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The Gigantic List of Character Descriptions (70+ examples)

The vast majority of character descriptions are simply lazy.

They recycle typical ideas about hair, eye color, and build, giving you more information about the character’s fitting for a dress or suit than the type of information you need to know them intimately.

The first thing you should do when describing a character is to pick a category that isn’t so overused. Such as trying to describe: 

Describing your character in an innovative way will help retain the reader’s interest. You want your reader to be asking questions about this character, to not only learn something about them but to create mystery. What made them like this? How long have they been this way? Is there someone currently after them or is this paranoia because of a past experience?  Questions like these are what keeps the reader reading. 

Not only physical descriptions are needed. Consider: “How is this person viewed by another character?” Do they seem dangerous, alluring, secretive, suspicious? The way another character views someone else gives insight about them as well. Are they attracted? Repulsed? Curious? 

Another thing to take notice of is the type of person they are, despite their appearance.

• How do they think?
• What do they feel?
• How do they view/react to certain situations compared to how others would?
• What is their mental state?

Here is a list of examples of brilliant character descriptions to give you an idea and help you come up with your own:

3 Categories: Modern Literary, Literature, Popular

Modern Literary

1. vladimir nabokov, lolita.

” … Her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever.”

2. Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

” … in the last years she continued to settle and began to shrink. Her mouth bowed forward and her brow sloped back, and her skull shone pink and speckled within a mere haze of hair, which hovered about her head like the remembered shape of an altered thing. She looked as if the nimbus of humanity were fading away and she were turning monkey. Tendrils grew from her eyebrows and coarse white hairs sprouted on her lip and chin. When she put on an old dress the bosom hung empty and the hem swept the floor. Old hats fell down over her eyes. Sometimes she put her hand over her mouth and laughed, her eyes closed and her shoulder shaking.” 

3. Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

“Phyllida’s hair was where her power resided. It was expensively set into a smooth dome, like a band shell for the presentation of that long-running act, her face.”

4. China Miéville, This Census-Taker

“His hand was over his eyes. He looked like a failed soldier. Dirt seemed so worked into him that the lines of his face were like writing.”

5. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“And then the hot air congealed in front of him, and out of it materialized a transparent man of most bizarre appearance. A small head with a jockey cap, a skimpy little checked jacket that was made out of air … The man was seven feet tall, but very narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and his face, please note, had a jeering look about it.”

6. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Mama BekwaTataba stood watching us—a little jet-black woman. Her elbows stuck out like wings, and a huge white enameled tub occupied the space above her head, somewhat miraculously holding steady while her head moved in quick jerks to the right and left.”

7. John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly’s supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person’s lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one’s soul.”

8. A.S. Byatt, Possession

“He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women.”

9. Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

“He did not look like anything special at all.”

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10. Henry Lawson, The Bush Girl

“ Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain, f ond heart that is ever more true F irm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain —  She’ll wait by the sliprails for you.”

11. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I am an invisible man. 
No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: 
Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms.
 I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -
- and I might even be said to possess a mind. 
I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.”

12. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.”

13. Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

“My brother Ben’s face, thought Eugene, is like a piece of slightly yellow ivory; his high white head is knotted fiercely by his old man’s scowl; his mouth is like a knife, his smile the flicker of light across a blade. His face is like a blade, and a knife, and a flicker of light: it is delicate and fierce, and scowls beautifully forever, and when he fastens his hard white fingers and his scowling eyes upon a thing he wants to fix, he sniffs with sharp and private concentration through his long, pointed nose…his hair shines like that of a young boy—it is crinkled and crisp as lettuce.”

14. Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera the Black Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path, for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.”

15. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“[Miss Havisham] had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker…”

16. John Knowles, A Separate Peace

“For such and extraordinary athlete—even as a Lower Middler Phineas had been the best athlete in the school—he was not spectacularly built. He was my height—five feet eight and a half inches…He weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, a galling ten pounds more than I did, which flowed from his legs to torso around shoulders to arms and full strong neck in an uninterrupted, unemphatic unity of strength.”

17. Ambrose Bierce, Chickamauga

“-the dead body of a woman—the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles—the work of a shell.”

18. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“…your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

19. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn’t no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes – just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t’other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor – an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.”  

20. William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness.”

21. Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Vanity was the beginning and end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character: vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth, and at fifty-four was still a very fine man. . . .”

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22. Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book

“When the old king saw this he foamed with rage, stared wildly about, flung himself on the ground and died.”

23. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“He was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe… Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy — a smile — not a smile — I remember it, but I can’t explain.” 

24. Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“His heart was like a sensitive plant, that opens for a moment in the sunshine, but curls up and shrinks into itself at the slightest touch of the finger, or the lightest breath of wind.”

25. Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson

“He followed with his eyes her long slender figure as she threaded her way in and out of the crowd, sinuously, confidingly, producing a penny from one lad’s elbow, a threepenny-bit from between another’s neck and collar, half a crown from another’s hair, and always repeating in that flute-like voice of hers: “Well, this is rather queer!””

26. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“He had a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say.”  

27. Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged, but then no one would have thought of getting close enough to Mrs. Flowers to ruffle her dress, let alone snag her skin. She didn’t encourage familiarity. She wore gloves too.  I don’t think I ever saw Mrs. Flowers laugh, but she smiled often. A slow widening of her thin black lips to show even, small white teeth, then the slow effortless closing. When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her.”

28. D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

“But her will had left her. A strange weight was on her limbs. She was giving way. She was giving up…”

29. Henry James, The Aspern Papers

“Her face was not young, but it was simple; it was not fresh, but it was mild. She had large eyes which were not bright, and a great deal of hair which was not ‘dressed,’ and long fine hands which were–possibly–not clean.”   

30. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni Book One: The Musician

“She is the spoiled sultana of the boards. To spoil her acting may be easy enough,—shall they spoil her nature? No, I think not. There, at home, she is still good and simple; and there, under the awning by the doorway,—there she still sits, divinely musing. How often, crook-trunked tree, she looks to thy green boughs; how often, like thee, in her dreams, and fancies, does she struggle for the light,—not the light of the stage-lamps.”

31. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Living among those white-faced women with their rosaries and copper crosses…” 

32. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed, was still upon her.” 

33. Rudyard Kipling, Many Inventions

“He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”

34. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.” 

35. Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.”

36. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

37. Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

“He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality, for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing.”

38. Jamie McGuire, Beautiful Oblivion

“Her long platinum blond hair fell in loose waves past her shoulders, with a few black peekaboo strands. She wore a black minidress and combat boots.”

39. N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“His long, long hair wafted around him like black smoke, its tendrils curling and moving of their own volition. His cloak — or perhaps that was his hair too — shifted as if in an unfelt wind.” 

40. M.L. LeGette, The Orphan and the Thief

“A creature–a frightfully, awful creature–was mere feet from her. Its eyes were enormous, the size of goose eggs and milky white. Its gray, slippery skin was stretched taut upon its face. Its mouth was wide and full of needle teeth. Its hands rested on the rock, hands that were webbed and huge with each finger ending in a sharp, curved nail. It was as tall as a human man, yet oddly shrunken and hunched.”  

 41. Amber Dawn, Sub Rosa

“When he did appear his eyes were as brown as I remembered, pupils flecked with gold like beach pebbles.” 

 42. Julia Stuart, The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise

“His hair had been grown to counteract its unequivocal retreat from the top of his head, and was fashioned into a mean, frail ponytail that hung limply down his back. Blooms of acne highlighted his vampire-white skin.” 

43. James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain

“His khaki sleeves were rolled over his sunburned arms, and he had the flat green eyes and heavy facial features of north Louisiana hill people. He smelled faintly of dried sweat, Red Man, and talcum powder.” 

44. Stephenie Meyer, Twilight

“I vividly remembered the flat black color of his eyes the last time he glared at me – the color was striking against the background of his pale skin and his auburn hair. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone.” 

45. Brian Malloy, Twelve Long Months 

“Whith her hair dyed bright red, she looks like Ronald McDonald’s post-menopausal sister. Who has let herself go.”     (This is one of my favorites, because I find it ridiculously funny)

46. Joan Johnston, No Longer A Stranger

“Actually, Reb had the same flawless complexion as her sister– except for the freckles. Her straight, boyishly cut hair fell onto her brow haphazardly and hid beautiful arched brows that framed her large, expressive eyes. She had a delicate, aquiline nose, but a stubborn mouth and chin.” 

47. Brian Morton, Breakable You

“Without her glasses Vivian did look a little frightening. She had tight sinewy strappy muscles and a face that was hardened and almost brutal – a face that might have been chiseled by a sculptor who had fallen out of love with the idea of beauty.”

48. Anne Rice, The Vampire Armand

“I saw my Master had adorned himself in a thick tunic and beautiful dark blue doublet which I’d hardly noticed before. He wore soft sleek dark blue gloves over his hands, gloves which perfectly cleaved to his fingers, and legs were covered by thick soft cashmere stockings all the way to his beautiful pointed shoes.” 

49. Becca Fitzpatrick, Black Ice

“His brown hair was cropped, and it showed off the striking s ymmetry of his face. With the sun at his back, shadows marked the depressions beneath his cheekbones. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but I hoped they were brown…The guy had straight, sculptured shoulders that made me think swimmer …” 

50. E.C. Sheedy, Killing Bliss

“He stood, which put him eye to eye with the dark-haired woman whose brilliant, burning gaze poured into his worthless soul like boiling tar, whose mouth frothed with fury–and whose hand now curled, knuckles white, around a steak knife.”  (The author gives a lot of details about the characters emotions, but there is not one specific detail about neither of their appearances. Use this as an example of how physical appearances aren’t always the most important thing.)

51. James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain

“His wiry gray and black hair was dripping with sweat, and his face was the color and texture of old paper. He looked up at me from where he was seated on his bunk, and his eyes were hot and bright and moisture was beaded across his upper lip. He held a Camel cigarette between his yellowed fingers, and the floor around his feet was covered with cigarette butts.”  

52. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“She has bright, dark eyes and satiny brown skin and stands tilted up on her toes with arms slightly extended to her sides, as if ready to take wing at the slightest sound.”

53. Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush

“He was abominable…and the most alluring, tortured soul I’d ever met.”   (This isn’t describing him physically, but it is giving insight to how the main character views him)

54. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

“A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by  a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes,  glinting like black beetles under all the hair.” 

55. Anne Rice, Violin

“I deliberately thought of him, my violinist, point by point, that with his long narrow nose and such deep-set eyes he might have been less seductive to someone else–perhaps. But then perhaps to no one. What a well-formed mouth he had, and how the narrow eyes, the detailed deepened lids gave him such a range of expression, to open his gaze wide, or sink in cunning street.”

56. Kevin Brooks, Lucas

“As I’ve already said, the memory of Lucas’s walk brings a smile to my face. It’s an incredibly vivid memory, and if I close my eyes I can see it now. An easygoing lope. Nice and steady. Not too fast and not too slow, Fast enough to get somewhere, but not too fast to miss anything. Bouncy, alert, resolute, without any concern and without vanity. A walk that both belonged to and was remote from everything around it.” 

57. Anne Rice, Violin

“And she looked the way he had always hated her–dreamy and sloppy, and sweet, with glasses falling down, smoking a cigarette, with ashes on her coat, but full of love, her body heavy and shapeless with age.” 

58. Kevin Brooks, Lucas

“As we drew closer, the figure became clearer, It was a young man, or a boy, dressed loosely in a drab green T-shirt and baggy green trousers. He had a green army jacket tied around his waist and a green canvas bag slung over his shoulder. The only non-green thing about him was the pair of scruffy black walking boots on his feet. Although he was on the small side, he wasn’t as slight as I first thought. He wasn’t exactly muscular, but he wasn’t weedy-looking either…there was an air of hidden strength about him, a graceful strength that showed in his balance, the way he held himself, the way he walked….” 

59. Iris Johansen, The Face of Deception

“Kinky tousled curls, only a minimum of makeup, large brown eyes behind round wire-rimmed glasses. There was a world of character in that face, more than enough to make her fascinating-looking instead of just attractive.” 

60. Dennis Lehane, A Drink Before the War

“Brian Paulson was rake thin, with smooth hair the color of tin and a wet fleshy handshake…. His greeting was a nod and a blink, befitting someone who’d stepped out of the shadows only momentarily.” 

61. Gena Showalter, The Darkest Night

“Pale hair fell in waves to his shoulders, framing a face mortal females considered a sensual feast. They didn’t know the man was actually a devil in angel’s skin. They should have, though. He practically glowed with irreverence, and there was an unholy gleam in his green eyes that proclaimed he would laugh in your face while cutting out your heat. Or laugh in your face while you cut out his heart.”

62. Sam Byers, Idiopathy 

“Now here he was: sartorially, facially and interpersonally sharpened; every inch the beatific boffin.”

63. Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“As always, there was an all-American war hero look to him, coded in his tousled brown hair, his summer-narrowed hazel eyes, the straight nose that ancient Anglo-Saxons had graciously passed on to him. Everything about him suggested valor and power and a firm handshake.” 

64. J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

“The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars.” 

65. Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”  

66. Frank Herbert, Dune

“…a girl-child who appeared to be about four years old. She wore a black aba, the hood thrown back to reveal the attachments of a stillsuit hanging free at her throat. Her eyes were Fremen blue, staring out of a soft, round face. She appeared completely unafraid and there was a look to her stare that made the Baron feel uneasy for no reason he could explain.” 

67. Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Ender did not see Peter as the beautiful ten-year-old boy that grown-ups saw, with dark, tousled hair and a face that could have belonged to Alexander the Great. Ender looked at Peter only to detect anger or boredom, the dangerous moods that almost always led to pain.”

68. Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl

“He had his head in his hands, and his tie looked like it had been put on by an enemy, and was strangling him.”

69. Graham Joyce, Some Kind of Fairy Tale

“Peter was a gentle, red-haired bear of a man. Standing at six-four in his socks, he moved everywhere with a slight and nautical sway, but even though he was broad across the chest there was something centered and reassuring about him, like an old ship’s mast cut from a single timber.”

70. Brad Parks, The Girl Next Door

“…in addition to being fun, smart, and quick-witted—in a feisty way that always kept me honest—she’s quite easy to look at, with never-ending legs, toned arms, curly brown hair, and eyes that tease and smile and glint all at the same time.” 

71. Dennis Lehane, A Drink Before the War

“Sterling Mulkern was a florid, beefy man, the kind who carried weight like a weapon, not a liability. He had a shock of stiff white hair you could land a DC-10 on and a handshake that stopped just short of inducing paralysis.”

72. Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

“Lord Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face, and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be dominated by, or to fight: never a face to patronize or pity. All his movements were large and perfectly balanced, like those of a wild animal, and when he appeared in a room like this, he seemed a wild animal held in a cage too small for it.”

73. Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“I thought she was so beautiful. I figured she was the kind of woman who could make buffalo walk on up to her and give up their lives. She wouldn’t have needed to hunt. Every time we went walking, birds would follow us around. Hell, tumbleweeds would follow us around.”

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29 comments

woowwwwwwwwie

Love the compilation. Thank you for doing this

This is a great compilation! My students are working on writing characters right now, so I’m having them look through your list to see examples of a job well done 🙂 Thanks!

Thanks I’m using these for students to make character drawings from

This is really helpful ! Love it !

Do you have a way, where you could put the characters physical traits in this website?

Thank you for the awesome list. You should add this one; it’s from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: “Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, was a man of rugged countenance, that was never lightened by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable.” There’s more after, but I thought this was a good description.

And this one: “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering, and somewhat broken voice: all these were points against him, but all of them together could not describe the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.”

The quote that stood out to me the most was the quote from ‘The Census Taker’. That quote captured the characters feelings so well. The author was able to compare in self worth by saying it was as dirt, so much so that the dirt was written in his skin. I have never seen self worth and failure described as part of a person’s face.

Thank you. I echo Chris’s comment Wowwwwww and add a few!!!!

Wonderful! Reading these enabled me to rewrite the descriptions for my two leading characters.

Thank you for this, very helpful! I don’t know if this is really related, but I’m writing a story including a mean girl who bullies the main character (also a girl). I’m struggling to write what the mean girl uses to bully the main character – what I end up coming up with is way too mean or unreal, etc.

Blinded by tears, she could hear the haze of pink shout, “See, poor baby cries. Great actress, dear. Why do you waste your talent on us, here?”

great great any book for description of physical appearance in narrative

Great list. And I have one to add. It’s from Michael Moorcock, riding the new wave of British sci-fi back in the 1960s. He’s been a favorite of mine for decades. The passage is from “Elric of Melniboné:”

“It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody, and from the loose sleeves of his yellow gown emerge two slender hands, also the colour of bone, resting on each arm of a seat which has been carved from a single, massive ruby.”

Thanks for this – very useful compilation for teaching – makes life so much easier! And helps in my writing, to look at expressions and word arrangements… I notice how some writers seem so good in visual description, and some others seem to be much better at character expressions..

wowzers!!! this is so cool!

I planned to just read a few, but I couldn’t stop reading. These are awesome! Thank you.

“Character Description” on The John Fox’s blog is a treasure trove of valuable tips and techniques for crafting compelling characters. The blog explores the art of painting vivid and multi-dimensional personas, adding depth to storytelling. Aspiring writers will find this guide indispensable for creating memorable characters that resonate with readers.

holy MOLY, thank you!

I liked them

wow thanks you have really helped me but can you put something to describe a character that is a tyrant please? that would really help

Absolutely remarkable. So very helpful in every since of the word.

OH HELLL YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

A killer set of fine examples! Thanks for compiling it!

Please, add sentences that can apply to more characters.

Love it but should be more single sentences

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It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

Learn how to:

• Nail chapter endings
• Surprise your reader with plot twists
• Describe a character for the first time
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How To Write A Character Description (101 Examples)

February 15, 2024

Learn what character description is and how to describe a character. Jump into OC description writing with one of the iconic character description examples from our list.

Developing a description of a character can be a challenge for OC creators. How much do you give away as someone who knows the character innately versus trying to generate interest and get an audience to invest in the character’s journey? We’re going to dive into writing character descriptions that stand out.

Why Character Descriptions Matter

Character descriptions, at heart, serve as a marker for the reader to determine if they wish to know more about the character. They are creators' attempts to signal that an individual they are writing about is worth becoming invested in. This is why a boring character description can be fatal to first impressions - why bother exploring a project if the character's description generates no spark?

Character descriptions are also influenced by purpose. A character description in a screenplay occupies a different purpose than a character description on a profile page. A description in a screenplay is lean, whereas a profile has more room to explore. These descriptions we’re talking about are too large for a character reference sheet .

While focusing on writing character descriptions for profiles, we will look at examples from literature, screenplays, and existing character profiles on CharacterHub. 

The Five Key Questions

When it comes to description in a general sense, there are five questions to consider: Who, What, Where, Why, and When? These questions are also beneficial in writing original character descriptions because you can use as many as you wish or even omit some to generate interest.

It is rather complicated to omit the who in a description, as a description is usually tied to an identifiable figure. Even if you may not want to give away a character’s identity, there is usually some marker that identifies them. For example, in the script for the horror classic Halloween (1978) by John Carpenter and Deborah Hill, the lurking presence of Michael Myers is simply referred to as “The Shape.” It is a name as evocative as it is practical. In most cases, a creator will probably just include the OC’s name.

The what in a character description can be interpreted as a marker for their identity. This could be their ethnicity, role, or species, for example. It is, again, reasonably complex to avoid this when developing a description, as a character without a perceived role may not feel like a character. A great example of “the what” in a character description comes from the character Tiberius Skärvas IV from the webcomic The Fourth . 

