Chapter Three: Physical Descriptions, Character Names and Describing Environments

In this chapter we're going to look at how to physically describe a character's outward appearence and how it relates to their personality. Personality building will be looked at thoughout however we'll have a stronger focus in Chapters Six, where we will be looking at Flaws and Chapter Seven where we'll be trying to create sympathetic characters. This chapter also discusses naming your character and why it shouldn't be too much of a focus point and how to best make your characters move through environments without loosing reader interest.

3.1 Describing People

…said Kirsty, the brunette.

Would you believe that that is exactly a third the physical description we get of Kirsty? Later on we find out that she has green eyes with a gold ring around them. That's it. She's apparently a bit of a nerd and is surprised when this apparently dreamy guy talks to her (blonde (sic) curly hair with blue eyes). I would be too if I had mole hair, three chins and pit stains.

What? Your character doesn't look like that?! Well how would I know? All you've given me is the hair and eye colour. Of course if I'm lucky they might also be 'slim.' But you can still have moles and pit stains if you're thin.

What you are describing here is a doll. Go to the Dollzmainia website and have a look around. Yes, your character looks exactly like this without an iota of differentiation par colouring.

I reiterate: this is not a person, this is a doll. Let's put the doll next to real people. Turn around and look at the mirror. Look at your family, look at your friends. Hell, go look at the covers of those girly rags. Every one features either a blonde or brunette and… Oh my God, look at that!

You can tell the difference (visually if not through personality) between Miley Cyrus and Hilary Duff and Brittany and Paris even though they're all blonde! But how? Their noses are different, so are their chins and cheekbones and foreheads! Their heights and body types are different. Eyes and hair have range to them. Amazing! Eyes can be small or large, up turned, down turned, sunken or bulgy. They can have bags or lines or heavy lids or that weird kind of upper eyelid sag around them.

You see when you tell me that your character has green eyes and red hair and think that you're finished you really are. You've not only proventomethat you're bloody lazy and unimaginative, you've also proven that you've failed at life. You haven't been able to take the years of casually seeing faces and body types and recognising them and put it on paper.

What you think you're saying:

Look at this character. Isn't she just strikingly pretty?

What I'm hearing:

Wow, look at me. I think I can pass this off as description. Read on to see how many other mistakes I'm going to make that could be avoided by five minutes of research!

Or:

You see we both know that my character has the body of a Barbie doll/stick. I don't even need to say it. I mean how could she not? The story wouldn't work if she weren't pretty.

Of course you could be at the other end of the spectrum. One of the reasons I don't read Anne Rice is because she can go into three pages of loving detail about a character's face (I never read far in; do their bodies get the same attention?). After a while all I'm reading is blah, blah, blah, God made him and then had a wet dream about it okay? Okay, whatever.

So what description works? The thing is that the Law of the Conservation of Details states that you only describe what's relevant to plot and or the character. Broad descriptions are often the best. A broad description paints the whole character in a few strokes or sentences. When writing description think about the character's personality and how it reflects in their appearance.

A single strand of hair had beaten the odds and escaped her bun. She glared at it through the thick glasses perched on that ice pick she called a nose. She didn't have time for imperfections and ruthlessly plucked the hair out mid-stride. You could hear the click clip of her sensible shoes as she went past.

I haven't talked about her eyes or her hair or her body but you get the general idea of who she might be. She's a mean old matron, probably skinny. If a character is mean and sloppy they also have at least two chins. But if they're mean and neat they are skeletons with skin on them. I think the noticeable exception here is Radcliff from Pocahontas (Disney, -1995) who was overweight but well groomed. If I decided to describe her eyes I'd probably use adjectives like 'beady' or 'squinted' or 'shifty.'

Colour's not really that important but because we're using the broad stroke method we're using type casting and connotations. This woman isn't going to have striking green eyes. That doesn't fit with her old-matron-before-her-time character type. If she had flaming red hair she'd just be annoyed. It would still be in a tight bun though.

You all know the character I've just described even if you remember her slightly differently and that's exactly the point: clichés are made to be played with. What would she be like with brilliant red hair?

