Is it more effective to give the physical description of a character or leave it open?

Question

I am writing a love story. Initially, I was only going to give one or two details about the physical description of the main character (the object of the narrator's desire.) Now, however, I have an image of her in my mind, and I feel the need to flesh it out with a more complete description. (I feel like her appearance says a lot about her personality.)

So, what do you think -- give most of the details, or leave it open for the reader's imagination?

Answer 1

It depends on what you like to read yourself because you are only writing for yourself in the end, aren't you?

Answer 2

The fact that you have a vivid image of a character doesn't mean that you have to tell the reader about it. Some authors give more detailed descriptions. Some do not and leave it to the readers imagination. If you do decide to give descriptive details, I'd suggest you work them into the story. From what I understand, good writers do not say something. They demonstrate it. If a character is supposed to be strong, it is lame to say "He was strong as a bull." Rather, you might describe him pressing 300 pounds while working out in a gym, or if you wanted to say a person was short, you might want to show the character being unable to reach something on the top shelf of a bookcase. Instead of describing a beautiful woman in detail, you might want to say that when she walked into a reataurant every head turned her way. Good luck.

Answer 3

Half and half. You probably want to give the basics, like body type, hair color, shape of face, but you don't want to get so detailed and give the readers the shoe size of the character. So yeah. But if you do have a complete description, maybe you should completely flesh him/her out now, and when you go back to edit the story, take out whatever needs to be taken out, because you want to make references to the character's physical descriptions throughout the book, just not in detail. For example, if the character's an artist and has long, slender fingers, or something, make reference to that once in a while. Especially if it's something that the love interest is attracted to, or if it's a defining feature.

An example is in the book Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (maybe you've heard of it). The love interest is a vampire, and she draws attention to his skin every once in a while, calling it marble. She also draws attention to his eyes, because they change color (they're dark like black when he's "hungry" and a topaz color when he's "full"). The main character loves his topaz eyes. So do I :).

Anyways, I hope this helps or at least gives you an idea of how to go about this. Good luck with your story.

Answer 4

Kerrie Ada Charlotte Lorelei Madeleine

Answer 5

There are 3 different ways to introduce a character and you can choose one depending on your style or just what you like. You can either flat out describe the character saying "he's tall with dark hair a tan and musles", another way is to have a character in the story describe them "she looked into his blue eyes and at the way his dark hair swirled around his tan muscled shoulders, or you can have the character reveal it's self through the story " he got up and ran his hands through his dark hair and pulled a shirt on over his tanned muscled chest". These are just a few examples. I know it sounded like a romance novel, not my cup of tea, but it applies with any type of story. Good luck.

Answer 6

I think you have to give some description, it will help the reader visualize your characters. I don't think you need to go into too much details, a paragraph at the most.

Answer 7

As the author it's up to you. Just be sure you follow through. As a reader I prefer being able to use my imagination to create the physical appearance of a character. But I've read books where 3/4 of the way through the author will suddenly include a previously unmentioned physical trait that I hadn't included. I find that very disruptive.

Answer 8

I'd leave it open to the reader's imagination..Your image may not be the same as another persons image.....As a reader, we like to use our own imagination of the characters portrayed in the book...We imagine them to look & act how we want too...Thats the best part of reading....
Good Luck on your story....:)

Answer 9

Give some details, not all, but separately. Don't go like "She was beautiful, had long (blablabla) hair that reached her shoulders, was tall (etc.)" Go something like "He touched her (blablabla) hair... (change paragraph) Her (blablabla) eyes looked at him as he said (blablabla)" I hope you understood.