From the character's description on the cast page: “Ever since the First and his rather unethical business practices, the Tiberius Skärvas have been accursed by the gods. While technically still human, they possess the appearance and certain traits of sharks.” A cursed human with shark-like traits is undoubtedly a bold answer for “the what.”

When it comes to where , you are likely answering who the character is to their setting. It is less about a physical location and how that character connects to or runs counter to a location or society. Essentially, you are positioning them against civilization in whatever form that takes. A great example of this can be found in the codex entry of Agrippa Varus from the webcomic Terra Incognita . 

Case in point: “Agrippa Varus was raised in a well respected family in the Asurian capital of Sokai. His father Argo Varus, served as a consul and the main liaison between Asura and other sentient worlds. Due to his exposure to other species from a young age, Agrippa has an open mind and is much less prejudiced than the average Asurian citizen.” 

As we can see in this description, Agrippa is given a physical “where” regarding a space civilization while also being described of their societal “where” - as a figure that runs outside their culture.

The when of a character in their description is all about position. Whether the setting is based on natural history or set in an entirely fictional timeline, a character occupies temporal space, which can factor into how they are seen. Are they of their time, or do they feel apart from it? Descriptions that hint at such things are great at generating interest.

A great example of this can be found in the script of Warm Bodies (2013), in a description of the character R. “Blank face, sunken eyes. Blueish lips. If we didn’t know any better we’d think he was a junkie, a runaway from the set of My Own Private Idaho . Then we might notice a few thin gashes cutting across his cheeks. And then we might hear a soft groan humming from his frozen lips. And then we might start to wonder…

In this example, we see the deliberate usage of a contemporary reference to another film, positioning R and their relationship to a contemporary setting. The reference also does double duty, saying a lot about how R can be perceived by those familiar with the reference.

The why of a character description is most easily omitted to generate interest and intrigue. However, it can also be incredibly influential in generating interest in an original character. Knowing what drives a character can be a descriptive hook.

A great example of the “why” in a character description comes from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote in this rather brilliant moment: “In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant[...]”

Don Quixote’s mad notion of being a knight proves a compelling hook to the character, especially in how that motivation is presented. A reader can’t help but be intrigued by the description of the thin, elderly man who wants to be a knight.

Other Descriptive Traits and Tips

Much descriptive writing can come from things you probably already learned in school but are worth repeating. For example, utilizing sensory details in a character description can be particularly useful. Writing about how a character may smell like motor oil or freshly baked bread can suggest different things.

Contrast is another powerful tool in the character description, as when we are introduced to someone, we cannot help but size them up compared to people we know. This is especially true of original characters. How does one protagonist compare to another? How might you set a character apart from others? Using contrast is especially helpful here. For example, describing how a lead character differs from others in a similar position of their setting.

Of course, there are also things to avoid when developing character descriptions. Writing a description that is a laundry list of traits is something you may want to avoid. It can lack personality and feel a little boring. A solid character organizer can help you visually track if you rely on listing too often.

In any case, referring to some classic descriptive writing techniques can be helpful, especially when punching up a first draft of a character description.

Ways of Establishing Character Through Description

Well-written, informative descriptions greatly help establish interest in an original character. Consider them a teaser to what you hope to be a more significant journey you want to take readers on. Your goal is to connect an audience and a character through intrigue an interest - your aim can be to use description as a hook. Here are some different ways to use description to create that hook.

Using Description to Create a Presence

One of the most essential uses of description is to establish the presence of a character in their respective story. How about who is heroic or villainous? Who merits us following their story and becoming invested in them? This is particularly useful in writing an OC profile because you want to establish how we should feel about them without the burden of a ton of backstory to provide context.

Consider this like trying to convey everything about a person possible at a glance. How can you give us what we need about an OC in a descriptive passage? Well, let’s look at some examples.

In this sample from Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin , we see presence established by tying description to color and costuming details. Note that the presence established here is not a flattering one.

I could picture the smooth oval of Laura’s face, her neatly pinned chignon, the dress she would have been wearing: a shirtwaist with a small rounded collar, in a sober colour – navy blue or steel grey or hospital-corridor green. Penitential colours – less like something she’d chosen to put on than like something she’d been locked up in.

• Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000)

Another great way to establish a character’s presence through description is to tie it to a metaphor. Let’s look at an example of Arudhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, where we have a character consumed by quietude.

Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms…sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue.

• Arudhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997)

In these examples, we see how descriptive language can imply something about the character's presence, such as their authority or lack of authority. In the Atwood example, the character is effectively rendered blank or meek. Meanwhile, in the Roy example, the description paints a picture of a character consumed by their awkwardness and silence. Noting and working with such traits is key to building a good character profile.

Let’s look at how the presence of Gandalf is established through description in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring .

“Gandalf was shorter in stature than the other two; but his long white hair, his sweeping beard, and his broad shoulders, made him look like some wise king of ancient legend. In his aged face under great snowy brows his eyes were set like coals that could suddenly burst into fire.”

• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

Gandalf’s physical presence is a fun juxtaposition with him appearing larger than life. He may be shorter, but he has an aura about him - something noticeably distinguished. I recommend reading Tolkien for character description, not just because I am a fan. 

Using a History to Create Significance

Character description that depicts an established history can go a long way to informing a reader about what makes the character tick. A character can sometimes be seen as a record of their experiences, and knowing those experiences can tell us a lot about a character, how they view the world, and how the author wishes for us to view them. There is no shortage of character ideas , but a character is more than an idea: they are a story.

In Charles Dickens’ Hard Times , the character of Bounderby is pernicious and self-centered, motivated by the pursuit of their wants and desires having come up from poverty. We can see Dickens establish much of that in his description of Bounderby by including history in the character’s description.

“A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him […] always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty.”

• Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

Let’s look at a character with an established history and how that history plays into their description in the present. If you are a fan of Star Trek , then the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan should be pretty familiar. The film was a culmination of a storyline that began in the 1960s featuring characters who have aged decades for the 1980s film. In particular, let’s look at a description of Captain Kirk from the script.

“Kirk reads the novel, trying to focus. His flat befits an Admiral and a loner with few possessions, except a collection of antiques.”

• Harve Bennett, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

In this example, we have a little bit of environmental storytelling that plays against what audiences would know of Captain James T. Kirk. Kirk, from the original series, was quite the heroic figure, not mainly seen as an elder statesman. However, the depiction of his apartment, filled with antiques belonging to a man who is alone, shows that much time has passed for the figure. He is different in many ways - almost startlingly so.

So, what can we draw from these examples when developing descriptions of our original characters? A character with a lot of history is undoubtedly colored by it, so if your description can evoke a journey, you’ve gone a long way to informing us about what makes them tick. This is seen in the example from Hard Times, where the character’s journey through the classes of 19th-century London colors how we see their outward-facing personality.

Further, if you are playing with time, descriptions of a character at different stages in their life or respective journey can highlight their growth, such as in the example from Star Trek . Contrast through history is a particularly effective strategy when writing a character description.

Using Perspective to Create Interpretation

In some cases, describing a character from another person's perspective can yield beautiful results. First impressions can say a lot, and stepping away from an omniscient narrator’s view of a character, filled with insight about them and their past, can be a valuable technique. It also can create a narrative journey for an OC later on, as our initial impressions, through a more limited outsider perspective, do not usually represent the whole character.

Here is an example of Virginia Woolf establishing a character’s description from another character's perspective.

“He was such a miserable specimen, the children said, all humps and hollows. He couldn’t play cricket; he poked; he shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew said. They knew what he liked best – to be for ever walking up and down, up and down, with Mr. Ramsay, saying who had won this, who had won that …”

• Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse (1927)

Here is an example of a character description written from another character's perspective. In this case, we have Ripley from Aliens , who first encounters Burke as she recovers in a hospital room. Notice the usage of traits in the following passage. This is taken from the film's shooting script.

“The visitor sits beside the bed and Ripley finally notices him.  He is thirtyish and handsome, in a suit that looks executive or legal, the tie loosened with studied casualness.  A smile referred to as ‘winning.’”

• James Cameron, Aliens (1985)

Specifically, this is a friendly, somewhat charming face for a recovering from intensive trauma. However, we also get a sense of Burke's nature through the description, such as emphasizing the fakery of a “winning” smile.

If we want another great example of perspective coloring the description of a character, we can look toward another sci-fi franchise with Star Wars . In particular, the 4th draft script from A New Hope introduces Darth Vader in a fantastic way that tells us everything we need to know about the character from the perspective of the terrified Rebels.

“The awesome, seven-foot-tall Dark Lord of the Sith makes his way into the blinding light of the main passageway. This is Darth Vader, right hand of the Emperor. His face is obscured by his flowing black robes and grotesque breath mask, which stands out next to the fascist white armored suits of the Imperial stormtroopers. Everyone instinctively backs away from the imposing warrior and a deathly quiet sweeps through the Rebel troops. Several of the Rebel troops break and run in a frenzied panic.”

• George Lucas, Star Wars: A New Hope (1976)

That Darth Vader cuts an imposing presence in this description is an understatement. The key here is that we are seeing him through the eyes of those terrified Rebel troops.

Character Descriptions from Some Friends of Mine

There are many great examples of strong character descriptions out there. I turned to a few writer friends who are particularly good at creating characters, and I want to look at examples from two of them.

Robert Livingston: Tom n’ Artie and Kaiju Dayz

First up, we have my friend Robert Livingston, who was gracious enough to provide some examples from his in-depth pitch documents for two of his projects. First, look at some examples featuring the two leads of his comic Tom n’ Artie .

Tommy ‘Tom’ Sunshine Bliss

“Our stoic, disciplined Unicorn with the sparkly hair! Tom is the straight man of the duo usually doing the talking when they're with clients or when a deal needs to be made. Straight-laced with a dry sense of humor, he approaches situations with a strategic mindset preferring to have all the information before diving in. Due to his friendship with Artie, he commonly has to just 'wing it' with his little wildcard friend as he changes strategies on the fly.”

As we can see, Tom is the comedic straight man of the pair, but given the nature of the project, he still has his quirks. In particular, I want to note the contrast between his character and the description of his appearance. It does a lot to sell the inherent comedy of the character.

Artie Artillery

“The cartoon wildcard! Artie is zany and a rabbit/cat of action preferring to let his fists, teeth, legs, bats, guns, bombs and whatever he's got do the talking for him. He's spontaneous with a short fuse willing to crack jokes then skulls seconds apart from each other. Tom usually is the one who has to hold him back but during the events of the arc, he's more willing to let his little toon buddy cut loose more.”

Because the project revolves around a comedic pairing, we can see how essential contrasting the two leads can be in establishing their characters. There is some great description here, especially the emphasis on Artie’s improvised armory. Artie has enough of a hook from his description, but the depth is substantial when paired with his co-lead, Tom.

Next, we have an example from Robert’s other series, Kaiju Dayz . This project is like a sitcom set on an island of giant monsters. Let’s look at the series lead, Big Mama.

“A well-known Kaiju on Monster Island for her several successful attacks on human cities and other locations for many years. She’s gained a large reputation that gives her a lot of respect from others. It’s also forced her to put up a constant face of intimidation to keep that respect, she feels force is the only way to keep others in line. The only ones she’s softer on are her own children, Junior and Pestania, but now seeing that she’s growing estranged from them she’s trying to change that. She isn’t of this world (or possibly reality) and has no love for it but wants to keep anything she does love (her children and late husband) as close to her as possible.”

This character description does a great job of pitching the whole character. While I only used some segments for Tom and Artie earlier, I wanted to share the entire character description for Big Mama because it is so thorough without being overly long. This is an excellent example of a character description meant to sell the original character to an audience. This is what you’d want to see on a character profile .

Ben Paddon: Jump Leads

Ben Paddon sent me pitch documents for their audio drama, Jump Leads . You should give it a listen. Let’s look at the character descriptions for Meaney and Llewellyn, the dual protagonists of the story.

Thomas Meaney

The following is transcribed from the Jump Leads character breakdown about the character of Thomas Meaney.

• Meaney is excitable, enthusiastic, and young. She has wanted to be a Lead her entire life, and now she’s finally in training. This is her dream come true. Such a pity it’s about to be absolutely derailed by Misadventure.
• Meaney is a hopeful idealist. She always wants to see the best in people, and always tries to do good, even when the odds - and, indeed, her own skill set - are not in her favor. She’s also driven by a desire to get back home to complete her Lead training, though her adventurous, helpful nature, coupled with a desire to explore, often get the better of her.
• Meaney is excitable, in every sense of the word - her enthusiasm runs just as deeply as her fear, though she tries not to let being scared of a situation prevent the right decision from being made.
• Meaney is a brilliant problem-solver. She doesn't quite know this yet. She’ll discover that soon enough.

This is a wonderfully written character description that gives us everything we wish to know about a character while giving us the suggestion of a larger arc. When you think about this profile in terms of the questions who, what, where, why, and when, you’ll see they are all there.

Richard Llewellyn

• Llewellyn is in his mid-to-late 20s - still young enough to be bitter and cynical without having any of the real-world experience to justify it. He’s indifferent, snide, at times cruel, and he keeps people at an arm's length. Unfortunately, he’s been utterly unsuccessful in doing this with Meaney, in part because the alphabetical arrangement of the training classes has stuck them together.
• Llewellyn is smart, but lazy; brilliant, but apathetic. He joined the Lead Service because the alternative involved being in the real world, and that isn't something he's willing to do just yet. Of course, he'd never admit this.
• Underneath it all, there's something else. Maybe he's ready to let someone in. Or maybe he's hiding something else entirely…

Again, we have a dual protagonist situation; contrast is essential to define each. Each character can stand independently, but their descriptions are tailored to work best when read together. Yes, we get a fully rounded character in Llewellyn thanks to the description, but we also get a further hook because of the emphasis on personality clash. How might their journey go down, given their radically different perspectives?

Character Description from CharacterHub

While writing this article, I wanted to look at examples of character descriptions written by CharacterHub users. I’ve found some great examples to share, so why don’t we dive in and see what OC creators have been sharing with the community?

I’ve taken snippets from each profile of something I found to be particularly evocative or inspirational. Be sure to visit the complete profiles for even more great examples.

• Euronym by genderkiller - “driven to be the least evil thing around her, euronym chooses to use her manipulation and intelligence for what she believes is the betterment of others. but does it really know what's best for others, so blinded by its own trauma?”
• Valentine Adelaide by DEADRKGK - “Personality wise, Valentine is a man with many facets to him, and all are generally expressed and felt in extremes. To call him unpredictable would be both correct and incorrect. For those around him often, he can be much more easily predictable of a person. He’s open with his thoughts and feelings and expresses them freely with a poor social filter– good or bad, he’ll speak his mind regardless of if people want to hear it or not.”
• Tessa Verisey by LuminaLyric - “Standing at 5'8" with chestnut brown hair cascading in loose waves to her shoulders, her hazel eyes conceal a depth of intelligence and charisma.”
• Seth Salem by Paracosmic - “If looks could kill, Seth's would be the firing squad.”
• Aries by AFishWithAGun - “Aries is not a good person. At least, not anymore. Greif is a funny thing, pushed by a whirlwind of emotions. Anger, regret, betrayal. It spins its way into a palpable rage. His jagged psyche knows how best it can ruin a man.”
• Sidney Ignacio by soupysoupster - “Throughout his days, Sidney can’t seem to get past his own thoughts and anxieties. As a result, he comes off as withdrawn and uninterested to most. Despite what people may think though, Sidney is nothing short of a caring and compassionate person and will do anything he can do to help others. He’s a great listener, and will often catch onto things others don’t. ‘The devil is in the details’ as their father would say.”
• Adem Petrovic by lysesander - “Athletic enough to make a quick escape over a side wall if the situation calls for it. Face is unmemorable, and hard to spot in the crowd.”
• The Depths by celestrian - “A mysterious and enigmatic traveling merchant of the depths, a man whose past is shrouded in secrecy and his appearance completely hidden beneath a strange fox mask as well as a hooded cloak, wrapped in layers of cloth that cover his entire body. He claims to have knowledge of the entire kingdom and forbidden secrets, despite seeming quite young.”
• Clawfoot by Sunckeys - “Naivete is not a word known to poor Clawfoot, yet it may just be the best word to describe him. Unknown to him are the ways of man, of conversing with another and sharing pleasantries. No, for Clawfoot's expertise lies in savagry, ravaging, of ripping and tearing. Yet he hungers not for prey- though he much enjoys a meal or four- but for connection.”
• Soffice Pluvia by bunnymacaron - “Recently, he's found himself in an...unusual situation. Almost as soon as he entered the country he went through the Magical Girl transformation process. Immediately after, he got roped into the schemes of a sadistic Magical Girl and is stuck unraveling the tangled web of Kannazen City's Magical Girls to hopefully finally have some peace and quiet...or die trying.”
• Joshua Vox by ThaLizardWizard - “In terms of appearance, he is very skinny, pale, and sickly looking, with wild black hair that stands on end, and freckles all over his body and face. He has intense eye bags under enormous pale gray eyes, and to be completely honest, has frequently been mistaken for a ghost.”

Further fantastic examples of evocative character descriptions can be found all over CharacterHub . Browsing the thousands of existing character descriptions will inspire anyone to create character descriptions for their OCs. In particular, searching tags to find the kind of characters that inspire you most is super easy.

Further Examples of Character Descriptions

We’ll leave you here now with the following massive list. This list features different examples of character descriptions from various stories. Try to match the selections to some of our established principles. The descriptions here are very inspiring for any OC creator.