Interesting descriptions are what will make your character stand out. Remember that there are tens of thousands of writers and they all write the same Barbie doll (with different wigs and contact lenses of course). To make your character stand out give them something less then perfect: a big nose, no tits to speak of or funny eyebrows. Why not make a goth that excessively dresses in white? Or a punk with a (non-mutilated) teddy bear? Make an elf look like a pro-wrestler and give a dwarf barely enough muscle mass to pick up a single bladed axe. Sky's the limit. The interest is in the uniqueness. Like Superman was one of the first to wear tights (I really want to say *the first* since he was the first classic super hero but I know some reviewer will gut me for it) and every other caped crusader copied him, let people copy you, don't just create another knock-off.

What you need also to do though is remember to work that into your character. By the same law that I don't give a crap that your character has a supreme love of anchovy pizza and has to eat it every second slice so that when half the pizza's gone there's still kind of a circle and then has to eat every second slice again so that there are only four pieces like four points on a compass before just going crazy and eating the whole thing [insert A/N about how you the author eat your pizzas *exactly* like this. I know: totally random right? Lol] I don't need to know exactly what your character looks like unless it's relevant to the plot and it is.

People make split second judgements based on appearance alone all the time. Your physical appearance, including the clothes you wear, is a good indicator of your health, your lifestyle, your status, how you feel about others and how you choose to present yourself. Things like posture are so ingrained into our psyche we barely notice them and for many writers it's awkward to break down and analyse such instinctual behaviour but it's for your benefit.

If Kirsty's such a nerd wouldn't we know? Wouldn't her first appearance be clutching her books to her chest or hugging herself? Would she look down at her shoes, hunched over to make herself look smaller then she is while mumbling and giggling nervously to everything she or the hot jock said? What are her best physical assets? What does she know that is below par about her appearance? Personally I have a very weak chin and I try to hide it or jut it out which gives me an aggressive appearance. On the other hand I have an odd front tooth which I think makes my smile quirky so I try to smile as often as possible. I'm constantly aware of my appearance and how others might see me. I bet Kirsty's just as self-conscious but she doesn't know how pretty her smile is. A character's appearance isn't just so the readers have a clear picture in their mind of the person, which is important when juggling multiple characters, it's also a plot point to be used when wondering how a character interacts with the world.

And how other characters relate to them. What I find is that a lot of writers who lovingly detail their characters' clothing stop short when other characters interact with them. If Jennifer's a punk/goffickchickfresh out of Hot Topic how's the grey haired Simon going to react to her? He could be stern, and maybe aggressive, trying to tower of her because if she thinks she's 'all that' she'd better prove it. Then again if he has some faded tats himself he might haveagoodlaugh at her expense and be more likely to give up the information she's been looking for. He probably won't respect her of course: anyone who wears nine inch black knee highs and ripped fishnets (seriously, I have seen that description. What the hell is ripped fishnets? Wouldn't 'weird bits of string' be more appropriate by then?) is definitely trying very, very hard to say 'I haveattitude,' a little too hard but that's okay, he had a purple Mohawk and matching pubes when he was young. Ah, the foibles of youth. That said though, the more you layer on the clothing the more your character looks like a dumb try hard and you look like you only know what punks/Goths/courtesans/princesses/warrior women wear rather than who they are as characters. Try not to do that. If you want to do punk, give her a lip ring and lets the readers make the call based on your character's accomplishments and personality.

Remember Hermoine Granger? Buckteeth and frizzy hair. That's broad description; she looks like a nerd and is. But it was more then that: for a long time she never tried to dress up or be at all 'girly'. She was not like the other girls in her year who wore big butterfly clips. She probably didn't host slumber parties and paint her toes nails. In fact she was probably resentful of her uncles and aunts buying her make up kits. I can say this because I know this type of person and so do you: the girl who thinks that being girly = being brain dead and that being smart = not paying any attention to physical appearance even if she was embarrassed about her teeth. These physical characteristics and the emotions attached to them did not stop her from being one of the most important characters of the book. She didn't have to be pretty to be competent. And she didn't have to be pretty to have Victor Krum ask her out in the first place. But she did have to be pretty for herself. Over the books part of her journey to adulthood has been to embrace and work with her looks whatever they might be. Her changes led to changes in other characters as they perceived her, and made new discoveries about her and themselves (omg Hermoine's a girl! Who knew? I think I might like her. Maybe I should read this book on relationships and change myself so she'll like me too). That's called character development.

