me insight into the main character and her relationships.

Here’s another approach. A story written all in letters, but note how you get ideas about the main character Juliet from her own words: “We sold over forty copies of the book, which was very pleasant, but much more thrilling from my viewpoint was the food. Susan managed to procure ration coupons for icing sugar and real eggs for the meringue.” THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. If you continuing reading, you’ll get even more about her personality. I love how Juliet describes a woman as “dismal” and hopes “Jane spat on her.” This young woman makes me smile.

In THE GIRL WHO LIVED by Christopher Greyson, the main character is described: “A couple months ago she’d dyed her long, caramel-brown hair too dark, and hated it. Her radical response was to shave her head. After the novelty wore off, she knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Jet-black, platinum-blond, she was the same damaged goods, no matter what the package looked like on the outside.” This instantly made me feel sympathy and wanting to know more.

Another appealing character is Captain Kidd in NEWS OF THE WORLD by Paulette Jiles. Here’s the second sentence of the book: “He had been born in 1798 and the third war of his lifetime had ended five years ago and he hoped never to see another but now the news of the world aged him more than time itself.” A bit later on the page Captain is speaking: “That means colored gentlemen, he said. Let us have no vaporings or girlish shrieks.” Later the author describes him physically, but I’m already hooked by then.

What do these descriptions have in common? Character! Personality. Attitude. And in several we’ve gotten details of setting to help us place the person. I love what R.A. Nelson said, “I don't worry so much about readers being able to identify with my characters on a surface level, you know, the latest slang, TV shows, etc. I feel like when you completely inhabit the character and pour it out straight from your heart then the identification with the reader comes at a much deeper level, an identification that doesn't really have anything to do with gender, age, etc., but universal human truths.”

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