• Denis Lehane’s A Drink Before the War : “He had a shock of stiff white hair you could land a DC-10 on and a handshake that stopped just short of inducing paralysis.”
• Amber Dawn’s Sub Rosa : “When he did appear his eyes were as brown as I remembered, pupils flecked with gold like beach pebbles.”
• Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven : “I thought she was so beautiful. I figured she was the kind of woman who could make buffalo walk on up to her and give up their lives.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person,—in her own opinion at least. A regular snow-maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair, curling on her shoulders, pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful of her manners.”
• Frank Herbert’s Dune : "Through the door came two Sardukar herding a girl-child who appeared to be about four years old. She wore a black aba, the hood thrown back to reveal the attachments of a stillsuit hanging free at her throat. Her eyes were Fremen blue, staring out of a soft, round face. She appeared completely unafraid and there was a look to her stare that made the Baron feel uneasy for no reason he could explain."
• Kury Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five : "He was a funny-looking child who became a funny-looking youth — tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola."
• Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? : "Black-haired and slender, wearing the huge new dust-filtering glasses, she approached his car, her hands deep in the pockets of her brightly striped long coat. She had, on her sharply defined small face, an expression of sullen distaste."
• John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces : “Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.”
• Ralph Ellson’s Invisible Man : “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.”
• George Eliot’s Middlemarch : “The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers, was generally in favour of Celia, as being so amiable and innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke’s large eyes seemed, like her religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorothea! Compared with her, the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise.”
• Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness : “He was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe…”
• Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books : “But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.”
• Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice : “…your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”
• Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : “He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines.”
• Lindsay Faye’s Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson : “The door flew open, revealing a wrinkled, forward-thrusting face wreathed with a nimbus of wispy white hair, a face resembling nothing so much as a mole emerging from its burrow. Her spectacles were so dirty that I could hardly see the use of them.”
• Adlous Huxley’s Brave New World : "Tall and rather thin but upright, the Director advanced into the room. He had a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say."
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby : “He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life.”
• J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring : "The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars."
• Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight : “I vividly remembered the flat black color of his eyes the last time he glared at me – the color was striking against the background of his pale skin and his auburn hair. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone.”
• Joan Johnston’s No Longer A Stranger : “Her straight, boyishly cut hair fell onto her brow haphazardly and hid beautiful arched brows that framed her large, expressive eyes.”
• Anne Rice’s The Vampire Armand : “I saw my Master had adorned himself in a thick tunic and beautiful dark blue doublet which I’d hardly noticed before. He wore soft sleek dark blue gloves over his hands, gloves which perfectly cleaved to his fingers, and legs were covered by thick soft cashmere stockings all the way to his beautiful pointed shoes.”
• Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations : “Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed, was still upon her.”
• Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : “He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.”
• N. K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms : “His long, long hair wafted around him like black smoke, its tendrils curling and moving of their own volition. His cloak — or perhaps that was his hair too — shifted as if in an unfelt wind.”
• Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings : “Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged, but then no one would have thought of getting close enough to Mrs. Flowers to ruffle her dress, let alone snag her skin. She didn’t encourage familiarity.”
• China Miéville’s The Census-Taker : “His hand was over his eyes. He looked like a failed soldier. Dirt seemed so worked into him that the lines of his face were like writing.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful.”
• Henry James’ The Aspern Papers : “Her face was not young, but it was simple; it was not fresh, but it was mild. She had large eyes which were not bright, and a great deal of hair which was not ‘dressed,’ and long fine hands which were–possibly–not clean.”
• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”: “The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not.”
• Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush : “He was abominable…and the most alluring, tortured soul I’d ever met.”
• William Golding’s Lord of the Flies : “Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness.”
• Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys : “As always, there was an all-American war hero look to him, coded in his tousled brown hair, his summer-narrowed hazel eyes, the straight nose that ancient Anglo-Saxons had graciously passed on to him. Everything about him suggested valor and power and a firm handshake.”
• John Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated : “He did not look like anything special at all.”
•  J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring : “He wore a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and a silver scarf.  He had a long white beard and bushy  eyebrows that stuck out beyond the brim of his hat.”
• Andrew Lang’s The Crimson Fairy Book : “When the old king saw this he foamed with rage, stared wildly about, flung himself on the ground and died.”
• Rudyard Kipling’s Many Inventions : “He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula : “The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely.”
• Hugh Lofting’s The Story of Doctor Dolittle : “For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.”
• M.L Legette’s The Orphan and the Thief : “Its gray, slippery skin was stretched taut upon its face. Its mouth was wide and full of needle teeth.”
• Julia Stuart’s The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise : “Blooms of acne highlighted his vampire-white skin.
• James Lee Burke’s The Neon Rain : “His khaki sleeves were rolled over his sunburned arms, and he had the flat green eyes and heavy facial features of north Louisiana hill people. He smelled faintly of dried sweat, Red Man, and talcum powder.”
• Becca Fitzpatrick’s Black Ice : “His brown hair was cropped, and it showed off the striking symmetry of his face. With the sun at his back, shadows marked the depressions beneath his cheekbones.”
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein : “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”
• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”: “He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.”
• E.C. Sheedy’s Killing Bliss : “He stood, which put him eye to eye with the dark-haired woman whose brilliant, burning gaze poured into his worthless soul like boiling tar, whose mouth frothed with fury–and whose hand now curled, knuckles white, around a steak knife.”
• Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games : “She has bright, dark eyes and satiny brown skin and stands tilted up on her toes with arms slightly extended to her sides, as if ready to take wing at the slightest sound.”
• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone : “A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Elizabeth—or Beth, as every one called her—was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression, which was seldom disturbed.”
• Anne Rice’s Violin : “What a well-formed mouth he had, and how the narrow eyes, the detailed deepened lids gave him such a range of expression, to open his gaze wide, or sink in cunning street.”
• Kevin Brooks’ Lucas : “An easygoing lope. Nice and steady. Not too fast and not too slow, Fast enough to get somewhere, but not too fast to miss anything.”
• Iris Johansen’s The Face of Deception : “Kinky tousled curls, only a minimum of makeup, large brown eyes behind round wire-rimmed glasses. There was a world of character in that face, more than enough to make her fascinating-looking instead of just attractive.”
• Herman Meilville’s Moby Dick : “There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus.”
• Gena Showalter’s The Darkest Night : “Pale hair fell in waves to his shoulders, framing a face mortal females considered a sensual feast. They didn’t know the man was actually a devil in angel’s skin.”
• Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game : “Ender did not see Peter as the beautiful ten-year-old boy that grown-ups saw, with dark, tousled hair and a face that could have belonged to Alexander the Great. Ender looked at Peter only to detect anger or boredom, the dangerous moods that almost always led to pain.”
• Caitlin Moran’s How To Build A Girl : “He had his head in his hands, and his tie looked like it had been put on by an enemy, and was strangling him.”
• Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass : “Lord Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face, and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be dominated by, or to fight: never a face to patronize or pity.”
• J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey : “She found herself looking at Lane as if he were a stranger, or a poster advertising a brand of linoleum, across the aisle of a subway car.”
• L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz : “They wore round hats that rose to a small point a foot above their heads, with little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly as they moved. The hats of the men were blue; the little woman’s hat was white, and she wore a white gown that hung in pleats from her shoulders. Over it were sprinkled little stars that glistened in the sun like diamonds.”
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula : “Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere.”
• Algernon Blackwood’s Ten Minute Stories : “Then, by a green field that shone like a thought of daylight amid the darkness of the moor, he saw a figure lying in the grass. It was a blot upon the landscape, a mere huddled patch of dirty rags, yet with a certain horrid picturesqueness too; and his mind—though his German was of the schoolroom order—at once picked out the German equivalents as against the English. Lump and Lumpen flashed across his brain most oddly.”
• John Rhode’s The Murders in Praed Street : “He was tall and thin, with a pronounced stoop and a deep but not unpleasant voice. But it was his head that you looked at instinctively. Above the massive forehead and powerfully-chiselled features was a wealth of long, snow-white hair, balanced by a flowing beard of the same colour.”
• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Telltale Heart”: “He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.”
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein : “His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition.”
• Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow : “He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft, brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain.”
• Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland : “It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came…”
• J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan : “He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.”
• Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis : “He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.”
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper : “John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.”
• L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz : “When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now.”
• Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment : “This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so.”
• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter : “The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.”
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde : “This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided manner.”
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde : “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.”
• Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol : “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”
• Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace : “Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years, overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to correct.”
• Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”: “His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again.”
• J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan : “In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly.”

Looking for more tips and tricks regarding character creation? Check out the CharacterHub blog !

David Davis

David Davis is a cartoonist with around twenty years of experience in comics, including independent work and established IPs such as SpongeBob Squarepants. He also works as a college composition instructor and records weekly podcasts. Find out more about him at his website!

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How To Design A Video Game Character: Step By Step Process With Tips and Tricks

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Posted on Dec 21, 2018

Character Descriptions: How To Write Them (in 3 Steps)

Character descriptions — those key passages that describe what a character actually looks like — are almost as crucial to a written story as the characters themselves. If you’re writing a novel, you’ve probably created an awesome, vivid protagonist in your head: motivated , quirky , maybe even memorably named . But how do you convey all that to a reader without depleting the magic?

Writing strong character descriptions actually requires quite a bit of finesse. If you skimp on descriptive passages, you run the risk of leaving your readers with forgettable characters. But if you get too descriptive, you wind up leaving no room for the reader’s own imagination.

So what does it take to strike the right balance? We’ll tell you! Here are three cardinal rules on how to write character descriptions without falling off that tightrope.

1. Choose your words carefully

When writing character descriptions, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself. After all, this is the first time you’re introducing a character you’ve created from the ground up .

But just because you know everything about them, doesn’t mean the reader needs to. Character descriptions aren’t about doling out every detail in lavish language — they’re about succinct characterization. Here are a few tips on how to achieve just that.

Be descriptive in your language

We’re talking about character descriptions, after all — it’s quite literally in the name. When describing a character that you see clearly in your mind, it’s easy to simply give a laundry list of attributes: she had black hair, brown eyes, and freckles. But that tells us nothing about the character and is frankly a waste of words.

Sure, your protagonist might have brown eyes. But so does half the world’s population! And characterization is all about showing what makes a character unique.

Sometimes, this can be done through word choice alone. Take this example from Huckleberry Finn :

“There warn’t no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white.”

From this passage, we clearly understand how Huck’s father looks, as surely as if Twain had simply written, “He was white.” But through the use of figurative language and excellent word choice, another image sticks in our head: that of a sickly, grotesque drunk. Bonus points for the use of “tree-toad” and “fish-belly” — descriptors that match the tone of the adventure novel.

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Use adjectives sparingly

Another problem with a sentence like “She had brown eyes” is that brown simply isn’t a very interesting word. When it comes to describing something, the same is true for many adjectives; which are to descriptions as adverbs are to verbs . In other words, they may appear to be more descriptive, but they often just bog down your sentences.

Same goes for verbs. Much has been made about the banality of the verb “to be” in literature. Which would you prefer: “She had brown eyes,” or, “Her brown eyes pierced through my own”? Use forceful verbs to illuminate more about your character. When it comes to character descriptions, every word counts.

However, keep in mind that overly descriptive words like these can easily turn cliché. Ultimately, a phrase like, “He had a prosaic, pedestrian face” may pale in comparison to a more simply but potent description, like this one from Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated :

“He did not look like anything special at all.”

Use descriptions themselves sparingly

When introducing a character, it’s best not to dedicate three whole chapters to an exhaustive physical explanation and backstory. After all, this isn’t Moby-Dick .

So as you’re painting a picture of your character, do two important things: 1) focus on a few key characteristics at a time , and 2) make sure to spread your descriptions out across the book . If we’re told every detail of every character’s face all at once, they’ll all end up blending together. But if we’re distinctly told about the woman with ears like a rabbit or the man with a slightly larger left nostril? We’ll remember them for the whole novel.

Also keep in mind that word choice is important, but so are the things you’re describing with those words. Hair, skin, and eye color — these are all characteristics that, ironically, don’t really say anything about what characters are like. That’s why, next up, we’ll discuss what characteristics you should be covering in your character descriptions.

2. Be specific

Remember, we don’t need to know every single physical detail of every person in a book. In fact, since reading is a non-visual medium, many readers prefer to fill in the blanks themselves.

Good descriptions tend to be brief but evocative. So choose two or three distinct, specific attributes to describe and leave the rest to the reader’s imagination. Here are some ideas on what those attributes might be.

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Facial expressions

Facial attributes are one thing: anyone can have a big nose, so that tells us nothing substantial about a character. On the other hand, facial expressions speak volumes. Like this example from Lord of the Flies :

“His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness.”

The way they carry themselves

Body language is key to understanding other people, so it stands to reason that it’s key to understanding characters, too. Take this description from Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible , which describes a character through posture and mannerisms alone:

“Mama BekwaTataba stood watching us — a little jet-black woman. Her elbows stuck out like wings, and a huge white enameled tub occupied the space above her head, somewhat miraculously holding steady while her head moved in quick jerks to the right and left.”

Their stuff

In his popular novel American Psycho , Bret Eaton Ellis showcases Patrick Bateman's vapidity and narcissism through descriptions of the titular character's designer clothing. You can tell a lot about a person from their possessions — whether it’s clothing, cars, houses, or merely the contents of their purse. “He was a superficial sociopath” succinctly describes Patrick Bateman’s  defining personality characteristics in the novel, but a passage like this shows it so much better:

“But there are also things that the average person would think are nice that I've done to celebrate the holiday, items I've bought Jean and had delivered to her apartment this morning: Castellini cotton napkins from Bendel's, a wicker chair from Jenny B. Goode, a taffeta table throw from Barney's, a vintage chain-mail-vent purse and a vintage sterling silver dresser set from Macy's, a white pine whatnot from Conran's, an Edwardian nine-carat-gold "gate" bracelet from Bergdorfs and hundreds upon hundreds of pink and white roses.”

Just be sure extensive descriptions of clothing don’t fall into the bad fanfiction category . (Although, there is good fanfiction too.)

Their actions

You know how actions speak louder than words? That’s truer than ever when it comes to describing your novel’s cast.

In one sense, actions can illustrate physical characteristics in a pretty basic way: “She ran her hand through her hair, accidentally revealing the mole on her forehead she’d always kept hidden behind her bangs.”

But you can also learn as much about fictional characters from their actions as you can about real people. Toni Morrison displays clear knowledge of this in her novel Jazz , introducing the character Violet by recounting a story about her, rather than simply telling what she looks like.

“I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, ‘I love you.’”

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3. Don’t always be specific

Yeah, okay — the irony here isn’t lost on us . But while giving distinct details is important to character descriptions, so is knowing when concrete descriptions aren’t needed. Words, after all, are not limited to describing physical things. So don’t limit your prose, either.

Be abstract

Feel free to stretch the boundaries of what you’re describing and how you’re describing it. Rather than simply pointing out concrete characteristics or actions, feel free to describe abstractions, like this passage from Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere :

“Mr. Croup likes words, while Mr. Vandemar is always hungry. Also, they look nothing alike.”

Or, describe physical characteristics in an abstract way — that is, use similes and metaphors. In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , Dickens does not describe Scrooge as a Christmas-hating miser. Instead, Scrooge in this Christmas book is:

“Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”

Whether you’re describing yourself to a friend or a friend is describing you to someone else, it’s very unlikely either of you would give a painstaking, perfectly objective account. Biases exist in every aspect of life, so it’s okay to be biased in character descriptions, too.

If a first person narrator is describing themselves, they might comment on their own attractiveness, like Humbert Humbert in Lolita :

“I was, and still am, despite mes malheurs, an exceptionally handsome male; slow-moving, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seductive cast of demeanor.”

Or you could have one character describe another, which illuminates the attributes of the latter and the perception of the former. Take, for example, this particularly scathing description of one person by another from Jodi Taylor’s The Nothing Girl :

“The only talents he possessed were delusions of adequacy.”

This sentence succinctly describes a not-quite-self-aware underachiever. But it also illustrates a narrator with a not-so-objective opinion of him.

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Show, don’t tell

Yup. The golden rule of writing applies here as well. At the end of the day, no matter what you decide to reveal to your audience, the most important aspect of character descriptions is how you reveal it. Regardless of how special, unique, or honest-to-god awesome your protagonist is, a reader forced to trudge through page after page of intensive description will find any character boring.

Instead, think of how we learn things about other people in real life. Very rarely does the color of our eyes or the shape of our nose describe who we are. We don’t tell everything there is to know about each other — we show it, through our expressions, perceptions, actions, preferences, and even our stuff. Apply that same rule to your character descriptions, and your characters (and readers) will thank you for it.

Are there any character descriptions that stand out to you? Leave any thoughts or questions in the comments below!

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Master List of Physical Description for Writers

I created this list of ways to describe people

because physical description, when done well, helps the readers see characters in their minds. But sometimes when you’re in the middle of writing, it can be hard to think of physical adjectives and distinguishing features for characters. I find that describing facial features can be especially tricky!

That’s why I created this long list of physical characteristics. It’s kind of like a character description generator, and it’ll help you when you’re trying to think of how to describe a character’s appearance.

Eyes – General

 For all the words about describing facial features, I’m focusing more on physical descriptions rather than emotional expressions, though there’s a little crossover! You can also check out my long list of facial expressions.

heavy-lidded

fringed with long lashes

with sweeping eyelashes

with thick eyelashes

By the way, this post on how to describe (and not describe) the eyes of an Asian character  is really great. Check it out.

Eyes – Color

Brown is the most common eye color by far. Green is quite rare.

chocolate brown

cocoa brown

coffee brown

sienna brown

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cornflower blue

Arctic blue

glacial blue

crystal blue

electric blue

slate blue / slate gray

storm blue / storm gray

silver / silver gray

concrete gray

gunmetal gray

Skin – Color

Josh Roby made a great chart of skin tones and descriptor words, and I got a lot of these words from him. You can get that here .

The quote from N.K. Jemisin interested me: “I get really tired of seeing African-descended characters described in terms of the goods that drove, and still drive, the slave trade—coffee, chocolate, brown sugar. There’s some weird psychosocial baggage attached to that.” 

cream / creamy

rose / rosy

Skin – General

Some of these are better for the face, and some are better for other parts of the body.

translucent

luminescent

with large pores

weather-beaten

Face – Structure

heart-shaped

high forehead

broad forehead

prominent brow ridge

protruding brow bone

sharp cheekbones

high cheekbones

angular cheekbones

hollow cheeks

jutting chin

pointed chin

receding chin

double chin

dimple in chin

visible Adam’s apple

People don’t write much about noses, but they can be distinguishing features for characters!

Cupid’s bow

straight teeth

gap between teeth

gleaming white teeth

Facial Hair (or lack thereof)

clean-shaven

smooth-shaven

mutton-chop sideburns

a few days’ growth of beard

five o’ clock shadow

Hair – General

I threw a few hairstyles in here, though not many.

shoulder-length

neatly combed

slicked down / slicked back

buzzed / buzz cut

widow’s peak

Hair – Color

There are some repeats here from the eye color section!

salt and pepper

charcoal gray

brown sugar

tawny brown

toffee brown

Titian-haired

strawberry blonde

butterscotch

sandy blond

fair-haired

Body Type – General

average height

barrel-chested

heavy / heavy-set

pot-bellied

full-figured

leggy / long-legged

broad-shouldered

sloping shoulders

stubby fingers

long fingers

ragged nails

grimy fingernails

ink-stained

This list and many more are in my book Master Lists for Writers: Thesauruses, Plot Ideas, Character Traits, Names, and More . Check it out if you’re interested!

And if you don’t want to miss future writing posts, follow the blog, if you aren’t already — there’s a place to sign up on the lefthand side of the blog. Thanks for stopping by, and happy writing!

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127 thoughts on “ master list of physical description for writers ”.

Thanks, Bryn! This list has sparked a spark in my brain. I haven’t seen one of those for a while. I was getting worried I’d lost my flint!

I’m so glad you like it!

I love this, do you mind if we share on our blog WritersLife.org ?

Thanks for the positive feedback! You can’t reproduce it on your blog, but you can share an excerpt of 200 words or less plus a link to my site.

As a new novel writer all I can say is thank very much for sharing with us this wonderful list.

Ah you’re welcome! Thanks for visiting!

This is amazing! Thank you very much!

Thanks for the kind words–glad it seems helpful!

Reblogged this on looselyjournalying.

Reblogged this on Of Fancy & Creativity .

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Aw thank you for this it helped so much! I’m 15 and I’m trying to write a novel and this was sooooo helpful so thank you a billion 🙂 Best wishes.

Ah you’re welcome! Thanks for stopping by. Good for you for working on a novel, and good luck–I bet it will go great!

Hi, Bryn Thank you for doing these lists. They helped me a lot. Can you make a list on how to describe emotions like sadness or anger.

It’s funny you should ask 🙂 There’s a list like that in my book MASTER LISTS FOR WRITERS coming out this fall! I haven’t officially announced it yet, but hey 🙂

You can get a free copy when it comes out if you agree to give it an honest review. SIgn up for my newsletter if you’re interested!

Reblogged this on Kalynn Bayron and commented: Yes! This is great!

Was just looking for this type of lists.Great work.

This is so helpful.

I love your blog, btw. Your posts are informative and/or inspirational.

Are you on any social medial where I can follow you?