And that's another issue: shallowness. I haven't said that word yet but it needs to be said now. If you're going to be too shallow to give your characters any physical flaws you're probably going to be too shallow to give them any emotional ones as well. And that means that your characters are shallow. There will be no deep emotional journey to overcome and there will be no intimate understandings and affections to be gained at the end. There will never be a truly tender moment when a character that was at first disgusted by another's yellowed fingers and smoker's teeth will kiss that other and say 'you're beautiful.'

Nope it's going to be pages and pages of the characters saying 'you're gorgeous,' to one another and the Readers will be all like 'no duh Einstein, she looks like a Barbie doll. Great find though!' I mean look at whom Hermoine ended up with: a six-foot tall and gangly ginger with freckles named Ronald. It really must be true love, and I mean true love (the kind where all the little imperfections become perfections in your eyes) to think: I'd love to go on a honeymoon with that! That said if I actually read fan fiction (who me? 'Course not!) HG/RW would be my favourite 'ship.

If I still haven't convinced you then I'd like you to meditate on this: J. K. Rowling uglifies all of her characters and yet has the most successful book series and beloved characters outside the major holy books. The woman is doing something right.

3.1b Info Dumping

Just like any other information your character's appearance can and often is infodumped on the reader. It's very hard to insert physical description well into a story, and is especially awkward when a first person narrator is describing themselves. It's a form of talking about yourself and it comes off as egotistic and self-centred even as the reader knows that this is something that may need to be done.

Some writers stick their character in front of a mirror yet it still comes off awkward. I think the reason is that most real life people are pretty comfortable in their skin. The only time they remember what they look like is when their scrutinising themselves or when other people are. We don't list off our appearance like this:

I have wavy red hair and blue eyes and freckles.

unless we have time to waste filling out those insipid'About Me' "profiles." So how can you pull off physical description realistically?

Either you have your character go about their day normally and only mention their features when it affects the plot, such as being noticeably taller than everyone else and therefore being easily spottable/recognisable, and if you never find an appropriate time to bring up the fact that they have blue eyes maybe there just isn't one. Or though scrutinisation or through other characters' P.O.V.s.

Self scrutiny is a good way to start off a story. It denotes a change in the air if a character thinks it's important to evaluate how they look like.

I looked in the mirror. Well the foundation was a blow but at least my hair isn't so frizzy. It's still the dullest brown ever but what can you do that your mum won't kill you for? Teeth white? Check. Pimples gone? Almost. Just a little one on the hair line, I'll have bangs today.

I sigh. Even with all the products my nose still makes me look like a pug. But! Mum always said I had nice lips. I went through my mental wardrobe of what would best hide my Christmas gut as I practiced pouting alluringly in the mirror.

Maybe that's more ugly then you like but you can still see how the description is placed realistically within the story. And if you don't want to use the 'in front of the mirror' cliche hold off on the description until your character meets their love interest. That's another good time for evaluation: when your character is frantically wondering if their dream mate will like what they see let them describe themselves and tell us why they think their lover interest may or may not be interested. Or teachers, or anyone new who the character would have a reason to feel self-conscious in front of.

3.2 It's All in a Name

I'm pretty jaded about character names and this is why: I knew a guy once who spent three days coming up with a name for his character before we could start writing. He put writing the actual character on hold to think up a name! He didn't pay that much attention to his character's personality. And then he wrote a whole five paragraphs about what his character's name meant. The character was called Carlin, similar to that bloke who hangs out with Lenny on the Simpsons. Guess what it means. Go on; guess. 'Little Champion.' Here's the thing: most names mean something good. In fact I can break them up into these categories pretty easily:

*Religious

*Pretty or Handsome

*From Somewhere

*Victorious Fighter or other Positive Personality Attribute

*After Something blindingly obvious but nice like Ruby

*Something work related like Taylor or Hunter

*Something Foreign which falls into the other categories but is special because they don't know which

*Made up gibberish that sounds lovely but will be a source of teasing throughout the rest of their poor baby's lives.