Oh, thank you so much! I just checked out your blog — I love the dream casting post! http://sbhadleywilson.com/blog/pull-ideal-cast-2/

I’m @BrynDonovan on Twitter, just followed you!

VERY helpful. I need to get basic descriptions of people done and out of the way to move on with plot. This quickens any details that might have taken me a long time to think through, or strain a sentence. Yuck. I know my females characters would pay attention to lots of physical details. not so with the males. Thanks!

Oh, so glad it’s helpful! That’s always what I’m trying to do with my lists — speed things up. I hate getting stuck on a detail and losing my momentum 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

godsent list! Bryn, I wish you more brains.

Reblogged this on Jessica Louis and commented: This list is beyond helpful. Who knew there were so many eye colors!?

Thanks Bryn your list was amazing. I’m an aspiring writer and it really helped me a lot. When I can I’m going to get a copy of your book. I think it would help me become a better writer. My genre of choice is erotic, but it is so hard to get out there, but I’m hopeful one day I will. It’s what I love to do and I’m going to keep trying.

Hi Beth! Thank you so much for the kind words. If you do get the book, I hope you like it! And good luck on writing erotica — I’m doing a “WIP Wednesday” this Wednesday where you can share a bit of your work in progress, if you like 🙂

That would be great. I have some short stories publish on a site called Literotica. I have some editing issues that I’m trying to work out, nothing a few classes wouldn’t help. How do I share my work.

I am so sorry! I missed this comment before. The next WIP Wednesday on the blog is Dec. 2… if you’re following the blog you’ll see the post! (The follow button is on the righthand side of this page.) Hope your writing’s going well 🙂

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Reblogged this on PRINCE CHARMING ISN'T HERE and commented: what an amazing list! I always have a hard time describing features! words sometimes fail me!

i loved this list! thank you so much for making it! 🙂

So glad it was helpful!

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Thank you! This is so helpful to have for reference. Occasionally I’ll have a particular word in mind and can’t think of it, and I can usually pop over here and find it right away!

I absolutely love your master lists. They have helped me so much in diversifying the words I use when I’m writing. 🙂

Ohhh thank you! That is so great to hear. 🙂 Hope your writing projects are going great!

Thank you, and they are. I’m just about to publish a works I’ve been working on for the past couple of months, which is so exciting. XD Hope all your writing projects are going great as well. 🙂

What a wonderful and thorough list Bryn. Thanks for sharing it! I will at some point ‘link back’ to this fabulous article (I’ll let you know when I do.) I’m new to your site, but will certainly be back for more! I’m fascinated to learn that you’re also a home-grown KC girl. =0) Although, I remarried and moved to California 9 years ago, KC still tugs my heart-strings.

Hey, so glad you like it! Yeah, Kansas City is a special place. Come visit anytime 🙂 And thanks for visiting my blog! — I LOVE your username, by the way. Made me smile.

thanks for following my blog!

Reblogged this on A Bundle of Cute.

Reblogged this on A Blissful Garden and commented: I find this very important!

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Reblogged this on Insideamoronsbrain and commented: Wow!!

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Thanks for sharing this list! It is amazing and so helpful !

I’m going to save this as a favorite. You always provide great information Bryn. Continue with your success.

Oh, thank you so much, Christopher! I really appreciate the kind words. So glad you like this!

This list is so complete! I haven’t worked on fiction in a long while, but lately I’ve been wanting to get back into it. I know this is going to be a great help when i sit down to create my characters!

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This is absolutely perfect for aspiring writers so that we don’t have to use Microsoft Word synonyms that tend to nit have what we’re searching for. Your introductory paragraph about readers falling in love with characters’ personalities and not theit physical attributes was spot on. Thank you thank you, thank you!

Chunny! Thank you so very much for the kind words. I’m so glad you found it helpful!!

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This is amazing! Thank you! I hope it’s alright if I use this as a reference in a blog post for character development.

Hi Jacquelyn! So glad you like it. That’s fine, just please link to the post!

I read this over and over, thank you for creating this! Can I just ask, when thinking of clothing and how to describe it, what are some things you would put? (I’m making a book draft and have never needed clothing described to me as much as now)

Thank you! It’s so important that we don’t reuse the same words too often, so this will help a lot with that problem.

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Thanks for helping me. It really made a big difference of helping me come up with something.

Hi Joseph! Sorry for the delayed reply! I’m so glad you liked it. Thanks for the kind words!

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Your book “Master Lists for Writers” has helped me incredibly. I’ve always wanted to be a romance writer but didn’t have the nerve until now. I am currently working on a short story about a college girl who is assaulted by a classmate. It was based on a dream I had a few nights ago. I haven’t developed how she gets her revenge on him. I know the story line seems dark but the dream stuck with me so much, I felt the urge to turn it into a story. Thank you again for your awesome book. What a great resource

Rhonda! Thank you so much for the kind words. I am so happy that the book is helpful, and even gladder that you’re going for it and writing! Sending you best wishes on your story!

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Great advice in this post, Bryn! Thank you.

Used this for school! It was really helpful!

Oh yay! So glad it was helpful!

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This is a great list! So comprehensive, and just what I was looking for. I struggle with physical descriptions of people and have a tendency to write the same kins of attributes. So this list is fab!

This is great!

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keep up the good work

Hey thanks 🙂

This is so helpful!!!!!

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Tiptoeing out there to publish my first book (I’ve been writing a long time). This post helped so much. Thanks!

oh my gosh, thank you! You have put a lot of effort in this list. I def appreciate it 🙂

Thank you I´m always using this when I´m creating new characters.

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Incredibly helpful! Thanks a lot :3

Thank you for sharing this!

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More extensive than my general list. My wizened goatee and elder Fu Manchu thank you for sharing your time and devotion to the craft.

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Very useful for ready reference. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mohan! So glad you liked it!

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I’ve been writing for a while, mostly for fun, but this was the one thing I could never get down, but this list is great! all around solid, and incredibly useful, I see myself using it every time I need to make a new character, good job!

You’re a legend! This is fantastic, thank you!

Hahaha, thanks for the kind words! 🙂 Glad it’s helpful!

I am following your prompts and valuable advice for writing a fantasy teen fiction novel. I think you are amazing. You might not know it but I was able to clear hundreds of my doubts through your help. Please keep up the good work and providing your valuable support to all of us upcoming writers.

Hey, thank you so much for the kind words—you made my day! It’s wonderful to hear that you’re working on YA fantasy. I’m so glad I could help, and I wish you every success!

I honestly would not recommend this as good writing advice. The focus is too much on describing someone’s physical features using analogies for food. That is not a good thing, it becomes trite and overdone. If used sparsely it’s okay but almost every word in this list is food related.

Hi, Larissa! Thanks for taking your valuable time to share your opinion.

You have done a great job preparing this Master List. Those who think such precise words for describing someone hurt their sensibilities, move on to another URL. I appreciate every bit of your effort.

Hi, Pradeep! I am so glad you like the list. Thanks so much for commenting!

Bryn, I love your master list book and use it all the time!

Ohh, thank you so much! I’m so glad it’s helpful!

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This is a godsend. I owe you my soul.

I work 20 hours per day, (regular business and writing the memoir). Just ordered the Master List–seems like having my own research assistant. I may be able to get 5 hours sleep now. Thanks

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No jaw descriptions? ;(

You saved my day with your wonderful, descriptive words! Now I’ve found the perfect features for my handsome male character. Thank you!

That is a lot of hours for books but I guess if you keep pushing it will happen.

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Hi Bryn, thanks so much for this information! I always appreciate your lists because I like comprehensive material all in one location as a reference (then if I decide to break the rules, at least I know what the rules are “supposed to be” first!). Have you considered making comprehensive lists of creative writing genre conventions (tropes, archetypes, settings, devices, etc.)?

Hello, and thank you for the valuable and useful information. I agree with Eleanore regarding the list of genre conventions. I’m more than pleased I found you website.

Thank u so much ❤️ that was so helpful

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Character description: 14 ways to get it right

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Creative writing competition: The Moth Nature Writing Prize 2024

16 june 2024.

Jem was tall and broad with brown eyes and short dark hair .

The new writer wants to create an impression of their character and is using physical appearance to do so. But what does this tell us about Jem? Nothing at all. We are offered no insight into his character, personality, dreams, flaws, motivations, needs, wants or desires. It is the same as in real life: it is what is revealed of someone’s personality that creates an impression, not what colour hair or eyes they’ve got. This bland introduction to Jem means that the only thing we initially know about him is the least important thing: what he looks like. Unless this has some bearing on his character development and the story’s plot progression, it’s just not very interesting. Instead, why not introduce Jem in a way that reveals something significant about him? It might only take a tiny tweak. Jem had kept the sportman’s posture of his youth tells us much more about him: in nine words, we’ve been shown that he’s an older man, used to play sports and has taken care of himself. Already we’re starting to get to know him.

2. What do readers need to know about the character when they first meet them?

Now that we’ve been introduced to Jem, what do we need to know about him? Think about it in the context of your story. Let’s imagine that Jem is a retired policeman who is married to Myriam, and keeps fit and active on a golf course where (in the early pages of your crime novel) he discovers a mangled corpse. These are the things your readers need to know about him early on in the novel. You could just write that description but it’s boring. Try to incorporate these essential pieces of information into writing that builds up a picture :

Jem was just about to text Myriam and let her know he’d be popping into the clubhouse for a drink with the Friday regulars when he spotted a ball in the long grass. He jogged over to retrieve it and took a step backwards. In all his years with the Force he’d never seen a body so deliberately mutilated.

Everything we learn about Jem in these sentences helps to build a picture where all the elements are connected to the unfolding narrative.’

3. Drip-feed information to gradually build up a picture.

Info-dumping is always to be avoided in fiction writing, and that goes for character creation as well. Your reader does not need to know everything about Jem all at once. It’s much more effective for the reader to be progressively fed scraps of information about Jem to build up an intricate picture of his character. As none of the characters in your fiction should be two-dimensional, a novel-length manuscript gives its writer the opportunity to assemble complex characters over a lengthy period.

You might introduce a section about Jem’s former police career to reveal that he made an error of judgement that impacted on his confidence, giving the reader a whole new understanding that solving this case in retirement will heal a twenty-year wound.

Perhaps you could show different sides of him, at home, at work and with his golf mates, to give readers an insight into how he interacts in particular contexts. Rather than bombarding your reader with a barrage of information about Jem that they won’t take in all at once, and don’t yet care about because they don’t know him, introduce him carefully and let them get to know him gradually and they will be fascinated to find out more about him.

4. Relate the character’s exterior and interior lives.

Jem slopped two fingers into a tumbler. He was never much of a drinker before the business with Siddy Cohen, but these days he had to smuggle the Jameson bottles out of the house .

Look at the verbs : slopped and smuggle . These have been chosen to show an aspect of Jim that’s messy, and something furtive about his drinking. Your verb choices will do a lot of the work for you in relating character to action. The rest of the description relies on the precision of the nouns that have been selected. The tumbler shows there’s a value for him in using the right glass, not just any old receptacle. Same with the whiskey: Jameson is a choice brand. The tense phrase the business with Siddy Cohen suggests the lingering effect of whatever it was that happened.

And throughout this description there is, vitally, a space for the reader to come in and interpret what has been written. Piecing together clues to build up a picture is one of the joys of reading, and a good writer never forgets this.

5. Focus on specific details and what they tell us about the character.

Everything you say about your character should be there for a purpose. Any detail that you reveal about your character needs to add to what the reader knows about them in the context of the story . So if you tell a reader that Jem was wearing the same shirt two days running , it’s a tiny detail that tells the reader something about him, his life and the circumstances he’s in. If you said he changed his shirt for the second time that day , would that create a different impression? If his fingernails are black with dirt , we’d see him differently from if he’d had a manicure.

Using specific details rather than vague ones reinforces believability. If Jem eats baked beans, scrambled eggs and four slices of bread every morning , it’s more revealing about his character than if you told readers he liked a hearty breakfast.

6. Create images that leave an impression of the character.

Even though it’s a mistake to focus on physical description as a way of revealing character, there will be times when it’s necessary to describe something about their appearance. But rather than baldly stating what they looked like, use carefully chosen words – an appropriate adjective, a persuasive verb, perhaps metaphor or simile – to create a picture or impression of the character.

Jem’s sturdy tweed coat felt like a barrier between him and whatever it was that was waiting for him on the fairway tells the reader not just what Jem was wearing, but how it made him feel in the face of danger. He pushed his thinning hair away from his forehead and sighed when he remembered how the lads on his division used to call him Curly reveals character and backstory as well as appearance.

7. How do they express themselves physically?

How does your character move around in the world you have created for them, and what does it say about them? Do they walk slowly? Talk quickly? Are they argumentative? Sociable? Friendly? Reserved? Introverted? The life and soul of the party? Respectful of other characters? The way people move physically and interact with others can be very revealing of what they’re like as individuals.

Think how you can show this to readers. Jem was the first to stretch out his hand in greeting demonstrates a character being proactive and sociable. If his fingers tap on the table this might convey restlessness or fidgeting. If he always sits in the quiet corner we can assume he prefers to be left alone. Everything that your character does will demonstrate something about them to the reader.

An added gift for the writers is that it is quite usual for people not to be conscious of how they express themselves physically. Showing this to the reader gives the writer a chance to reveal elements of the character that the character themselves may not be aware of.

8. What revealing quirks or mannerisms do they have?

Don’t overdo references to it – if the character snarls or sneezes or twitches or whatever it is every time they put in an appearance, it will quickly become irksome for the reader. For instance, Myriam’s ability to solve clues might be signalled be her fondness for cryptic crosswords. But if she is doing the crossword every time we meet her, it becomes a cliché.

Always remember, too, that any character in your fiction should not be signalled by the kind of shorthand that a quirk can represent. It can add to your portrayal of a character but a good, rounded character can never be reduced to a quirk of behaviour.

9. Don’t describe – demonstrate.

The best way to bore a reader is making them plough through a lengthy passage of description, and this is just as true when it comes to characters as to anything else in your novel. Your skill as a writer is in showing the reader without spelling it out in screeds of description. If you need to show what someone looks like, find a way of showing it. The blue coat was warmer but Myriam preferred the green one for the way it set off her eyes not only informs us that Myriam has green eyes and is wearing a coat to match, but that she’s slightly vain about her appearance.

10. Action reveals character.

Another aspect of demonstrating rather than using description is that showing your character in action is the best way to show what the person you are writing about is like. Readers are more likely to be involved with writing that moves the storyline along at the same time as increasing their understanding of the character.

Jem wasn’t going to let the odd twinge of arthritis get in the way of completing 18 holes does the work of telling your readers about Jem’s stubbornness and refusal to give up his golf despite the fact that he’s getting a bit creaky with old age. His joints snapped as he bent over the corpse but he ignored the pain. There was a job to be getting on with makes even more of an impression of a person who carries on despite physical limitations.

11. Put them in a setting that says something about them.

Your characters’ surroundings will give readers clues about who they are. What kind of house or flat do they live in? In what kind of area? What are their furnishings like? Do they socialise in a pub, club or café? All these lifestyle options can be used to reveal something about the way your characters live, which in turn shows something about who they are.

If Jem and Myriam have the same furniture they bought when they first got married, it says something different than if they upgrade their living room furniture every few years. If they live in a suburban semi their lifestyle will reflect a different picture than if they live in a gated retirement complex.

12. What about their inner life?

Just as it’s interesting to explore who your characters are in relation to the world around them, it’s important to give them an inner life: thoughts, emotions, viewpoints, interests. A character’s inner life can be a way of connecting them to their backstory, and it will emphasise or throw into relief the qualities that make them who they are.

A lot of authors reflect their characters’ inner lives through their relationship to the arts: what books, music, art or films they love – because this is a way of showing the richness of their inner life and inner resources. Human beings have many facets to their lives and characters, including layered inner lives, and your fictional characters should have a similar multi-dimensional quality in order to make them truly satisfying for a reader.

13. How do they interact with other characters and what does it show about them?

As a writer you can use the way secondary characters in your novel view your lead character to enhance readers’ insights into what they’re like. You might use this device to contrast how someone sees themselves with how they really are (ie, life and soul of the party/unfunny loudmouth) or to foreground something about them that will later be significant.

14. What impression do they create?

Be aware, as a writer, that everything you put in words about your character will generate an impression for the reader – and that impression will build up over pages and chapters. It is up to you how your readers see your character at any point in your narrative. Readers can only see your character through the images you furnish them with. So it’s your job to provide them.

You might, at the beginning of your story, want readers to have a strong impression of your character – if so, show them in action in a way that reveals the side of their character you’re aiming to get across. Perhaps later, you might want to reveal their hidden depths. This might be the time for them to reflect on something in their past, or listen to music that reveals a hitherto unseen facet of their personality. You can time your revelations of different aspects of your character or insights into their backgrounds and motivation to occur at pivotal points in the narrative. This acts as a way of controlling the impression your character creates for your reader.

There isn’t – or should not be – anything random about the act of creating a character for your reader. But there will be, inevitably, the issue that your writer’s knowledge of your character will deepen as you become more involved in writing their story, and get to know them better. Being aware of the extent to which your reader’s appreciation of your story will depend on your understanding of your characters and how you get it across will help you not just with character creation but also with plotting and structure. Why not try the following exercise?

First, create an outline or breakdown of your novel. It might be a list of chapters, or perhaps you might see your manuscript as a three-act structure. Whatever works best for you. By each chapter or act, make a note of each character that needs to appear, what you need them to do and what impression you want the reader to have of them. Now make notes on how you might convey these impressions in words. Develop your creative writing skills with guidance from one of our expert tutors with a Writing Magazine Creative Writing course . Tricks for Describing a Character’s Appearance (With Examples) Introducing a new character to your story can be difficult. There’s a lot that goes into it, and to make matters worse, you only have one chance to give readers a good (and memorable) first impression of that character. One of the ways you can do this is by giving them a distinct appearance, but many writers tend to fall short of describing appearance well.  We’ve all heard the same cookie-cutter descriptions for characters a million times before. Golden hair, a heart-shaped face, a chiseled body, piercing eyes, yadda yadda… The problem with these descriptions is that they’re bland, they’re cliché, and they don’t really help your characters stand out.  However, if you break from clichés, you can create uniquely vivid descriptions that will give your characters life. There are endless ways you can describe characters, and I’m not going to walk you through how I would describe every single possible human feature (or humanoid, animal, alien, etc). For one thing, that would take too long, but for another thing, descriptions are based on more than just the character’s physical appearance—their personality plays a part too.  Tips for Describing a Character’s Appearance in a Story There are a number of things to keep in mind when describing a character’s appearance. Here are just a few general tips before we dive into some more specific techniques for describing different parts of a character’s appearance.  Don’t Make Everyone a Supermodel This is probably one of the most (if not the most) important things to remember when describing a character. You should never objectively describe your characters as flawless. Humans aren’t perfect, so if you describe your characters like perfect little supermodels, they just won’t feel authentic. Worse still, they won’t stand out from the protagonists of every single young adult novel out there. You need to make them distinct, and to do that, you need to give your characters flaws . And I mean real flaws, not fake flaws that are actually just endearing traits packaged like flaws.  Don’t Dump Everything Out at Once Describing your characters is important, but you need to be able to keep it concise. No one wants to read a 7-page summary of every detail of a character’s appearance. You can go in-depth, sure, but don’t put your readers through a word-avalanche just for them to figure out what the character looks like.  Remember, you can reveal more about the characters over time. When you introduce a character for the first time, you should focus on the things a person would naturally notice first, such as their face, hair, clothing, voice, and general energy. You can further elaborate on their appearance later when it is relevant, and describe their gait, posture, temperament, and more.  There is one exception here I want to highlight. If you are telling a story from the first-person perspective, and you want to illustrate a character’s obsession with another person, hyper-fixating on the details can be a good way to show this. It can make the character seem creepy , and it can foreshadow the protagonist doing something bad to the person they are obsessing over.  Don’t Sell Them Short Opposite to the point above, you shouldn’t make your introductions too short. To some extent, it can be good to leave some parts of the character’s appearance up to the reader’s imagination. However, you should give them something to help them visualize the characters in the beginning. Otherwise, if you later reveal that the character has dark hair, all the readers that imagined them with light hair might have a difficult time accepting that.  Descriptions are important, and they help to include a reader in the narrative. Like a well-described setting, vivid characters can help immerse readers into the world and make them part of the story.  Use Their Personality A character’s personality can have a large impact on how they are perceived, and therefore should alter the words you use to describe them. Two characters might have similar features, but based on their personality, you would describe them differently.  For example, two characters might both be tall, but one would be described as “awkward and long” while the other is “towering.” In this case, the characters’ levels of confidence impact how they are perceived. For another example, think about two characters who both have light skin. You could describe one as looking like “porcelain” and describe the other one as “pasty,” depending on their other traits. Those two descriptions create very different perceptions from each other.    Use the Point of View If the character in question is being described from the first-person perspective of another character, then the protagonist’s opinions should sneak into the description. Your protagonist probably isn’t going to objectively evaluate the other person—they’re likely to rely on stereotypes, biases, and things they have heard from others about the character they’re looking at. Rely on that to make the description fit into the story more organically.  Here are some examples:  She had no right to have such a disarming smile. His expression was empty—just like his head. His dark, tangled hair reminded me of a swamp. She didn’t even wear any makeup! But even more frustratingly, she didn’t really need it. They looked divine… like I wasn’t even worthy to look upon them.  He looked like the type of person to stare at his own reflection before getting in the shower.  They were short and stocky, but they could still probably beat me in a fight.  Remember, your protagonist can make speculative judgments about the character they’re looking at. You’re telling the story as they experience it, so their judgments are part of the narrative! “…he was greeted by the barista—a young teen who had not yet matured enough to be handsome. Once his soft cheeks hollowed and his jaw squared, and the childish optimism fled his eyes, then he would have the chance to smolder. That crooked smile would win over many hearts in the blink of an eye, but not just yet.”  – excerpt from a draft Keep the Description Balanced A good rule of thumb when describing characters (or anything else really) is to create a balance of concrete details and flowery imagery. You should alternate between those two, as well as general and more specific details, to make the description flow more naturally, and to make it more interesting to read.  Imagine reading a description like:  “His hair was red and curly. His eyes were large and green. He had freckles, but they weren’t that noticeable. He was tall but very thin.”  That’s so dry, and it’s not fun to read. Compare that to a description that varies how the information is provided: “His hair was like a massive red bush surrounding two wide, green eyes. Freckles faintly dotted his cheeks, but they were only really visible in the sunshine. His long, lanky body and large hair made him look a bit like a big red lollipop—which was only heightened by his tendency to blush often.” Wasn’t that a lot more fun to read? Not only does it make the character description more interesting, but it also influences a reader’s perception of what the character is like. Certain words help readers to gauge what kind of person this character is. The first example gives no indication of personality, but the second one uses words like “sunshine” and “lollipop” to associate the character with lively, happy things. Additionally, using words like “lanky” and “blush” suggests that the character is awkward or shy, saving you the time of having to spell that out for readers.  Give them Something Special One helpful thing that I’ve learned over the years is that you should give your main character some distinctive feature that sets them apart from the other characters around them. Diverse descriptions are great, but it never hurts to make your main character a little more unique. This could be something like a distinctive scar, a tattoo, a weird eye color, a patch of silver or white hair, a missing or extra finger, a birthmark, or something else along those lines. That can make them stand out more, and it can be a really clear indicator that they are special.  Although your story won’t suffer if you don’t give your main character a distinct feature like this, it is usually a good bet—especially if you think your story could ever conceivably be adapted into a visual medium, like a comic, animation, or film. That character could become iconic. People may just see your character somewhere and that alone could motivate them to read or watch the whole story. As another plus, it could give you a cool opportunity for your story’s cover.  How to Describe a Character’s Face When describing a character’s face, the easiest way to do that is to first break the face down into its essential parts: the eyes, the mouth, the nose, and the facial structure. So let’s start with the eyes since they are the focal point of the face. Stay away from the descriptions you’ve heard a million times, like “piercing” or “doe-eyed.” The eyes are the window to the soul, and they can tell a reader a lot about a character. Instead of “piercing,” try “icy” or “sharp,” and instead of “doe-eyed,” try “wide,” “innocent,” or “full of wonder/awe.” The goal is to describe the character in a unique way to make it more interesting to read, while still creating a vivid image of that character.  You can describe the shape, color, and depth of a character’s eyes, but you should be careful not to rely on insensitive generalizations. For example, instead of “Asian” eyes, use “almond-shaped” or “mono-lid.” Not all Asian people have mono-lids, so simply using the word “Asian” to describe the character’s eyes doesn’t actually narrow down what they look like.  That goes for all the other features of the face, too. Though it is true that some features are more prominent in certain races, nothing is inherent. You shouldn’t rely on the character’s race or ethnic background alone to be the basis of your description. Saying that a character is Japanese or Jamaican without giving other details doesn’t do any more for the character’s description than saying they are European or white. Doing this only encourages your readers to stereotype your characters, even if that wasn’t your intention.  With that said, don’t get too caught up in describing every detail of a character’s face. Give the most important information, such as the eyes, face shape, scars, and other notable details or imperfections, then move on. If a character has an exaggerated feature, such as a large nose or bushy eyebrows, then that’s important to mention too. How to Describe a Character’s Hair There are lots of different types of hair colors, textures, thicknesses, and shines, so try not to make all your characters have the same kind of hair—unless they’re related or part of a small, isolated community, of course. Hair can be curly and blond, sleek and black, coily and auburn, and even dyed wild colors. Making your characters’ hair more distinct will make them easier for readers to visualize, especially if you introduce many characters at one time.  Beyond the basics, you can use words to describe a character’s hair that reflects who they are as a person. For example, describing a character’s hair as springy or bouncy could indicate the character is upbeat and moves excitedly. Slick, greasy, or wispy hair could suggest an untrustworthy or sneaky character. The words you use to describe the character’s hair will be subliminally applied to the character themself.  How to Describe a Character’s Clothes Clothing is an important element of self-expression, and what your character decides to wear can reflect a lot about them. However, unlike with the character’s face, you should not spend a lot of time describing their outfit. For one thing, they’re probably going to change their outfit at some point in the story—likely more than once. Secondly, readers just won’t care unless you give them a good reason to.  If you want to describe what your character is wearing, make sure to keep it short. If it’s just a simple way of helping the reader visualize the character’s style, present the information objectively and in only a paragraph or two, such as:  “She wore short-shorts and a denim jacket, and pink thigh-high socks that she had to keep pulling up because they always slipped down to her knees. Her tennis-shoes were white and bulky, as was the belt bag she wore off to one side. This free, laidback style was completed by the two messy buns her faded purple hair was pulled up into.” However, there are a few times in which you can use clothing to explore more complex ideas in the story. For example: An article of clothing might have special significance to a character. It could have been handed down from a relative, it could be a favorite shirt, or it could be meaningful in other ways. That would merit drawing more attention to it.  An article of clothing might have special significance to the story. This could be a type of ceremonial outfit, a piece of magical armor, or something along those lines. That would require a more thorough in-depth description of the item.  An article of clothing may be unfamiliar to most of your readers, such as a specific cultural outfit or an unusual costume, in which case a descriptive explanation could help illustrate what it looks like.  A particular outfit could draw attention to a character, such as an attractive or surprising outfit, that could merit taking more time to describe it (and explain why it garners the character extra attention).  How to Describe a Character’s Body Describing a character’s body is fairly straightforward. Like with many other aspects of a character’s appearance, there are a few methods you can use to approach describing their body. You could take the objective approach, which would do just fine in most cases, or you could toy with your readers’ perceptions.  I’ll start out with a word of caution. Too many times, I’ve seen unrealistic descriptions of characters’ bodies. Whether it’s a waist that’s impossibly thin or muscles like a bodybuilder on a teenager, people tend to push the boundaries of what the human body is even capable of. You need to keep your characters within the limits of what’s actually possible, unless you have a good reason for doing otherwise (genetically modified supersoldier, not actually human at all, etc).  Now, as with some other aspects of the character’s appearance, you can get away with a simple, objective description, like “tall and muscular” or “short and curvy.” Honestly, that’s usually all you’ll need to do. However, bodies are commonly associated with physical attractiveness, and if attraction is the point of your description, you need to take a different approach.  Writing about attraction is tough (which is why I go more in-depth about how to write about attraction in my other article, Romance 101: How to Write Characters Falling in Love ). You’ll want to highlight the positives of the character’s body—the elements of them that have caught your protagonist’s attention. Whether it’s biceps, legs, or a large chest, you’ll want to describe it in detail, as well as highlight what it is about them that has the protagonist so interested. Here’s an example: “He was tall and sturdy, and even in this relaxed environment, his pose held power. The way his shirt stretched taut around his shoulders when he shifted snagged and held my attention—I couldn’t help but stare. Did he pick that shirt on purpose? He had to know the thin fabric clung close to his body, showing off every rippling muscle underneath…”  How to Describe a Character’s Posture and Body Language Body language is an often overlooked element of describing a character, but you should give it some thought even if you don’t intend to draw a lot of attention to it in the story. How does your character stand? How do they emote? Do they gesture when they speak? Do they fidget? Try to envision what they look like when they are waiting, actively engaged in a passionate conversation, and when they are uncomfortable.  People move in different ways, even if they aren’t thinking about it. Come up with a list of movements and behaviors that are typical for the character, and utilize those movements to make dull scenes and conversations more interesting. Instead of just dialogue, you can give readers more to imagine as your character shifts their weight, runs their hand through their hair, or twists the hem of their shirt. This can also help to establish the tone of the conversation.   A person’s body, personality, and mood will all influence how they move. If you establish a baseline for how the character stands and behaves when they are in a neutral mindset, this will help you keep them consistent over time by casually mentioning their body language throughout the story. As a bonus, it can also help you tip readers off if you want them to notice that something is bothering the character. If you have established that a character is pretty relaxed in most situations, readers will instantly notice if they exhibit anxious body language even if you don’t draw a lot of attention to it.  How to Describe an Attractive Character Describing an attractive character isn’t all that different from describing any other character. You still shouldn’t make them flawless, but you can put off mentioning their more negative qualities until later—especially if another character is looking at them through rose-colored glasses .  One recommendation that I have for describing a character who is supposed to be extremely attractive is to keep their description vague. Beauty is subjective, so each reader is going to have a different idea of what “attractive” means. By all means, describe the basics of their appearance, such as hair color, eye color, skin tone, and whatnot, but don’t dive deep into the shape of their features. This will leave a little bit up to the reader’s imagination, and they will fill in the gaps in the character’s description with the traits that they find most attractive.  Another helpful tip is to utilize the reactions of background characters to establish that the character is, in fact, attractive. Other people staring at the character or nudging and whispering to each other about them would help your reader understand that the character is good-looking, and alter their mental image of them accordingly.  The Importance of Creating Vivid Visual Descriptions for your Characters Creating vivid visual descriptions for your characters is incredibly important for a number of reasons. For one thing, being able to imagine the characters will help draw your readers into the story and immerse them in the world. Additionally, by giving your characters more distinct appearances, they will stand out more from each other, and from characters in other stories. The more complex and interesting the character, the more likely they are to stick in a reader’s mind for years after they finish reading the story.  Good luck with writing your descriptions! I know you’ll write something great. Rewrite Service Testimonials Character Description Examples: How to Hook the Reader. And make writing character descriptions 10x easier by comparing amateur and pro samples.. Character description examples: how to hook the reader. In this post, we’re going to show you how to get the reader to emotionally connect with your characters—particularly your protagonist—by comparing amateur and pro character description examples. Far too often aspiring writers’ character descriptions involve mundane activities, unrelated to who they’re introducing. Often this is accompanied by a list of personality traits and/or physical attributes, like so: These character description examples aren’t bad, but they’re not great either. But why not? Take a moment to consider just how much you know about each of these protagonists from their character description examples. • Do you get a sense of Caitlyn’s personality? • Do you have any idea what Roger’s fundamental character flaw is? • Do you get a feeling for who each of these characters are deep down? Not really. In fact, it’s probably pretty hard to say you know anything about who these characters really are when we first meet them. In this post, we’re going to show you the exact steps you need to take in order to go from writing pedestrian character descriptions like these to great character descriptions that immediately hook the reader . We’re going to do this is by using “before and after” sample character descriptions. So let’s get started. Click to tweet this post.  Amateur vs. pro character description examples. Here’s a quick character description template of what makes these ones that much better and really hook the reader: • Interesting Action . The pro character description examples show them in action. It’s just more interesting to be introduced to a character doing something active—preferably something interesting or unusual—rather than something we all do every day. • Show Don’t Tell . The pro descriptions utilize the “show don’t tell” principle. The writers show the reader who each character is as a person through their actions, rather than simply tell them. • The Flaw . They show us a moment that perfectly sums up where each character is at in this particular stage in life. These character description examples show us their flaw in action: their “want” rather than “need.” The bad behavior that’s keeping them down at the start of the film. Overall, you want to show the reader the heart of each character right off the bat when we first meet them. This usually means showing us their flaw in the most visual, unusual and interesting way possible. (Although not always, but more on this later.) So let’s jump on in with the first description. Amateur c haracter description example  #1. Like many character description examples from spec screenplays, this one’s perfectly serviceable. It puts an image in our mind of a young guy who’s probably single. He’s engaged in an action of sorts—eating a TV dinner—and the car’s arrival adds some interest to the scene. But you don’t want to write a “serviceable” character description. You want to blow the reader away with the quality of your writing, right? Professional c haracter description example  #1. Here’s how Dan Gilroy introduces the same character in Nightcrawler : Ignore the somewhat idiosyncratic formatting for a moment and just focus on how this character description kicks ass . Focus on how much more you now know and feel about Lou than in the first example. But how does Gilroy achieve this? He could have chosen to introduce Lou scouring CraigsList for a job. Or asking a scrap yard manager if he has any vacancies. While either of these would have told us more about Lou than in Example #1 and made him more active than sitting watching TV, they wouldn’t have been particularly unusual or revealing actions . Showing him stealing fencing at night, on the other hand, tells us everything we need to know. Our interest is immediately piqued. Who is this weird guy? What’s he doing? Why is he doing it? Most importantly, Gilroy’s character description shows us Lou’s many flaws in action. He’s in the middle of a theft and is about to beat up an interfering security guard. He’s “pure primal id” possibly mentally disturbed and insanely driven. This is the essence of who Lou is at the start of the film and Gilroy captures it all perfectly in this character description. Here’s another one, this time from a comedy. Amateur c haracter description example #2. This character description is clear and succinct and gives us a good idea of what we’re seeing here: two friends having a great time catching up over lunch. We get the feeling Annie is the protagonist as her name comes first and includes her surname. But what else do we learn about her from this character description? Not much. We learn nothing about what her personality’s like, where’s she at in life, or what her flaw is. Professional c haracter description example  #2. Here’s how Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig introduce the same protagonist in Bridesmaids . This is the character description we get after some brief Off-Screen dialogue that sets up the fact this is just a casual fling. (From Ted’s perspective at least.) This character description is tight and sparse—all we get is Annie’s age. But that’s okay because what she’s doing here is so much more important: She’s showing us her flaw in action : trying to get together with a guy who has zero romantic interest in her. One of the key reasons why studio script readers pass on spec screenplays is a lack of empathy for the characters. This is often because the writer hasn’t fully communicated who the characters really are and what their flaws are right off the bat. Readers empathize with flaws: the characters (and our) relatable problems that they want to see solved by the movie’s end. It should be pretty clear that out of these two character description examples it’s Example #4 that better gives you a sense of who Annie is, what her flaw is and where she’s at in this stage of her life. Amateur c haracter description example  #3.  