I'll add more categories since we're dealing with fiction and some examples:

*Gothic or Goffik: Midnight

*Magical: Rune

*Tough: Knives

*Whimsical: Whisper

*Action/Porn: Jack Harding

*Speculative Fiction: Random gibberish that you've probably instilled great meaning into through your fantasy language but which I could copy by banging the keyboard.

The point is that no parent is going to name their kid something that means 'retarded dog vomit.' So this bloke made me wait three days to come up with a name that meant something positive. It must have been really hard! He wanted to find a name that reflected his character. Did it? No, not really. He wrote a whiny little rich kid who liked to write down his life story which pretty much consisted of an awkwardly tacked on 'my name is relevant to the story and relates to me some how' paragraph or five. It was really sad too: he'd created this psychologically abusive situation of his father controlling his mother and himself to the point where he wouldn't let her name her son until the child was five years old and then she picked a name seemingly at random and when I pointed that out he changed it. Sigh.

But I digress. My point is that if you become so caught up in a character's name you don't have the momentum to be caught up in other things like plot details or dialogue or world building. If he'd spent three days coming up with evil things the villain could do to make herself more villainous then we would have had a ripping story and know where the plot would go.

Really a name will not have much bearing on the character's personality unless it's part of a prophesy and otherwise I don't care. I really don't. Chances are that your character's name will either be so ridiculous I glaze over it and play pretend along with you and the rest of the readers that someone would actually name their kid that or it will be a nothing name used soley to identify who's talking. That sounds sad but it's for the best. Don't saddle your character (or baby) with too memorable a name. Instead let them make an ordinary name famous. Either way I'm not going to be with you on that roller coaster of highs and lows, laughter and tears as you decide on your baby's, no character's, perfect name. I never am because if you ever get into publishing your work that's one of the things that the editor's going to take out because it's irrelevant.

Look at some popular characters and their reasons behind their name:

Sherlock Holmes: Doyle was a cricket fan.

James Bond: read a bird watching book (also, as a spy you don't want a name that stands out).

Peter Parker: Stan Lee, as well as other comic book writers, likes alliteration because that way it's easier for him to remember the characters' names. You know, because the story about a teenager dealing with fantastic villains and web slinging around skyscrapers is a bit more important then remembering what that teenager was called.

Doctor Who: too cool to be given a name. The 'Who' is from a running gag of people asking who he was.

Just with clothes, a cool names are given to characters because the writer doesn't feel they'll be able to pull off a character with a dull name. Why not? Maybe because they know that their character just won't be as cool without it. How sad.

3.2b An aside to Spec Fic Writers

There's humour to be found in the name Arthur Dent. It sounds like 'accident.' I like that name and it reflects the tone of the character. But that random association is why when creating fantasy names be sparing and be careful: readers know 99% of the words they're reading and don't read out loud. So when they see that name they're not remembering that name, just a bunch of letters whether it be the first bit of the word or the last bit, or maybe even just a syllable. And usually to remember the brain makes a link between that and another word that looks similar visually. I used to substitute 'Legolas' with 'loaf' because they have three letters similar and end softly. My brother reads him as 'toy man' because he used to play with legos (though wouldn't it be 'toy girl'?). A) If you'vegota conversation between five elves with names I only barely remember your story better be pretty damn good if I'm forced to memorise so much new and irrelevant-anywhere-else information to comprehend the damn thing. B) You better not use names like Alskur, Nhrod, or K'nut because I will read them as Alaska, Nimrod and Cunt (or Coconut, depends on how much I dislike your character. Either way I'm not going to take it seriously when he and Alaska take down the villain Pumpernickel).