Let’s move on to an example from a recently nominated best-adapted screenplay. It’s true that Jack’s active here, but how engaging is it? And how much do we learn about him? We learn that he’s a musician in a hotel room, which could suggest he’s on tour and semi or very successful. We learn that he likes gin, which could suggest he has a drinking problem, but neither of these is stated explicitly. Professional c haracter description example  #3. Here’s the same character introduction from A Star Is Born by Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters. Now we’re hit in the gut with a character description that shows rather than tells us so much more about him. Jack is not just involved in an action here that vaguely tells us something about who he is. He’s doing something that shows us explicitly who he is and what his problem is. He famous enough to draw a large crowd and have roadies. He pops pills before going on stage, drinks deeply from a bottle of gin—some of it “spilling down his beard…” Note how much more interesting and exciting Example #6 is compared to Example #5. And how it’s now so much clearer that Jack’s a famous musician with a drink and drugs problem. It’s 100 times more engaging, revealing and visual in every possible way. Character description examples that break “the rules.” Of course, not all good character descriptions in professional screenplays abide by the “rules” we’ve discussed so far. • Sometimes in professional screenplays we’re introduced to characters involved in the most mundane activities imaginable. • Sometimes when writing character descriptions, pro writers don’t give any indication of a flaw. • Sometimes great character descriptions are so sparse we learn nothing at all about what they look like. • Sometimes professional screenwriters describe their characters as “handsome” or “a natural beauty.” Here are a few more character description examples—the ones that seemingly break the “rules” discussed in this post. Mundane actions in the character description. Writers Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty introduce the protagonist of Can You Ever Forgive Me? like this: Here, the writers introduce Lee Isreal in the middle of one of the most everyday situations imaginable: asleep on a couch . As familiar and uninteresting this situation is, it perfectly sums up where she is at this point in her life: lonely . They even give her a pet cat to really drive the point home. We don’t know why she’s alone yet but we can guess it’s got something to do with her flaw. In other words, writing character descriptions doesn’t mean you always have to introduce performing a bizarre or exciting action. It means writing a description that serves the character —whether that’s exciting or mundane. No flaw in the character description.  In some cases, professional writers choose not to highlight a character’s flaw in their opening character description. For example, here’s how we first meet Jaime at the start of It Follows : When writing character descriptions like this, genre comes into play. The reason why writer David Robert Mitchell doesn’t show us his protagonist acting out their flaw here is that in horror movies they often don’t have one. At least not in a traditional sense. The theme in horror movies often revolves around the collective “sins” of society rather than an individual flaw of the central character. The protagonist is a representation of this sin, but because of this, we don’t need to know nearly as much about them as the protagonist in other genres. Hence we’re not introduced to a protagonist with a flaw in the usual overt way. Rather, the flaw is hidden beneath the surface on a thematic societal level. No details in the character description.  You may have heard that describing a character’s clothes, hair and makeup is a great way to help give us a sense of who they are as a person. Sometimes professional writers do this, sometimes they don’t. Occasionally they choose to skip over giving us any specific details at all about a character when we first meet them. Here’s how Max and Annie are introduced in the Game Night screenplay: And further down the page: The writers could have added details about Max’s hair or Annie’s makeup, but they chose not to. All we get are their approximate ages and the fact they’re wearing “matching shirts.” That’s because it’s the characters’ actions that are important here, not their appearance. We get a sense of who Max and Annie and, in a way, it doesn’t matter whether Max has brown hair or what kind of dress Annie’s wearing. By all means add clothes, hair and makeup details to your screenplay character descriptions. But remember they’re not as important as showing us those characters in action—usually something that highlights their flaws. As always when it comes to screenwriting there are very few things you “must not” do. The advice in this post deals with generalities —the best way to introduce most characters most of the time. At the end of the day, go with what feels right for the character you want to write . Character description practical exercises.  Here are a number of practical exercises you can do in order to begin writing better screenplay character descriptions. 1. Study great character descriptions.  Take a look at the screenplay character descriptions in these  50 Best Screenplays to Download and Read in Every Genre . Study the first times we’re introduced to any character, not just the protagonist. Ask yourself questions like: • Why has the writer chosen to introduce the character this way? • Why are they doing what they’re doing? • Are they actively doing something that highlights their current flawed state of mind? • Or don’t they have an obvious flaw because of the film’s genre? 2. Compare to your own script.  Go through your script and compare your own screenwriting character descriptions. Take a look again at each characters’ introduction, not just the protagonist. Do they stand up to the professional versions? • Who is this character at this specific moment in time? • What’s their flaw and how do they obviously need to change? • Are these things clearly shown through actions rather than told through adjectives? 3. Practice writing character descriptions.  Go back into your script and rewrite any mediocre introductions into great character descriptions. If you’re not clear on the answers to the questions above, go back in and show them acting in a way that clearly communicates the answers to the reader. Remember in most cases when writing character descriptions it’s a good idea to display their flaw in action. • First, it’s just more interesting to be introduced to a character doing something active—preferably something unusual—rather than something we all do every day. • Second, it gives you an opportunity to show not tell . You can show the reader who the character is as a person rather than simply tell them. Conclusion.  By working through the character description template you’ll learn how to introduce your protagonist in a more powerful way. Your script overall will subsequently begin in a more powerful way. Genre and tone will become clearer and the reader will be able to more easily emotionally connect with the protagonist and therefore the story. In closing, keep in mind Truman peering into a camera in his apartment at the start of The Truman Show . This seemingly static and unremarkable image actually reveals who he is at the beginning of the film: completely hoodwinked about the circumstances of his own life. And this is how the writer chose to show us Truman’s essence in a way that’s as visually and thematically as clear and strong as possible. We hope you found these character description examples helpful and feel free to leave any questions you may have in the comments section below. How do you approach writing character descriptions? How seriously do you take each one? Let us know in the comments! Liked this post? Learn more about writing character descriptions and more writing style hacks… 35 Quick Edits to Improve Your Script’s Writing Style In 24 Hours Or Less How to Make Your Script Writing Style Leverage 100x More Suspense Improve Your Screenplay Scene Description in 10 Min With This Method [© Photo credits: Flickr / Pexels ] Like it? Share it! Search 10 years of help, blog post categories. HOW TO WRITE A SCRIPT HOW TO BECOME A SCREENWRITER SCREENWRITING RESOURCES Cliche-free script coverage, $200 off screenwriting course, most popular blog posts. 50 OF THE BEST SCREENPLAYS TO READ AND DOWNLOAD IN EVERY GENRE HOW TO WRITE FOR TV: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO STARTING YOUR CAREER BEST SCREENWRITING BOOKS TO READ FOR ASPIRING SCREENWRITERS HOW TO GET A SCREENWRITING AGENT & MANAGER IN 10 PROVEN STEPS HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY THAT’S UNLIKE ANY OTHER IN 6 STEPS Privacy overview. Having trouble logging in? Some users have reported difficulties following a site update. If this includes you, please email [email protected] so we can get you up and running. Making great literacy lessons easy. Why join Plazoom? Character description – Creative writing tips and resources for bringing characters to life Successful writers know how to create convincing and memorable characters - and here's how they do it.... By Sue Drury Last updated 03 July 2020 Who are your best friends? Have a think about them. What are your first thoughts, such as what they look like and how kind or funny they are? Now think a little deeper. As you do so, you could probably say what their favourite things are, what they don’t like and what makes them laugh. There’s a good chance you are smiling to yourself as you think about them. Now, if you can bear it, think about people you don’t like. What do they look like? Does that affect how you feel about them? What is it that they do that annoys or upsets you? No doubt you can think of plenty of things! What is character description? In both cases mentioned above, the reason you know so much about them is all down to character description. Having a really good knowledge of someone, both the good traits and the bad, is a form of character description. It is a very important part of storytelling because it brings characters to life. Think about it, if you didn’t know much about someone, you wouldn’t really care about them, for better or worse. And if readers don’t have the chance to know much about the characters in the story they are reading, they won’t care about them either. It might be worth making that point to the young writers you are trying to nurture. In short, the features of a character description are the things that help you to get to know someone - and that means more than hair colour and body shape (although hair colour and body shape have a part to play in both basic and brilliant character descriptions). Character description examples If you want to show your pupils how to write a good character description, you need a good character description lesson, and that’s where we can help. Our Author in your Classroom podcast, with accompanying resource pack, gives you everything you need to help KS2 pupils get right under the skin of their characters. Children can listen to writer Sam Copeland , author of the Charlie McGuffin series , sharing his top writing tips, then create their own amazing characters with the help of teacher notes, PowerPoints, book extracts, planning sheets, writing sheets and plenty more besides. Effective character description KS1 For younger children, why not try our KS1 Story Telling Cards ? As well as helping to inspire pupils to create their own characters, they also help them to understand story structure, describe settings, use figurative language, and start sentences in interesting ways. What’s more, these attractive resources can be made into an appealing display. How to write a character description If you search the internet for examples of character description, you are likely to find almost as many as there are real people in the world. A few themes are fairly universal, however. There also seems to be a pretty strong consensus towards opting for the quality of descriptions over the quantity . So, make sure your pupils focus all their efforts on finding the best, most telling words to describe theicharacters. Character introductions – first appearances The way a person’s appearance is described is crucial for anchoring that character in the reader’s mind. Physical details matter: do they have green eyes, brown eyes? Black hair, blond hair? What about pale skin or dark skin? Even secondary characters can benefit from this attention paid to descriptive details. But for strong character descriptions, other aspects are just as important and often more so, so while physical descriptions needn’t go on for ages, a few well-chosen adjectives will help to embed that character in the consciousness of the audience. Character’s personality traits and behaviour How characters speak, move and behave will also be central to establishing them as individuals. Little quirks of body language are particularly good at setting characters apart, as long as they don’t dominate all other character traits. It also helps to build a clear picture of their personalities, opinions and motivations, because that will govern how they act in any situation within the story. After all, lazy, self-centred and unforgiving characters are unlikely to put themselves out enough to rescue people who have found themselves in perilous positions. Character development and backstory Sometimes, it really helps to have a clear idea of fictional characters’ backstories – significant events that have happened in their past – as this might affect their actions during the narrative. The traumatic experiences of a certain boy wizard during the early years of his life spring to mind at this stage. Once again, the trick with this aspect of character descriptions is to make the details of the backstory interesting and relevant, and only refer to them if necessary. Putting your main character into action When your pupils have clear descriptions of their main characters, they need to put them to work in their stories. The crucial thing here is how they do it. Urge your pupils to follow the mantra of ‘show not tell’. No matter how well they have written their basic character descriptions … no matter how impressive their vocabulary choices … if they just regurgitate their list of adjectives, it is unlikely to engage the reader. ‘Show not tell’ means letting the actual characters demonstrate their particular traits through their words, their actions and their reactions to the events of the story. Occasionally, especially when you introduce characters, you might want to describe their appearance. Most of the time, however, you want to reveal character traits through words and deeds; that’s how you create truly believable fiction characters. If you want to have good examples of what this means in practice, take a look at our Show-Not-Tell writing posters . These take a selection of emotions and show pupils how they could put these into actions, like writing “The door loudly slammed behind her,” instead of “She was very angry,” for example. We hope this has successfully put some meat on the bones of brilliant character description. Now it’s down to you to help your pupils bring their creations to life, with an amazing story idea… You may also be interested in... > Imperative verb – 10 ways to teach bossy verbs > Inverted commas – Getting speech punctuation right at KS2 Latest Stories Imperative verb – 10 ways to teach bossy verbs, inverted commas – getting speech punctuation right at…, save hours of planning. get loads of benefits.. Access 1,500+ resources Over 80 expert CPD guides New resources every week Full curriculum coverage Member-only premium collections Plus lots more... Trending resources Ks2 comprehension – classic literature – the invisible man, a..., ks1 and ks2 writing templates for english lessons, year 1 home learning pack (1), year 6 spelling revision – ks2 challenge worksheets, editable primary lesson plan template and english unit..., narrative writing ks2 – scaffolds and plot types resource pack, expanded noun phrases year 2 – spag worksheets, conjunctions ks2 – model sentences resource pack, browse by year group, upgrade now. Click 'Upgrade now' to activate your subscription. An invoice will appear on your accounts page and be sent by email. Once paid, the benefits of your full account will be unlocked within five days. Character description examples: Creating people not caricatures Effective character description examples from a range of authors from Victorian to modern times show the many ways to convey characters’ personalities, desires, strengths and shortcomings. Post author By Jordan 10 Comments on Character description examples: Creating people not caricatures Great character descriptions demonstrate how fiction has the power to make invented characters feel like old friends. Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature’. Read examples of character description that build character and persona, plus takeaways from each excerpt. These pointers will breathe life into your fictional characters. Before you start however, consider creating a character profile, and include tons of details about them in it.  Character description examples and what they teach us The character description examples below show how to: Margaret Atwood shows how to use characters’ clothing to imply personality. Virginia Woolf shows how multiple viewpoints can build a person’s many sides through an ensemble’s perspectives. Arundhati Roy illustrates the way metaphor enriches characters and adds descriptive depth and specificity through comparison. Charles Dickens shows how to combine broad information and specific detail to create a memorable character description. Toni Morrison shows how describing past or present actions helps to suggest a person’s broader persona. J.D. Salinger shows how what characters say (and mid-dialogue gesture) reveals a lot about personality and desire. George Eliot shows how comparing and contrasting two characters can make each more real. James Joyce’s narration shows how you can make your narrator’s voice reflect core changes in their arc such as growing older. 1. Describe characters using appearance When you describe how a character looks , think about how appearances hint at personality. In Margaret Atwood’s Booker-winning novel The Blind Assassin (2000), for example, Atwood’s narrator Iris opens the story remembering her sister Laura’s death. Atwood creates a clear sense of Laura’s troubled personality by describing her clothing: I could picture the smooth oval of Laura’s face, her neatly pinned chignon, the dress she would have been wearing: a shirtwaist with a small rounded collar, in a sober colour – navy blue or steel grey or hospital-corridor green. Penitential colours – less like something she’d chosen to put on than like something she’d been locked up in. Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000), p. 4. Atwood’s description is specific in detail and there are clues to Laura’s depressive character in the ‘sober’ and ‘penitential’ (meaning expressing penance) colors in Atwood’s description. When describing character, make use of other descriptions too, let the reader know what your characters look like. What facial expressions do they use? Do they have a tic? Include other details: what is their hair color, and eye color, do they have tattoos or scars? Do they have hair or a smooth dome? What is their age range? Consider how these descriptions can show something about your character for eg ‘warm brown eyes’ indicates a character that is is gentle and friendly, perhaps. While saying a character has long sleek black hair could show that this character is groomed, and pays attention to their appearance. Similarly, unkempt dark hair indicates a character who is down and out, perhaps, or is more of a tomboy. Blond hair with gray roots showing can indicate a character’s  age. The type of person they are can come through in these physical descriptions. A common feature of amateur writing is to over-rely on describing eye and hair colour. Using these physical details doesn’t tell us much about a person, beyond personality elements revealed by details such as what sort of haircut the person has. Character development can also be indicated through appearance: a unkempt appearance can change within a story, showing a character’s passage from depression to mental health, for example.  Always try to be specific in your description: saying a female character was attractive doesn’t say much — perhaps their sparkling blue eyes reveals something about their fun personality, for instance.  Remember to describe main characters in detail; with minor characters you can get away with just a few lines.  2. Describe characters through multiple POVs One of the great benefits of a story with multiple viewpoint characters is you can create impressions of people through different facets of their personality . For example, revealing a man from adult friends’ point of view versus children’s POV (as in the example below). It adds depth and complexity to characters and their relationships when different facets surface depending on who they’re with (and on whose point of view you are reading). Example of how to describe characters using multiple points of view The modernist author Virginia Woolf is a master of combining multiple characters’ points of view (even within a single scene) to create a complex sense of ensemble and emotion. Here, Woolf describes a friend of Mrs Ramsay’s husband, Charles Tansley, who has come to stay for the summer, in To The Lighthouse : [Mrs. Ramsay] looked at him. He was such a miserable specimen, the children said, all humps and hollows. He couldn’t play cricket; he poked; he shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew said. They knew what he liked best – to be for ever walking up and down, up and down, with Mr. Ramsay, saying who had won this, who had won that … Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse (1927), p. 11. We see a clear sense of the children’s dislike, and sense of how Tansley looks through their eyes, as observed by their mother. Further on, Mrs. Ramsay notes Tansley’s pompous and academic way of speaking (his continual efforts to prove his intellect due to being from a working class background and his admiration of Mr Ramsay’s own accomplishment). Shortly after the above description, Woolf switches to Tansley’s point of view and we get a more romantic sense of Tansley and how he sees things (and how he views Mrs Ramsay herself): … and all at once he realised that it was this: – she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. With stars in her eyes and veils in her hair, with cyclamen and wild violets – what nonsense was he thinking? She was fifty at least; she had eight children. Woolf, p. 18. Woolf combines concise, clear physical description (‘all humps and hollows’) with a deeper sense of personality, revealed through how characters feel about one another. We see ‘boring’, academic and non-sportsman Tansley but also Tansley’s romantic dreamer side through his own POV. Woolf makes Tansley and other characters three-dimensional and full of human contradiction by combining external perspectives with their own. 3. Deepen character description using metaphor Many character description examples reveal what a powerful tool comparison is – literary devices like metaphor and simile – for building vivid character. In Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997), Roy’s character Estha retreats inwards and stops talking in the wake of a traumatic experience. Roy’s use of metaphor in this character description example is much more effective than if she were to say Estha is ‘sad’ or ‘traumatized’: Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms…sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue. Arudhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997), pp. 11-12. By describing Estha’s silence as a parasitic, living creature, Roy conveys Estha’s suffering while avoiding emptier, more abstract terms . Master Character Description Basics Get a detailed guide to character description with exercises and videos and create a memorable cast. 4. Make character introductions memorable The Victorian author Charles Dickens was a master of characterization . When Dickens introduces a character, he often uses an extended metaphor or comparison to humorous effect. Dickens includes physical appearance alongside tics and shortcomings, to make a character stay with us. Here Dickens describes the boastful, self-important Mr. Bounderby in Hard Times : He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him […] always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854) , p. 18 Dickens crafts a memorable character description in this example by: Using parallel sentences beginning, ‘A man…’ and ‘He was a [quality] man’. This element of repetition sticks in the memory. Switching from the broad detail of describing Bounderby’s profession to the particulars of his appearance and voice, back to the broad and abstract (poverty, humility – qualities Bounderby trumpets having while not actually having, showing that he is a hypocrite). The details combined create a clear sense of persona and the fact that how a person sees themselves isn’t necessarily how others see them. 5. Describe characters using action To avoid expository lumps in character description, show characters’ natures and backstories using action. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison does exactly this on the opening page of her novel, Jazz : I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, “I love you.” Morrison, Jaz z (1992), p. 3 Morrison’s opening character description is excellent because it tells us plenty about Violet’s past. It shows Violet’s grief using a very specific event (the funeral of her cheating husband’s murdered mistress). Morrison doesn’t say, ‘Violet was driven crazy by grief, even to the point of disfiguring a dead girl, when her lover cheated on her.’ Instead, she shows Violet acting out her grief, in brief, on the very first page . Develop characters further with the help of these 100 questions to deepen character arcs . 6. Describe personality through speech and dialogue Describing characters through conversation is another way to make your characters feel like real people. A great advantage of using dialogue to describe character is that you can juxtapose what characters say to each other with their hidden, unspoken feelings. Tweet This J.D. Salinger does this in a scene between college couple Lane and Franny in his novella, Franny and Zooey : He suddenly leaned forward, putting his arms on the table, as though to get this thing ironed out, by God, but Franny spoke up before he did. ‘I’m lousy today,’ she said. ‘I’m just way off today.’ She found herself looking at Lane as if he were a stranger, or a poster advertising a brand of linoleum, across the aisle of a subway car.   (p. 19) J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey (1961), p. 19. Salinger alternates the focal point of the narration in this dialogue between both characters. We see Lane’s gesture mid-dialogue, as he tries to ‘get this thing ironed out’. Showing both what Zooey and Lane say to each other and the frustrations and feelings they put in actions rather than words creates a believable sense of both people having rich, complex inner lives. Use figurative language when describing the characters talking: eg ‘he smiled knowingly ‘is a description that tells us something more about the character than just ‘he smiled’  This single adverb can introduce a slightly sinister note into the description.  It’s also useful to describe interiority when writing characters. We show you how to get deep into your characters in this post on interiority . 7. Use comparison to highlight key differences between characters Many writers struggle to make each character distinct. Each major character should have their own voice, appearance, world view and set of motivations . One way to make characters distinctive is to compare them. George Eliot clearly differentiates the two sisters who are introduced first in Middlemarch . We meet pious Dorothea and her younger sister, the more worldly, materialistic Celia: The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers, was generally in favour of Celia, as being so amiable and innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke’s large eyes seemed, like her religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorothea! Compared with her, the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise. George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871), available via Project Gutenberg Because Dorothea’s pious nature is crucial for Eliot’s plot, the foil of her ‘worldly-wise’ sister draws our attention to this important character trait from the start. Traits such as piety are just some of the qualities that describe characters. Read a complete guide to description for character and setting description examples. 8. Change narrative voice over time The style of a narrator’s delivery also may suggest a core aspect of their character. If your entire story takes place over a week, it might not make much sense for a narrator’s voice or appearance to change in any significant way. Yet what if your story is a bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, or your character changes in other significant ways? In James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , he chooses the experimental route of making the narrative voice use the vocabulary of a child while his hero Stephen is a young child, and the voice progressively gets older: Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo … James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, p. 3. The narration shortly flashes forwards to Stephen’s school days, and it is narrated in the sharp language of cheeky schoolboys: Rody Kickham was a decent fellow but Nasty Roche was a stink […] Nasty Roche had big hands. He called the Friday pudding dog-in-the-blanket. And one day he had asked: – What is your name? Stephen had answered: Stephen Dedalus. Then Nasty Roche had said: – What kind of a name is that? Joyce, Portrait , p. 4. This shows how you can make the style of narration itself suggest changes in a character’s age, vocabulary, world view (this could be subtler than Joyce’s use of the device). Which is your favorite of the above examples? Or who is your favorite author for strong character description ? Tell us in the comments below. Create character sketches to make your characters vivid. Use Now Novel’s story planner for writers to brainstorm ideas fast. Related Posts: How do you write good character description? 5 techniques Character description: 7 ways to avoid weak imagery Vivid story setting description: Examples and insights Tags character description examples , how to describe characters Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town. 10 replies on “Character description examples: Creating people not caricatures” Although unfamiliar with your choices, barring Dickens and George Eliot, I like the idea of stealing character traits from authors I do read. It would be a privilege if one of them read my work and complained. Possible as I don’t read work tagged, “award-winning.” Hi Bob – any particular reason for this blanket ban? It’s true that whether or not a book has won an award isn’t always a reliable marker of the quality of its storytelling. Thanks for weighing in. I have always been disappointed by the award winning novels and cannot fathom the reason for the choices, culminating in my absolute hatred of Mantel’s overblown ego trip, ” Bring up the bodies.” It’s true that taste is a fairly subjective thing. I like your blog more and more. It is very useful! I think pretty often I use comparison to describe my characters. Thanks, Melissa. It is a useful means for drawing out differences and defining attributes. Hi, just had a book beta read, and the reader suggested more character descriptions. I’ve always been weak with that, and in doing research came across this article. It’s interesting. I’m not for the narrative description of Dickens, makes me retch. The whole show don’t tell thing. I know it’s a fine line, but those examples of 1-4 are that to me. I’m glad you hit the many varieties. 5, 6 & 7 are more my style. Thanks for highlighting the different options. I’ve bookmarked this article for future reference. That’s a pity, Dickens’ characterization is so vivid if you can look past his Victorian/fussy prose style. I’m glad you liked the latter more action-based examples. Thanks for reading and sharing your perspective 🙂 chicken nuggets are good. Some characters even troll with comments about chicken nuggets on writing blogs 🙂 There’s room for every type. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Pin It on Pinterest Kindlepreneur Book Marketing for Self-Publishing Authors Home / Book Writing / 17 Character Development Exercises for Writers 17 Character Development Exercises for Writers Character development exercises are short forms of deliberate practice to improve your writing skills and round out your characters. They are typically not used in the final novel, but are little extras that help you understand the personalities that you are writing. Because for some of us, nailing down that perfect character can be hard. And to help with that, we’ve assembled 17 different exercises to improve your characters. Why character exercises are important A list of 17 different exercises that you can implement today Examples and advice to improve your characters Table of contents Why Are Character Development Exercises Important? Exercise #1: Write a FULL Description Exercise #2: Play Dress Up Exercise #3: Write a Description Scene Through the Character’s Eyes Exercise #4: Practice Showing Emotion Exercise #5: Write a “Slice of Life” Episode Exercise #6: Write Other People Gossiping About Your Character Exercise #7: Write a Progression Short Story Exercise #8: Draw the Character Exercise #9: Create a Character Profile Exercise #10: Conduct a Character Interview Exercise #11: Play the “Why” Game Exercise #12: Create a Character Based on Someone You Know Exercise #13: Imagine What Happens Before and After the Novel Exercise #14: Put Them in Horrible Situations (Muahahahahah) Exercise #15: Create a Timeline Exercise #16: Do a Little Fan-fiction Exercise #17: Use Character Writing Prompts So why use a character development exercise in the first place? This may be a valid question, especially for authors like myself, who just want to dive into the writing and let the characters unfold as I write. But honestly, a little work up front can save you a load of headache afterward. Running through a handful of these exercises will help you to: Understand your character’s emotions Give you practice writing in their voice and from their point of view Find out what sets them apart from other characters Flesh them out to create round and dynamic characters Establish the relationship between your characters and the setting, or other characters Deliberate practice of the process to create complex and well-written characters In short, it’s a great way to deliberately practice writing and reduces the need to go back and do extensive revisions on your characters. That said, this might not be the best thing to do if you’re a pantser and just want to dive in and discover your characters along the way. But it can be a great tool in your author tool belt. Formatting Has Never Been Easier Write and format professional books with ease.  Never before has creating formatted books been easier. So without further ado, here are 17 of our best picks for character development exercises.  Exercise #1 : Write a FULL Description When it comes to writing characters, most of us focus on the facial features, things like hair color, eye color, etc. A great way to begin getting to know your character is to do a full description of them. In a book, we might not do this to the extent you might in a creative writing exercise, which is why it’s good to practice here. Here are some things to consider:  Skin/hair/eye color Do they have any warts or moles? What is their hair style? What is their build? Do they have any scars, tattoos, etc. What is their general complexion. Is their skin smooth and silky, rough and calloused, or even bruised and battered? What default facial expression do they have? What does he/she smell like? Exercise #2 : Play Dress Up What we choose to wear says a lot about a person. Someone wearing an extravagant French-style outfit from the 18th century will give you a completely different impression than a cut business suit from the 21st century. The problem is that most authors, when they’re writing about their characters, often forget to add a lot of detail about the clothes they are wearing. It’s easy to see these things in your mind and forget that your readers don’t see what you see. They see what you write. One way to help overcome this oversight is to continue the exercise above, but focus on clothing. And don’t just focus on any one type, because your protagonist will most likely use several types of clothing throughout the course of your novel. Here are just some examples: Travel clothing Clothes for a night on the town Clothes for wilderness survival Combat wear Exercise #3 : Write a Description Scene Through the Character’s Eyes Ideally, every character should experience the same thing differently, depending on their background, their wants and desires, and their tastes. Additionally, great prose is often written from the perspective of the character making the observation. For example, let’s say you have two people, one who has grown up in a desert their whole life, where water is scarce, and the other who grew up in a place where water was plentiful.  Imagine these two people on a hot day, observing a third person splashing water on their face. If you’re writing from the first character’s perspective, you could describe this as “and the man took a handful of water and wasted it on his face.” The second person might describe it this way, “I watched as the man poured the cool liquid and splashed it all over his face. I wish I were him right now.” Do you see the difference there? In one, the character sees using water in one way as a waste, and for the other, it’s something to be sought after.  Exercise #4 : Practice Showing Emotion We’ve all heard the adage to “show, don’t tell,” but what does this really look like for most characters? This is something that really only comes with practice. Once you’ve done it enough times, you’ll recognize instances where you’re saying things like “he felt hungry,” and can replace them with something like “He winced and put a hand to his stomach as it growled, and he swallowed hard.” Character emotion is one of these areas where showing rather than telling can really enhance your novel. Exercise #5 : Write a “Slice of Life” Episode There are a lot of scenes in a book, and most of them have a purpose. That said, there are many scenes that probably occur in that character’s life, but that we don’t talk about because they’re not important for the story. However, you as the author should have an idea of what happens in these less important moments. Some examples of a “slice of life” episode might include: Having dinner with family Going to the bathroom The morning routine A conversation with a co-worker Late-night conversations with a spouse Cooking a meal Going on vacation Playing with their kids Coming home a little too drunk Visiting a museum Exercise #6 : Write Other People Gossiping About Your Character Very often, we learn more from others about ourselves that we might not have known on our own. Others can provide unique perspectives, and in some cases expose huge biases (on both sides). For example, a proud character might not realize that he/she is proud, but it’s easy for an outside observer to spot this. Exercise #7 : Write a Progression Short Story In real life, people change a lot, and characters should change in stories too (most of the time).  A great way to show this is to write a short story that examines the character at different parts of her/his life. You can focus on key moments in their life, but you could also just follow exercise #5 and focus on a few more everyday events. The purpose of this exercise is to show how that person may have changed. Do they view the world differently as a working adult, vs as a teenager? A child? An elderly person? What about before or after experiencing some kind of trauma? Exercise #8 : Draw the Character I’ll be honest, I’m not an artist. But I am a visual person, and getting some solid visuals of the character can be a huge boost in helping me understand them. If you’re like me and really have no design skills , then finding a few photos is fine. I’d recommend several photos though, since one might not be enough. You could have some for their face and general appearance, one for their clothes and how they look, etc. If you know a program like Photoshop, you could even crop these together to get an even better sense of what you character looks like. This is a great exercise for understanding the feel of a character, which is often harder to put into words. Exercise #9 : Create a Character Profile Imagine you work for the FBI, and you have to draft up a dossier about your character. What might that look like? Fortunately, we’ve done a whole article about this topic, so you should definitely check that out, and also don’t forget to pick up our character profile template, which can easily help you through this process. If you want a thorough process to identify the character’s appearance, personality, background, and more, this is the way to go.  The best aspects to focus on are the flaws, motivations, and fears of your character. What prompts them to action? Understanding these things will help you get at the core of your character’s personality traits. Exercise #10 : Conduct a Character Interview Imagine you sat in a darkened room, across the table from you is your character. You can ask them anything, they won’t be offended, and they will understand the question. What do you ask them about? Writing a character interview is almost like writing yourself into a short story where you get to personally meet your character and ask them questions. This is huge for helping you understand the character’s voice, but also a good strategy for building solid character backstory and character traits. To help, we’ve already assembled over 200 character development questions that can aid you in this process. Exercise #11 : Play the “Why” Game This goes along with the idea of an interview, but sometimes in order to dig really deep into the motivations of your character, you’ve got to ask why. Is your character aggressive? Ask them why.  From there you might find out that his mother shouted at him as a kid, and he saw his parents fight a lot. Ask why. You might learn that his father had a drinking problem and it meant that his mother took it out on him. Ask why. From there, it might come out that his father had lost a lot of money in a business deal, leading him to turn to drink. I hope you get the idea. The more you ask why, the more you’ll dig deeper into your character’s past, and the better you will understand them. Exercise #12 : Create a Character Based on Someone You Know This can be a little dangerous, because to be honest, most of the people we know are not that interesting. And we also want to avoid lawsuits for defamation if the comparison is too obvious. That said, the people we know can be a huge inspiration to pick and choose ideas to incorporate into your characters. For example, my own father and uncle have a really fun way of talking to each other. They’re always ribbing on each other and calling eachother weird, made-up names. You can tell that they love each other, but it’s an uncommon way of showing it. This might make a good relationship between two people in a book. Exercise #13 : Imagine What Happens Before and After the Novel The writer is mostly concerned with what happens during the plot of her novel. But if written well, a character will feel like they exist long before and long after the pages of the book. So it’s a good idea to try dreaming up what happens to these characters in that time.  It can be dramatic, or it can be mundane. Impactful, or ordinary. It doesn’t matter much. All that matters is that you have a past and future in mind for that character (unless you plan to kill them off of course). And who knows, you might even come up with some good ideas for other books involving those characters. Exercise #14 : Put Them in Horrible Situations (Muahahahahah) I’ve heard it said that you should basically put your characters through hell in a story, and never let up. While this is good advice, it’s not always practical. That said, putting your characters through the meat-grinder is a great way to learn how they react to conflict. These scenarios don’t have to be trials you will actually use in your novel. These are just different ways to put your character in pain and see how they react (I know I sound like a very unethical scientist, don't @ me). Here are some possibilities: The loss of a loved one A diagnosis of cancer The loss of a limb Getting tortured Breaking up with the love of their life Losing everything they own Being betrayed by a friend Exercise #15 : Create a Timeline Sometimes it’s hard to keep every part of a character’s life straight. That’s where a timeline can be helpful. A timeline is a simple list of events in the character’s life, though they can get more complex and interesting, and you can even put some design skills to work if you want. But timelines only have to be a simple list of events. They can include events from before their birth to their death, or they can be focused on a specific period of their life. It will depend on the character and the story you will want to tell. Exercise #16 : Do a Little Fan-fiction When we’re writing a story, we might not have a full grasp on it yet, and that’s where writing fan fiction can help. Imagine your character interacting with characters from a story you already know? Imagine the ultimate crossover between your story and your favorite franchise. For example, what Hogwarts house would your character belong in? What might it look like when he/she is sorted and interacts with other characters in that house or other characters from the Harry Potter books. It’s a great way to lean on characters you already know, to help unveil more about the characters you’re trying to discover. Exercise #17 : Use Character Writing Prompts There are a bunch of character-related creative writing prompts out there, and many of them can be quite helpful in getting your brain to think outside of the box. In theory, we could have a list much longer than 17 if we wanted to include more of these prompts, but that would end up being too much. Instead, I recommend this post , or checking out our list of character questions to give you ideas. Final Thoughts on Character Development Exercises If you’ve made it far, first of all, well done. Second of all, you might be a little overwhelmed, but don’t worry. This list is not meant to be a checklist for everything you should do to expand on your characters. Instead, this is a handful of ideas that you can take (or leave) and use them to better understand your characters. As you apply these exercises, I can pretty much guarantee that you will grow as a writer, become more familiar with your characters, and increase your chances of having a great dynamic character in your books. Let us know how it goes! Jason Hamilton When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey. Related Posts Author vs writer: what’s the difference, how to write an adventure story, parts of a book [from cover to cover], sell more books on amazon, amazon kindle rankings e-book. Learn how to rank your Kindle book #1 on Amazon with our collection of time-tested tips and tricks. Join the community Join 111,585 other authors who receive weekly emails from us to help them make more money selling books. How to Write Character Descriptions That Work [With Examples] 27 Feb 2017 | Fiction If you’re writing fiction, at some point, you’ll probably want to describe the people populating your story. (This isn’t absolutely essential, mind. I’ve just written a short story that consists entirely of dialogue – no dialogue tags, no action beats, nothing – and neither of the characters is described at all.) When it comes to a description, you want to avoid doing anything remotely like this: Julia gazed into the bathroom mirror, assessing how she looked. Her hair was neatly parted and just skimmed the top of her shoulders. Her blue eyes were perfectly spaced, and her nose had a smattering of freckles – just right, she felt. The new shade of lipstick, a reddish-pink, went well with her top. But her cleavage was non-existent … This might just work if you want to convey a character who’s particularly self-absorbed and who frets a lot about their appearance, but, otherwise, it’s a boring and – often – annoying way to introduce your character to your readers. So what can you do instead? Firstly… Keep Descriptions Fairly Minimal Some authors don’t describe much about their characters. Maybe we get a few key characteristics, especially if those are relevant to how the characters behave and interact with others (e.g. they’re unusually tall / short / skinny / fat / hairy / bald …) but we don’t have long descriptions of exactly how they look. I think this is a good way forward. Personally, as a reader, I don’t really care what characters look like – I care who they are underneath the surface. Sometimes, their physical characteristics are important because they tell us more about who the characters are, or they’re significant because of how other characters relate to them. Madeline’s expression changed. She beamed and waved. “Oh! She’s here at last! Celeste! Over here! Come and see what I’ve done!” Jane looked up and her heart sank. It shouldn’t matter. She knew it shouldn’t matter. But the fact was that some people were so unacceptably, hurtfully beautiful, it made you feel ashamed. Your inferiority was right there on display for the world to see. This was what a woman was meant to look like. Exactly this. She was right, and Jane was wrong. What to Do (and What to Avoid) When Describing Characters When you’re describing characters: Don’t give us a huge chunk of description all at once. This is a bad idea not only because it halts the forward momentum of your narrative but also because the reader’s unlikely to remember most of it anyway! Try describing one character through another character’s eyes. This can help reveal a lot about the person looking at them as well as the one who’s being observed, and it works very well if you’re using a third-person limited perspective. If you’re writing a first person narrative, avoid having the viewpoint character describe themselves in painstaking detail. Instead, bring in key characteristics that are relevant to who they are (e.g. they’re overweight and trying to shed excess pounds – or they’re unusually tall / short and it bothers them). Choose two or three key characteristics to focus on, especially unusual ones (e.g. eye colour probably isn’t worth mentioning unless it’s fairly striking, or unless one character is staring into another’s eyes…) With any kind of description, word choices matter a lot. There’s a huge tonal difference between “long yellow hair” and “flowing blond hair” and “long golden locks” … even though all of those could describe exactly the same thing. Description in Practice Example #1: Kay sipped uncertainly at her hot chocolate. Seth was taller than she’d imagined him. His blond hair hung perfectly, parted in the middle to fall to his chin, just like his profile picture on Messenger. She’d brushed her own hair into fierce plaits as usual, but the wind had whipped strands of it loose. This is the very first paragraph of the novel. Kay’s the viewpoint character, and the reader hasn’t met her or Seth yet – so I’m trying to get in a bit of description of both of them, and hint at the backstory between them (e.g. “taller than she’d imagined him” – she knew Seth already but hadn’t met him in person before; she’s clearly spent at least a bit of time imagining what he looks like). There are some basic physical details (Seth is tall with longish blond hair; Kay has plaits). Example #2: A few paragraphs later, we’ve got: She lifted her head, and met his eyes. They were a greyish blue, like stonewashed denim, like the pebbles on the beach back home. I’m not generally interested in character’s eye colour. But I’m hinting here not only at Kay’s crush on Seth – she’s noticing his eyes – but also at her homesickness (by this point, we know she’s a first-year student at Oxford). Example #3: Later on, we get a description of Seth from a different perspective, 14-year-old Edwin: Seth was pretty much how Edwin had imagined from his Messenger profile picture. He was tall, and his hair was cut longish and floppy without looking gay. He wore dark cords and a grey denim jacket over a shirt which, unlike Edwin’s sweater, didn’t seem to have spent the last few days in a heap on the floor. “Hey,” Edwin said, and found himself suddenly nervous. Did he look sort of stupid, with collar-length hair and studded bracelets and head-to-toe black? Again, Edwin knows Seth online, but this is the first time he meets him in real life. Unlike Kay, he did picture Seth as tall – he’s rather more in awe of Seth than Kay is. I’ve got comparison going on again: with Edwin’s rather less careful attitude to clothes, for instance. And just in case Edwin hasn’t reminded the reader recently enough that he is Properly Goth, we get a quick description of what he’s wearing (and how insecure he is about it). You can probably tell that, for me at least, character description is generally a way to bring in all sorts of other things: to hint at and establish relationships between characters, for instance, and to tell us about the viewpoint character, who’s describing someone. Have you come across any character descriptions that work particularly well (or that just didn’t do it for you)? Share them, and the books they come from, in the comments. The Aliventures newsletter includes a short article on writing, and comes to your inbox every week. When you join, you also get four free mini-ebooks. (You can learn more about the newsletter here.) I’m Ali Luke, and I live in Leeds in the UK with my husband and two children. Aliventures is where I help you master the art, craft and business of writing. If you're new, welcome! These posts are good ones to start with: Can You Call Yourself a “Writer” if You’re Not Currently Writing?   The Three Stages of Editing (and Nine Handy Do-it-Yourself Tips) What to Do When Your Writing Goals Seem a Long Way Off My contemporary fantasy trilogy is available from Amazon. The books follow on from one another, so read  Lycopolis  first. You can buy them all from Amazon, or read them FREE in Kindle Unlimited. I’m really interested in reading your short story without any dialogue tags etc… “I’ve just written a short story that consists entirely of dialogue – no dialogue tags, no action beats, nothing – and neither of the characters is described at all.” How on earth would you do that? With difficulty! 