This gets more odd in Sci Fi when you find that names that have come down to us from Biblical times, therefore lasting over 2000 years, like John, Samuel etc, have been totally eradicated 1000 years into the future. Yes names do fall in and out of fashion and are changing with our society's motives. Boy names are getting increasing consumed by girls and some kids are getting named after printer companies. But neither our last names nor our linguistic roots are getting tossed aside so please don't name your character futuristic gobblygock.

This annoys me in fantasy too actually, especially when everything about the setting is a rip-off of Medieval Europe and then you just throw some random names in to show your world building 'skills.'

3.2c Consistent Naming

Characters have multiple signifiers. You can call them by their first name, last, nicknames, by their occupations or by their physical characteristics. But please don't fall into the trap of using them all in the same paragraph. An example:

Alex watched Ellen walk across the playground. The red head had a smile on her face. "Ellen," he called to the teacher...

See how terrible that is? This is more condensed than usual but I find writers often fall into the trap where they think using 'Ellen' too often will be dull and repetitive. To an extent it is. But it's the lesser of two evils. People usually have consistent names for others, linked to their feelings towards the person. We focus more on physical description if the person's attractive or ugly, more on job description if we know them professionally, even if we're on a first name basis with them openly and we focus more on nicknames and the reasons behind them if we're friends.

As your characters' relationships evolve they will have new mental signifiers for each other butt they can't do that if you keep jumbling them up to be less repetitive. The worst I've seen are when writers use a character's job description during sex:

She touched the attorney's chest.

Unless she's wondering why an attorney has such nice abs considering he has a desk job doesn't that feel a little strange? When a man has no pants on and is expecting me to do something my first thought isn't that he's a backer.

Unless of course he has a donut or six around it.

3.3 Describing Places

We do in fact not need a fully detailed house plan of your character's residence. Now some of you may be rolling your eyes, but yes, people do do this. And I don't mean descriptions like:

Zack bent down unconsciously to avoid the chandelier that was way too big for their cramped little hall and that his aunt had to have. He stayed hunched as he wondered into the kitchen to avoid the big cobweb to the left. "Three flies today. Good work Micky." He scanned the kitchen for something to eat. Nope, nothing good, just some apples on the counter. He should have grabbed a coke with Mark.

Zack pulled out his report card and tried to hide it on the fridge behind all those twee cat magnets his aunt loved so much before climbing up stairs for a well deserved nap.

God no. That's people interacting with their environment, an environment shaped by themselves. No what I'm talking about is:

My house was one of those two story ones, tiny and cramped. The door opened to a little hall. The first room to the left was our lounge room and a little way down to the right was our kitchen. There was no barrier between the kitchen and the dining room. Through one door in the kitchen was the laundry and first bathroom, through the other was the backyard. When you went into the hall you couldn't be seen from the kitchen. My parents' room was big but boringly minimalist with a walk in closet. Next to theirs was my sister's. My room was furthest away from my parents' and next to the second bathroom so I always got into the shower first. My room had my bed, my desk and a large window.

Jesus Christ, why the fuck do you think I care that your character's parents have a walk in (and also, doesn't that take away from the small, cramped crap you were trying to set up) much less where they have to run to take a shit? Now some of these things might be relevant to the plot: the window and the fact that this guy is two rooms away from the parents (which tells me this writer is an only child and has no idea what a sneaky little extortionist/tattletale those dear younger siblings can be). The author who wrote this told me that he was doing it to set the scene, that he wanted the reader to place it in their mind's eye.

Newsflash: 99.98% of people with an internetconnection live in a house. We're not going to cry 'arse-pull' if your character runs up the stairs and in both Australia and England a room must haveawindow to be defined as a bedroom. There are some things you can take for granted that we know. Yes there are different styles of housing. But I promise I won't feel alienated and confused because your character lives in a cramped double-story and I live in a bungalow.

We don't know what's outside that window or why he thought to talk about it. We don't know if there are posters in his room or models or anything. We don't know what he thinks about his sister or his parents, though maybe he resents that they have a walk in since he mentions it. We don't know if the family's neat or messy or if they're happy about where they live. Hell, we don't even know what colour they've painted their walls.

Now that was a description of the mundane. You'd think that sci-fi and fantasy would be different but they rarely are. But firstly let me state my bias: I dislike most sci-fi architecture. I find the pristine walls barren and the wonderfully complex engineering about as interesting as plumbing. At least fantasy creates something that to me is pretty.

Okay now that that's said: the reason sci-fi seems worst is that though writers fall into the exact same house plan description except in a much, much more detailed way while there is only so much you can say about mountains with dragons nesting in them. The fantasy writer usually had a fuzzy 'there's a perfectly round lake somewhere over there' while the sci-fiwriterhaspainstakingly planned out every floor including engine room, toilet, food growing facility, medical facility, genetic diversity storage facility, normal storage facility, captain's quarters, crew's etc. One is over expansive to the point you realise that it just isn't real the other is planned out to the microcircuits.

Yes it's impressive, congrads in your world building skills but not every piece of your wonderful technology/elfish language and culture is relevant to the plot. I know you're emotionally invested in it but I'm not and I'm not going to sit around while you sort out the actual story. What I suggest is you do just what a writer would do with a mundane character moving through a mundane environment: only put something in as the character interacts with it. This is especially true to sci-fiwriters: what, in this cold, sterile place where space is a limited resource, do humans do to personalise their environment? Focus less on the microchips (unless your character's a scientist, in which case she'll be interacting with them and you can explain them as she does by what she does) and more on the faded and gummy sticker above that proudly professes this model to be a 'speed demon ™'. For fantasy writers: only tell us what the main character can see, not what he's been told (unless you write that conversation into the story).

There are two different ways to interact with the environment: the way in which someone who is comfortable would act, as Zack above is, and the way someone who has never seen the environment would act. They look in different places: Zack barely looks around at anything but he feels free to manipulate the environment by rearranging the fridge magnets and feels comfortable enough to eat and sleep there. When you're writing a character who's comfortable in their environment I suggest a see-saw technique between physical and emotional: Zack sees a physical object which triggers memories which can be as far away as you like.

You havetobe more careful with filled-with-wonder characters: as they are overwhelmed so too is the reader and the reader can easily give up and find another book. But again: get into the character's head, a scientist would only care about the microchips, a lay person would skim over them for something visually interesting. Same in fantasy: if the main character isn't elfish he won't care about the hundreds of intricate runes everywhere after a while. Instead, let your character naturally make some connections like 'that rune was repeated far more than the others and was often highlighted with a layer of green paint around its edges.' What does this wondrous world have in common with ours/the character's? Once you find that point illustrate why even those things we have in common are still different. Break up the awe-inspiring scenery with close at hand things the character can interact with and vice versa to break up the info dump.

It never hurts to not show the whole picture. If you do it right you've created the illusion of a whole land unexplored, expanding your universe without too much effort. Something like 'don't go past the north wall Bo. There are worgs out there that come in the night, attracted by the human scent of the flower pickers, and so they howl until the moon goes down. Don't be one more reason for the North side slumdogsto be awake at night.' is compact enough not to bore the reader and has just adequately described a whole quartre of a fantasy city as well as creating a sequel hook/more world building when you get around to it.

That tell don't show also works in horror, steam punk and urban fantasy: environments that are full of closed walls with magic just around the corner. And the reader can fill in the blanks about how magic. The more confining, the more dangerous as you only get little clues as to what's outside but don't really know what's out there or where you can run.

Use contrasts in what the character sees to what they expect. If a girl has lived in a highly industrialised city for all of her life, think of the sense of wonder she must feel for the city garden, the only splash of green for fifty kilometres. Fresh food and natural fibres would be rare in this type of world so instead of endlessly repeating how barren and stark everything is, why not show her joy at getting an 'omg *real* cotton handkerchief!'?

A/N: Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Thanks for your reviews!

You Know Who: Thanks? The Harry Potter series is one of my favourites and though I do think it has some flaws, they are far outweighed by overall excellence.

Brendan2k5: Thank you. You're right: it's never usually one little problem.