😀 I can’t publish it here at present as I’ve submitted it for a competition — I’ll let you know how it goes! Thank you so much for posting this! It helped me know that I’m kind of on the right track. I like to describe my characters from the other characters’ points of view. Like you said, it gives insight into both of the characters and how they see the world. The MC in the book I’m trying to write at the moment (a bit conveniently) is very observant. She not only observes physical characteristics, but she watches body language and listens to every word the other characters may say. I’m hoping that this will give readers a good idea of hers and the others’ personalities. I’m only sixteen but I LOVE writing. I’m hoping that sometime in the future I will be able to publish. Thank you again for posting this! It really helped! Yay! An observant MC definitely gives you an edge here. 🙂 There’s never been a better time (in my opinion, at least!) to be an up-and-coming young writer. Once you feel that your writing is of publishable standard, you’ve got so many options with publishing, from the big traditional publishing houses to quirky independent presses to striking out alone as an independent author, publishing via ebooks and print-on-demand. Best of luck with wherever writing takes you! 🙂 Let’s get into more depth about description. There are many ways to tackle description, but if you want potency, description isn’t enough. Look, the readers don’t care if the character is blonde, pretty, old, wearing a shawl–UNLESS their description has heavy emotional threads. So how do you mold your descriptions to soak up the essence of a character’s being–how do you write a character that you can FEEL? Look at Fahrenheit 451, when Guy’s foot finds his wife’s empty pill bottle. ” Two moonstones looked up at him in the light of his small hand-held fire; two pale moonstones buried in a creek of clear water over which the life of the world ran, not touching them.” ‘Mildred’! “Her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall, but it felt no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but she felt no shadows. There was only the signing of the thimble-wasps in her tamped-shut ears, and her eyes all glass, and breath going in and out, softly, faintly, in and out her nostrils, and her not caring whether it came or went, or went or came.” Profound. Absolutely profound. It was more than “she was lying on the floor, pale, hardly breathing, and half dead”–more than “Oh dear! Her eyes are glossy!”–no, he used scenery. I recommend challenging yourself to use the same technique. For example, if a character is being deemed guilty before a judge, what scenery would emulate the same dread? Drowning, perhaps? Okay, let’s try that. “When he said it–the ‘G’ word–when those pink-ish mudcracks parted into words, became quenched with judgement, I knew he had peeled the flood gates open. But I hadn’t known the gushing power of his voice could swallow me whole, jab watery pins to my eardrums, force feed itching screams down my lungs. My fingers wanted to claw through the waves–but even if I tried, my wrists would be fastened to the wet chains wrapped around my body.” (note: Admittedly, my writing isn’t fantastic and this blurb reeks of my novice skills, but I think it was good to practice.) 🙂 Thanks for the fantastic examples, Charity! I really struggle with doing metaphor well, but I think this can be a great technique to try. 🙂 “He was tall, and his hair was cut longish and floppy without looking gay.” I’m sorry, but I just can’t help but wonder what this means? It sounds a bit like an insult, or like it’s being used as a slur, is that what we’re supposed to get from that particular character’s description of Seth? Probably rather unclear out of context, sorry! It’s from 14-year-old Edwin’s point of view, and to Edwin, yes, “gay” is seen as something of an insult. It got used like that a lot when I was at school here in the UK (“your bag is gay…” “ugh, we have extra maths, that’s so gay…” that kind of thing). (Please don’t take the character’s views / language as representative of the author’s here!) 🙂 Frustrated? Overwhelmed? Never enough writing time? Time to Write is a short ebook packed with tried-and-tested tips that really work to carve out more time for writing ... however busy you are. Pop your email address in below to join my newsletter list. You'll get Time to Write plus other free ebooks, as well as my weekly blog posts (Thursdays) and short newsletters (Mondays) to help you make the most of your writing time. Note: I will never spam you or pass on your email address to anyone else. You can leave the newsletter list at any time. Thanks for joining the newsletter! Check your inbox: you'll have a message with a button to click to confirm your email address. Subscription Box Shop by Category Shop Subscription Boxes Shop Past Boxes Writing Passports The Scribbler Blog Giving Back New User? Register Now Register Now Beyond Tall, Dark, and Handsome: How to Describe Your Characters May 26, 2021 The ability to describe is the key to great storytelling, but when it comes to depicting characters, our first impulse is often to go straight to the basics (height, hair color, clothing) and leave it at that. It’s not that those descriptions are bad, it’s just that they provide surface-level characterization rather than truly   characterizing . Dwight Swain, in his book   Creating Characters , says, “When your wife says a woman is ‘loud and pushy,’ she defines her far more sharply for story purposes than any description of blue eyes, blonde hair, or pug nose.” The reason “loud and pushy” is meaningful is because it tells us what is going on inside the character, not just what appears on the outside. And the description tells us not only what the woman is like, but reveals something about the wife who characterizes her so. Which means when you describe your characters, your descriptions are deeply tied to who is doing the describing. A rambunctious kindergartener will be represented quite differently by a patient grade-school teacher than a cranky principal. And this is true whether you’re writing a story narrated in first or third-person, because even in third-person we see the world through that character’s eyes. Remember that the goal in creative writing isn’t to give your readers information, but to give them an experience. Here are some tips that will help you tap into what is significant in your characters so that you can evoke feelings in your readers and make the characters in your story come to life. Tip 1: Choose a dominant impression Take inventory of the traits of the character you’d like to describe. Are they lazy, sexy, insecure, irritable? Choose qualities that are particularly noteworthy about the character and actually relate to your story. Think about what the character is   like , as much as what they look like. Keep in mind that the earlier you get to these qualities in relation to the character’s appearance in the story, the better.  In J. Ryan Stradal’s   Kitchens of the Great Midwest , the protagonist has been lamenting his sorry luck with women. On page four, through a third-person narrator, we get more of the character’s perception of himself: “By this time, he was twenty-eight, growing a pale hairy inner tube around his waist, and already going bald.” This isn’t an objective description. Stradal conveys the insecurities of the character through the way the character chooses to describe himself. Tip 2: Convey the attitude of the describer Pin down the current outlook or perspective of the character doing the describing. Zero in on their state of mind (lonely, curious, offended, prone-to-exaggeration, etc.) at this exact moment in the story. Now write your description through the filter of the consciousness of the character who is doing the describing.  The male point-of-view character in Grace Paley’s short story “The Contest” is a bit of a player. Here’s how he describes his latest kind-of girlfriend: “A medium girl, size twelve, a clay pot with handles—she could be grasped.” Clay pot? Grasping? There’s one thing on this character’s mind and it isn’t a chaste afternoon at an ice cream social. In one short sentence we have insight into his sensibilities about women. Tip 3: Lean into diction Now’s the time to get picky with your word choices. The trick here is to pin down not only your character’s perception of other characters, but which words will best convey them. Think about how your character might verbalize the description, even if they aren’t speaking aloud. Choose words from their lexicon that will reveal them as a particular person. Mattie Ross, the formal-speaking protagonist in Charles Portis’   True Grit , uses words like “beast” and “morn” in describing her father on his horse: “He was a handsome sight and in my memory’s eye I can still see him mounted up there on Judy in his brown woolen coat and black Sunday hat and the both of them, man and beast, blowing little clouds of steam on that frosty morn.” Portis could have left out the parenthetical “man and beast,” and of course he could have had Mattie say “morning.” But his attention to the particulars of diction allowed him to characterize this unforgettable fourteen-year-old girl. Tip 4: Go for gesture or bodily movement If you tend to use static descriptions when you describe your characters, think about putting them in motion so that the reader can see them doing something. Action adds another dimension to your descriptions. It allows you to take physical traits, which may be general, and incorporate them into specific behaviors. In “The Lunch Lady and Her Three-Headed Dogs,” essayist Sonya Huber writes about her conflicted relationship with her upper arms and describes them like this: “I raise my arms to write on the chalkboard, and the skin draped over bone and muscle swings in contrapuntal melody.” Huber isn’t just present in her classroom setting, she’s active in it. And the boldness of putting that upper arm skin in motion takes the visual from good to great. Tip 5: Try something figurative This is a tricky one because a bad metaphor or simile can be cringe-worthy. But a good one will delight your reader. A simple comparison can clarify your image, allowing the reader to think,   Ah, I know exactly what you mean . Paulette Jiles skillfully uses metaphor in her novel   News of the World   during a scene in which kindly Captain Kidd is first assessing the young girl who is to be his charge: “Her eyes were blue and her skin that odd bright color that occurs when fair skin has been burned and weathered by the sun. She had no more expression than an egg.” When you describe your characters, with just a little extra work, you might be surprised at how deeply you can get into the minds of your story people, and how much better your reader will connect to them. More than plot, it’s your characters who are going to sweep your readers away into the world of your story. Written by  Kim Lozano Kim Lozano is an editor and creative writing coach from St. Louis. Her work has been published in The Iowa Review North American Review DIY MFA CRAFT and many other publications. You can find out more about her classes and the writing resources she offers at kimlozano.com. Author Interviews Contest Winners Debut Author Series Entertainment Inspiration Literary Agents Sponsored Posts Worldbuilding Writing Community Writing Tips Alpha Readers Debut Author Finding Time to Write Great Gatsby Indie Writer Microfiction Publishing Rights Social Media Word Choices YOUR CART (0) You don't have any items in your cart. Special instructions for seller Add a coupon. What are you looking for? Popular Searches:  Past Boxes   Passports   Gift Cards   The Best Character Template Ever (100+ Character Traits!) So you have an awesome story and want to bring it to life with some incredible characters, but organizing all those character ideas in your head can be tough! I know, I’ve been there. We’ve all been there (trust me, I did a very legit survey of us all). To help, here is a very thorough list of more than 100 different character traits you can use to understand more about your character than you do about your friends and family. Fill out this template with as many or as few details as you’d like. You can even grab your fillable PDF at the bottom of this article. Readers will sniff out a half-baked character from a mile away, and you better pray they never find a poorly written character in your book. Luckily, this template will help you avoid both of those pitfalls. How to Use This Template Hopefully, this template is, for the most part, straightforward. But there are some options that might give you some pause. For the sake of clarity, I’m going to quickly go over the different sections of the template. In general, the traits get deeper and deeper into the abyss of your character’s soul the further down the list you go. Demographics are your basics. This is the sort of information someone could likely glean from a short conversation with your character or what the government might gather from a census. Physical appearance is what someone would notice about your character if they looked at them. This goes beyond just hair, eye, and skin color, though. Things like your character’s gait or their fashion style can add a lot of depth for your reader. History allows you to understand a character’s past. More importantly, it allows you to understand how that past affects their actions in your story. Some of this information might never see the light of day, but it allows you to craft dynamic, complex characters. Psychological traits are those that aren’t readily apparent to an onlooker but are critical to how your character operates in any given situation. This is where you start getting deep with things like flaws , desires, and traits that make people (or non-people) who they are. Communication is not only important for things like dialogue and writing, but they are easy ways for you to differentiate between your characters . Strengths, weaknesses, and abilities are very vague terms but are quite important. This is especially true for genres like fantasy or sci-fi, and these traits can be helpful when crafting your main characters, including villains . Relationships are important for characters, even if it means highlighting how alone they are. Relationships can go a lot further than immediate friends, family, or partners. Try and take some time to think about exactly who is involved in your character’s life. Character growth is the most important category in this template. Here is where you include things like arcs, archetypes, conflicts, goals, and motivation. You need to pay attention to this section, because these ideas will be the ones that make memorable characters. So check out the template below and think about how you can use it to build your characters.  The Best Character Template Ever Demographics. Sex/Gender: Occupation: Socioeconomic status: Other notes: Physical Appearance Skin color: Hair color: Fitness level: Scars/Birthmarks: Other distinguishing features: Disabilities: Fashion style: Accessories: Cleanliness/Grooming: Posture/Gait: Coordination (or lack thereof): Weaknesses: Birth date: Place of birth: Key family members: Notable events/milestones: Criminal record: Affiliations: Skeletons in the closet: Psychological Traits Personality type: Personality traits: Temperament: Introvert/Extrovert: Mannerisms: Educational background: Intelligence: Self-esteem: Skills/talents: Morals/Virtues: Phobias/Fears: Angered by: Pet peeves: Obsessed with: Bad habits: Favorite sayings: Accomplishments: Communication Languages known: Preferred communication methods: Style and pacing of speech: Use of gestures: Facial expressions: Verbal expressions: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Abilities Physical strengths: Physical weaknesses: Intellectual strengths: Intellectual weaknesses: Interpersonal strengths: Interpersonal weaknesses: Physical abilities: Magical abilities: Physical illnesses/conditions: Mental illnesses/conditions: Relationships Partner(s)/Significant other(s): Parents/Guardians: Grandparents: Grandchildren: Best friends: Colleagues: Mentors/Teachers: Idols/Role models: Non-living things: Clubs/Memberships: Social media presence: Public perception of them: Character Growth Character archetype: Character arc: Core values: Internal conflicts: External conflicts: Goals:  Motivations: Epiphanies: Significant events/plot points: Craft Amazing Characters With Dabble Creating characters your readers will love (or love to hate) has never been easier than with Dabble. By keeping all of your notes about characters and your plot just a click away from your manuscript, you’ll be able to write a story that is bound for the bestseller lists. You can click here to grab a PDF copy of this template, or you can just copy and paste the categories you want from this article directly into your Character Notes in Dabble. That’s not all! We also have a handful of other resources that can help you make some awesome characters. Be sure to check out: Our complete guide to creating characters 101 character goals A metric ton of character ideas you can use with this template 65 character development questions 20 original character interview questions A downloadable character profile The best part? You can add all of these into your character’s folder in Dabble. Your character will be more real than you or I. Enough dilly-dallying, time for Dabbling. Click here to get started with your totally free, no credit card required trial of Dabble and build your amazing characters today. Happy writing! Doug Landsborough can’t get enough of writing. Whether freelancing as an editor, blog writer, or ghostwriter, Doug is a big fan of the power of words. In his spare time, he writes about monsters, angels, and demons under the name D. William Landsborough. When not obsessing about sympathetic villains and wondrous magic, Doug enjoys board games, horror movies, and spending time with his wife, Sarah. SHARE THIS: TAKE A BREAK FROM WRITING... Read. learn. create.. Whether you're trying to learn the craft of writing or find your way in the publishing business, it always helps to study those who have gone before. Here's how to do an author study that will inspire your own journey. Kinda wish you didn't have to choose between genres when you write your next novel? Maybe you don't have to! Get to know hybrid genres and what it takes to write a great cross-genre story. No matter how much we want to ignore it, successful authors need a website. But there's more to a good author website than just throwing up a few nice words and pictures of your book. If you do it right, it could be your most powerful marketing tool. 374 COMMENTS The Gigantic List of Character Descriptions (70+ examples) 23. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. "He was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe…. How to Write Amazing Character Descriptions (with Examples) 6. Practice Makes Perfect. This should go without saying, but practicing your description will go a long way to becoming a better writer. When you consciously sit down to write a compelling character description, you can really think about what you want to say and how best to say it. How To Write A Character Description (101 Examples) Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000) Another great way to establish a character's presence through description is to tie it to a metaphor. Let's look at an example of Arudhati Roy's The God of Small Things, where we have a character consumed by quietude. Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. How to Write Vivid Character Descriptions How to Write Vivid Character Descriptions. If you think about your favorite character in fiction, you probably have an immediate image that pops into your head. Though this image only exists in your imagination, it owes a lot to the way this character is described by the author. Populating a work of fiction with carefully described characters ... Character Descriptions: How To Write Them (in 3 Steps) 1. Choose your words carefully. When writing character descriptions, it's easy to get ahead of yourself. After all, this is the first time you're introducing a character you've created from the ground up. But just because you know everything about them, doesn't mean the reader needs to. 11 Secrets to Writing an Effective Character Description 4. Select physical details carefully, choosing only those that create the strongest, most revealing impression. One well-chosen physical trait, item of clothing, or idiosyncratic mannerism can reveal character more effectively than a dozen random images. This applies to characters in nonfiction as well as fiction. Master List of Physical Description for Writers Eyes - General. For all the words about describing facial features, I'm focusing more on physical descriptions rather than emotional expressions, though there's a little crossover! You can also check out my long list of facial expressions. close-set. glittering. rheumy. red-rimmed. 6 Ways to Write Better Character Descriptions 6 Ways to Write Better Character Descriptions. Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Aug 17, 2021 • 5 min read. Great character descriptions can bring your writing to life while building a believable world for your reader. Here are some tips on how to describe a character in your own writing. Great character descriptions can bring your ... PDF Sample Character Descriptions Sample Character Descriptions From Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic, 1998) • He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which How do you write good character description? 5 techniques Try these 5 techniques: 1. Give character description via action. Writer's who are still developing their craft often give 'laundry list' description. This is where a character's physical attributes appear in a list, such as: 'She had green eyes, long, tawny hair, a scruffy tracksuit that was stained, and a loud laugh.'. Character description: 14 ways to get it right Content continues after advertisements. 1. The worst way to describe a character is to tell readers what they look like. The obvious temptation for new writers is to give readers a physical description of their characters. Jem was tall and broad with brown eyes and short dark hair. The new writer wants to create an impression of their character ... How to Write Vivid Descriptions to Capture Your Readers: 7 Writing Tips Writing vivid descriptions involves using specific language to help your own writing stand out and form a detailed mental picture for readers. Whether it's for a novel, formal essay, short story, or public speaking event, it's important to make sure your writing is memorable and interesting for your audience. Writing vivid descriptions ... Tricks for Describing a Character's Appearance (With Examples) 1.5 Use the Point of View. 1.6 Keep the Description Balanced. 1.7 Give them Something Special. 2 How to Describe a Character's Face. 3 How to Describe a Character's Hair. 4 How to Describe a Character's Clothes. 5 How to Describe a Character's Body. 6 How to Describe a Character's Posture and Body Language. 6 Creative Writing Exercises for Rich Character Creative writing exercises for fuller characters: Play 'head, shoulders, knees and toes'. Think about 'The clothes make the man'. Use language to embody emotion. Make setting do character work. Evoke habits (and changes in them) Let people's reputations precede them. 1. Character Description Examples: How to Hook the Reader Examples #1, #3, and #5 are made-up character description examples by us from made-up spec screenplays. Examples #2, #4, and #6 are the real character descriptions by professional screenwriters. Use these character description examples to learn how to hook the reader by comparing those written by amateur and pro writers. Character description Character description - Creative writing tips and resources for bringing characters to life ... In short, the features of a character description are the things that help you to get to know someone - and that means more than hair colour and body shape (although hair colour and body shape have a part to play in both basic and brilliant ... How to Write Vivid Descriptions It is advice on how to break free of cliche approaches to painting, but it applies almost just as well to writing. The first step to vividly describing a place, person, or thing is to imagine it in your mind's eye. Alternately, if it actually exists you may prefer to look at it or a photograph directly. Either way, you'll start with some ... Character Description Examples: Create People, not Caricatures Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature'. Read examples of character description that build character and persona, plus takeaways from each excerpt. These pointers will breathe life into your fictional characters. 17 Character Development Exercises for Writers Exercise #3: Write a Description Scene Through the Character's Eyes. Ideally, every character should experience the same thing differently, depending on their background, ... There are a bunch of character-related creative writing prompts out there, and many of them can be quite helpful in getting your brain to think outside of the box. Character Descriptions: 7 Tips for Describing Faces in Your Writing A human face reveals a lot about a person. In creative writing, describing a character's face can uncover information about who they are and how they feel. Writers can zoom in on individual features, like the eyes or mouth, or describe a face in its entirety to paint a picture of a character. Learn how to develop a character through their ... How to Write Character Descriptions That Work [With Examples] Choose two or three key characteristics to focus on, especially unusual ones (e.g. eye colour probably isn't worth mentioning unless it's fairly striking, or unless one character is staring into another's eyes…) With any kind of description, word choices matter a lot. There's a huge tonal difference between "long yellow hair" and ... Beyond Tall, Dark, and Handsome: How to Describe Your Characters Tip 2: Convey the attitude of the describer. Pin down the current outlook or perspective of the character doing the describing. Zero in on their state of mind (lonely, curious, offended, prone-to-exaggeration, etc.) at this exact moment in the story. Now write your description through the filter of the consciousness of the character who is ... The Best Character Template Ever (100+ Character Traits!) To help, here is a very thorough list of more than 100 different character traits you can use to understand more about your character than you do about your friends and family. Fill out this template with as many or as few details as you'd like. You can even grab your fillable PDF at the bottom of this article. assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech