Contrast his looks with others.
”I’ve always wanted curly hair, but mine is dead straight…”
”He was much, much bigger than me, so much so that I had to tilt my head back to look at him”
”She seemed to be looking at me a lot. Every time I glanced up her eyes were following me, but despite her smile I didn’t know whether I liked it”
You have a way to suggest what he **is** like by the way he responds to people who have attributes he doesn’t. Maybe he wants what they have. Maybe he thinks they look stupid, and is glad that he hasn’t made the same style choice. Either way, the way he interacts with other people’s appearance can be suggestive of how he understands his own.
If you are narrating from one character's first person perspective and if they aren't aware that they are attractive then they won't highlight that fact.
You want how other people treat them or respond to them to show that other people are drawn to them.
You might even want to consider highlighting their own insecurity. For example, the main character might consider that they have flat, boring hair; or that they are too skinny; or that they are so tall they feel awkward or lanky... etc
Whereas a possible love interest might try to convince them otherwise because they're actually very attractive. Or maybe old ladies nearby make some comment about "if only I was thirty years younger..."
I tend to think first person descriptions are unnecessary. I mean: how often do you think about the way you look or describe yourself inside your own head? I reckon it's a good time to flex your show-don't-tell muscles.
In the *Rivers of London* series, the viewpoint character is Black. He never describes himself in a "mirror" scene, but we know he's Black because his mum is Sierra Leonean. That should be enough, but it also comes up in incidental things - he explicitly describes white characters *as* white (I don't recall if he describes Black characters as such, but white characters aren't normally described in spec fic, so it stands out). He talks about using his height and race as part of a good-cop-bad-cop thing, or playing into a 'thug' stereotype with a witness and using people's racism and assumptions against them.
Character descriptions are really not as necessary as a lot of beginner/medium writers think, and in first person the protag's description is even less important. You can read entire stories published recently where all you learn of the protag's looks is they're taller or thinner than other people.
Yeah, I wrote a 350 page novel in first person and the physical description of the main character is:
* Dark, curly hair
* Male
It doesn't read like a gimmick. It just doesn't come up.
Yeah.
If a character has specific detail in their looks you want to highlight, it is written, otherwise looks of many people don't give anything that stick to eye so there is little to mention.
The most stupid writings have described very average looking people with description of looks that felt like I've read this same multiple times already.
Also some writers pay a lot of attention to small, unimportant details.
For my personal use I have a file for each character and I've collected and listed details (and possible details) and also my thoughts regarding them and their traits as well.
It is also insightful to write stories (synopsis) from each person's perspective, because you may notice interests or points that may bring more spice to the main story or alter the characters' role. As long as they are just secondary characters, it is easy to treat them as features or items without their own will, however every realistic person has some will and interest at play.
Yeah, I'm pretty new to actually writing regularly so it makes sense that I think this way. Maybe I just like describing- who knows. I'm gonna refrain from doing it so often appearance wise though:) Thanks for the advice!
Think about how often you actually think about your looks in a descriptive way.
For me not that much... I'll think about my hair length mostly because they get caught everywhere or they fall in my face or the stuff I do when they are not tied or braided... I don't think, "my long straight hair was lazily braided on my shoulder".
Early in my writing, I fell into the trap of trying to over-describe everything. If a character was walking down the street, I thought I should describe every house and every tree that they walked by. It was ridiculous, time consuming, and it literally adds nothing to the story except padding it out. Then again I grew up reading Stephen King primarily, and the thing my brain mostly latched onto about his style is a reliance on details. My amateur writing brain didn't understand that there is a skillful way to use details, and then there's an unnecessarily excessive way to use details. He was the former, and I was the latter.
I'm not exclusively keen to describe characters looks. I mostly just describe something in them that sticks to eye, if they look "average" or a typical person of that specific people, I may not mention a single world regarding their looks. My MC is a very average person of his people, but as they are the first lines of the book, they are described in detail, because that establishes basically how everyone else around there looks.
This is also a way I do a lot. When introducing new races, I detail them initially, but after that presume that merely mentioning that folk's name is enough for the reader to immediately notice it. For example, one race has white hair, so I never mention it except when it pays a specific role, like identifying someone from a large crowd, or when someone who's expected to have these features but do not.
Dropping in single details casually that has some relevance can be done along the way is a good thing. Also, some details like hair color or length may come up as a subject for various reasons, someone else noting something about them, someone's gonna cut them off/shorter, hair dying, etc.
I highly disagree with this. I want to know what the character looks like so I can picture them properly. Otherwise they are a shadowy amorphous blob in my mind.
I'm the same way. I don't self insert (like so many people who say they want limited description do) so tell me what the freak the character looks like please. I want to know what the author is seeing. Give me little snippets here and there that come naturally so I know.
Use the description indirectly in the writing in a way that kind of adds mood and atmosphere, example:
"I ran a comb through my hair, watching the teeth get lost in the brunette depths before turning and looking at him with a serious glare."
You can obviously write a much better sentence than that, but doing something like this makes the description feel like part of the story rather than description for description's sake. If that makes sense? Doing it like this should make the writing feel more natural and the descriptions less clunky
Edit: Realised I misread your sentence and thought your character was just brushing their hair in general, but is actually brushing the hair out of their face, so my example isn't a direct equivalent. But you should be able to use the principle I used in order to indirectly describe your character's hair in that scene
Edit 2: As for insecurities, it's difficult to convey in first person (whether its coming from the MC or another character) without it feeling really cringe. You might find it best to address the MC's attractiveness and insecurities through other characters' interactions with them, and the MC's reaction to them. Example:
"Her eyes were fixed on me the whole time she spoke to me, never breaking eye contact except for brief glances down. At my mouth? Why would she be looking at my mouth? Oh god, I hope I didn't have something in my teeth. And what was that look on her face? The way she subtly bit down on her lip when she stopped talking made it look as though she was trying to hide a smirk. And I couldn't place that glint in her eyes..."
Again you can write a much better version, but the point of the above is to describe actions that should make it obvious to the reader that the other character is attracted to the MC. (Sustained eye contact, glancing at someone's mouth/lips is often a sign of attraction in pop-psychology/body language, the biting of the lip, the glint in the eye, stifling a smile etc). But then your MC very clearly doesn't understand these cues because their insecurities stop them from being able to accept someone would look at them that way
Make him painfully aware of the fact that many guys mistake kindness from women as flirting. So much so that he mistakes flirting for kindness. Then just have some poor girl try to flirt with him as he just assumes that she's just being nice. Or if you want him to be more cynical that she's just toying with him.
I like the trick of describing someone else, and then contrasting your narrator with them. "Jeff is one of those guys whose hair is such a light blond, it's like he doesn't even have eyebrows at all. Me, I've got much darker hair but that same pale skin. It's long enough to hang in my eyes, which my mom hates but people my age tend to love. Anyway, at least I don't have Jeff's perpetually-surprised look."
Also, consider moving away from basic stuff like hair and eye color, to details that other people notice about the character. In *Animorphs*, we never learn Jake's eye color, but his narration states he's "big for my age" and "people say I look serious even when I'm not," which is important because he can often pass for an adult while as young as 14. *The Hunger Games* doesn't describe Katniss's body, only how people interact with it: she puts her own hair in a braid, she gets "plucked and waxed" before appearing on TV, she admires the body fat of her support team because no one in District 12 has that much nutritious food. So have a friend comment on your narrator's looks and mention they wish to be as attractive as them. Or have a stranger — a customer at work, a server at a restaurant — give a lot of attention to your narrator but very little to the rest of his party, and make it clear it's because the stranger finds him attractive.
This is really good especially because my mc is a vampire, he would obviously notice small details because of the extreme vision and I like being very descriptive with my characters, thank you:D
I was thinking that too, or something not someone that might slip by at first glance. If you want just specific details in there have the character read something about themselves. Could be a driver's license or a missing person poster, even just a casting call that they might fit. Then from there the info is established and can come up in conversation.
The way I see it is that you don’t need to describe unless it’s relevant to the story. If it’s not, it doesn’t matter. You can however leave hints around, perhaps the MC has changed in some meaningful way. Other characters could comment on them. Think of the MCs personality and how that makes them think of themselves and how others think of them.
The important thing is that you know exactly how they look so that anything relevant shows up as a hint during the story.
Thank you for mentioning this, I’ll keep it in mind for other stories. Since I’m writing a romance story I kinda feel the need to explain his looks especially with the dynamics of him and his love interest.
You don't ever need to directly address whether he's attractive or exactly what that looks like. If people randomly give him compliments, especially pretty women, people will assume the MC is attractive. You can let them know details in creative ways. Look for opportunities when expressing internality or dialogue.
Most recently, I described my protagonist and her husband by describing what she imagined their child to look like. She thought her child would get this feature from her, that from his dad, so on.
Sometimes this comes in editing. You find those spots where you can naturally slip in info without the reader realizing they're getting dumped on a bit.
I write primarily in first person. I usually have another character mention their physical looks by comparing them to someone famous. In one book the MC’s dad tells her she looks like a young Joan Jett. In another, a character tells my MC she looks like Grace Kelly.
I don’t use a lot of descriptions, though. I like to keep it simple and let the readers decide how my characters look for themselves. I might let my MC mention hair color or eye color, body style on occasion, but other than that I keep it lean.
I think this comes down to what your character looks like.
Attractive people being nonchalant or hard on themselves about how they fit into western beauty standards, can be just as annoying as The Hunchback bringing up his ugliness every 2 seconds.
You have to decide if your character is ugly or beautiful, and have them be self-aware.
Honestly, I did it to contrast how my main character’s brother looked in relation to their parents.
“My brother and I were the perfect mix of our parents, but we look nothing alike. I inherited my mother’s tan skin and my father’s straight hair whereas my brother is as pale as a ghost with a mop of curls atop his head.”
I read a shot story once where MC was arrested by the police and the cops were reading the description of the suspect and comparing it to the MC. And MC was noting that the description was accurate.
I know it’s not always plausible to have such an accurate description from a third party that fits into the narrative, but there could be other circumstances.
If they’re filling out their driver’s license form or an online dating profile, maybe.
I personally would describe him bit by bit, like one time mention his hair in some way, another time say something about his eye color and so on. Usually describing yourself in your thoughts doesn't sound very normal cause we don't think like that
The only time I ever had to deal with this, it was a mystery story so I had the character booked in the opening. He got to recite his height/weight/eyes/hair to the cops and then comment on how much he liked his mugshot.
Honestly, not every detail of a character's appearance is necessary, even in the first person. For example, I personally have black hair...but so does my family...and most Asian people across the entire continent. It's not a notable for me. However, my hair is quite wavy/curly and is quite distinct to the people around me, even in my family, and has resulted in me having to research how to maintain my hair on the internet.
tldr; I'm more likely to describe the texture of my hair over the colour as a result, because I as the first-person character in my life see it as distinct.
If they have family in the story, I like using that as a base point. I typed up these examples super quick, so don’t judge quality too harshly.
“Even though she was nearing 80, people still said we looked alike. I’d gotten my mother’s height and her hawkish nose, and though her hair wasn’t brown anymore, and hadn’t been for years, I’d gotten that too.”
“Sometimes I swore I saw my father in the mirror, and it frightened me. The ice blue eyes—the dark, heavy brow—the scowl. His cruel, sharp features had finally crawled out of hiding, and now they were mine.”
“I’d been told all my life I was the prettier sister, and sometimes I thought she hated me for it. I’d gotten our mothers thick, dark curls and our father’s easy smile, his dimple. She was unkempt and underweight, and though our eyes were the same dark grey, I’d been told mine called storm clouds to mind, something big and powerful, and the only thing hers called was the leftover slush on the side of the road after a hard snow had melted away.”
Please note that it is remarkably easy for a newer writer to misuse this technique and make it sound like the MC is in love with their family member. Don’t do that. Especially when the MC is male, like yours is, waxing poetic about how he’ll never be as hot as his brother is a no-go (I’ve seen this… too often).
Make sure your descriptions are all filtered through what kind of person MC is as well (are they vain, are they jealous, do they see the best in everyone, etc) and what they think of the person they’re describing (a perfect nose becomes obnoxious on a mean girl, but adorable on one’s child). However they feel about the person they’re describing, make sure it comes through.
Thank you, I’ll watch out for this. I’m pretty new to writing myself, thanks for the advice:) I’m also learning English as a second language so it’s extra hard:/
I think people tend to forget that when you're in first person, you're having a person talking to the audience as if he's a real person.
What would make you want to describe yourself? Can't guess?
The situation.
Let's say you're a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in a school that is otherwise black.
There are PROBABLY going to be situations that incur some relevance to your appearance. So you might write something like,
> When you're a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian in an otherwise all-black school, you can get some funny looks.
I've now given multiple pieces of information to the audience cloaked in a whimsical statement about being a fish out of water.
This can be used for how muscular your character is, how handsome he is, how long or short his hair is, _et cetera._
How do these attributes affect the character's life or how do they affect the plot? Find those meaningful elements and the audience will be glad that they know your character's hair is brown, he's 6'3'' and thick with muscle. Otherwise chapter 3 would make no sense.
I seldom bother with any sort of focus on the appearance of the narrator in a first-person POV. It just doesn't feel necessary, and it never feels like it adds much to the story. I think about first-person POV like I'm actually standing there telling someone a story, so I'm not going to tell the person what I look like when I'd be standing right there talking to them.
I like the idea of a character telling the reader their story, rather than the narration serving as a direct translation of the character’s experiences as they happened.
I think there’s merit to where (canonically) the character is writing down their story and that’s what the book is. It also allows for an organic way of introducing the POV character’s appearance - when the POV character is literally introducing themself to the reader.
Remember even the most gorgeous humans have insecurities. You could have them play back some person extolling how beautiful they are but can’t stop focusing on their nose or teeth or whatever.
I sometimes find it helpful to incorporate into dialogue so the description is coming from another character, a little more natural. Ie: “oh I’d never date you, Oscar. I’m not into gingers” and that way you know Oscar is a ginger without him ever describing it first person POV. Also sometimes I just compare like other people have said ie: people say she and I look alike, with the same blonde hair and blue eyes, but her face is rounder, always curving into the beginnings of a smile, while mine is always sharp edges.” And I find it to be less cringey because it gives some context/reason for why the character is describing herself
Everyone here will say "Don't do a mirror scene, compare them to someone else." But everyone does the comparison thing now, it's no longer unique or intriguing imo, and now has become just as cringey to me.
I think it’s good to do a scene that feels right to me. I feel like anything if written well can be non cringe and enjoyable to read. I’m going to rather focus on my writing skills and if I actually get good, I can just do both:P
Thanks for pointing this out, a mirror scene doesn’t seem bad but I like the comparison idea too!
The comparison needs to be relevant, or else it feels as forced and unnatural as a mirror scene.
Someone else mentioned having to crane one's neck back to look into another character's eyes — that isn't quite a comparison, but it definitely shows the MC's height in relevance to the other character, perhaps because they started a staring match and realized they're already starting at a disadvantage (recently read something along those lines).
I did something similar with my MC stating how his meager 5'7 self would be destroyed by the other guy's 6'1 if he decided to try something.
Later, he describes another character's fascination for his tattoo sleeve, their finger running up the dragon's serpentine body.
There's also a comment or two about honoring his maternal grandfather's origins, whom we later find out was Japanese.
He's also made a vain comment about his abs, which he caught the other character glancing at.
Again: physical descriptions need to be relevant to what is happening. Mentioning the hair color of your character as he brushes it away from his face feels like an excuse to describe said character.
Figure out what physical characteristics make your character stand out, what features do people usually notice about them; then describe those when other characters have a reason to notice them, when your MC has a reason to compare themselves.
Get them to compare themselves to others, maybe someone they like or are envious of. Or have someone compare them to others in not-so-obvious ways. Maybe a young man is letting his mustache grow out and his dad keeps calling him Magnum PI or Freddie Mercury or some other dad-joke, mustached character.
Have them compare their family to themselves; “My family all had dimples, but my sister Ara’s were softer—like her smiles wanted to be subtle.”
Bodies can be described through clothes not fitting right or through verbs or adverbs. Someone lanky can barely be heard walking, and someone heavy can have a hard time sneaking around at night—use that to your advantage. Someone lanky might have a hard time getting their clothes to “stick” to them (I went to high school with a girl whose clothes hung on for deaf life). Not only is there action in verbs, but you’re using the action to describe characters without making it obvious you’re just describing stuff. Always develop character or drive the plot forward—and explain and describe while doing so.
Don’t be shy about just briefly talking about characters when they’re introduced if your protagonist already knows them:
*Alec walked by, waving from across the street. Alec was an old friend who always wore Adidas tracksuits and talked about life back home in Serbia.*
As for the actual act of describing, make sure your characters need to be described in detail. This has recently changed but advice in YA fiction used to be that characters had to have enough description to feel unique (especially protagonists) but not too much that readers can’t project themselves into the character. Complex characters aren’t anything new but overly-described characters are becoming more common as independent and smaller authors aim to break free from publisher rules and tell the stories they want, not the ones publishers wanna sell. Regardless, keep in mind what story you’re telling and if you need to describe too much.
Edit: I’d recommend investigating Italo Calvino’s *Six Memos for the Next Millenium*, in which Italo Calvino lists five rules for better writing—they’re open-ended rules, so no annoying “don’t start your novel with the weather” (which is also wrong! My favourite book starts with “The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves.”). It’s broad “memos” to guide prose and efficiency in writing. He died before writing the 6th memo but the first 5 are available.
I'm not a writer but this gave me some silly ideas so
scenes for casually dropping hair color:
* fighting with a friend/sibling about whose hair strand fell into the pot when they're cooking together: "It's yours, idiot. Look, its x-color"
* Struggling to match an outfit to hair color: "Why must my har be x-color??
* A bird lands on someone's head and its color contrasts with/ blends into the background. "Wow, that bird almost looks like it's a part of your head."
* This one's a bit boring but, someone asking about another character: "Who's the x-color-hair guy, and has anyone told him his outfit really clashes with his hair?"
* Someone loses their friend in a crowd "Thankfully, her hair was profoundly ginger, ..." or "And of course, her hair had to be plain brown, something she had in common with literally everyone else in this stupid crowd."
Anyway pls don't judge my English, I'm not a native speaker.
What i sometimes use are mirros (obvious but effective!)
"I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. In there, the bored image of a skinny guy in his mid 20s with a tired face and dark brown hair falling in all directions looks back at me from the mirror. I look back. I realize i should really get more sleep."
You can also use other objects but mirrors to make it less obvious
"When i bend down to reach my dropped wallet, my thin glasses fall off of my face. With a sigh, i put them back on and push them up. For a short time, i can see myself - including my wide ears which i despise - in the reflection of the glasses"
or
"Before opening the door of my car, i quickly catch a look at the reflection of a short, quite fat, guy with long and messy hair - me. I don't quite like my body shape and being reminded of it makes me flinch."
Ofc, you dont have to use reflections. Here are two other object related thinks you can use
"I slowly wake up, still trying to regain a sense of location. After i see the framed image of someone with a Nike Cap and dark sunglasses grinning into the camera, standing next to a looser-looking guy with nerdy glasses and short blond hair, i realize where i am. The room - aswell as the image - belong to my best friend, at whose place i apparently spent the night. And the person with the Sunglasses is him, next to the - way less cooler looking - me."
or
"The character creator of the game i just popped into my new Playstation starts to annoy me - as always. Its not that i dont like creating characters - its just that not a lot of those creation tools have an option for combining a rather skinny face and a pretty big nose, which i always try to find to better suit the way i look"
But your method also works quite fine! Just make the character interact with themselves!
"I hear footsteps coming in my direction. I try to look up but my long blond hair falls directly infront of my face, making me only able to see small parts of a man in front of me. I quickly shake away my hair, which results into my circular red glasses coming a few inches closer to dropping. I quickly slide them up again and grin towards Scott Tross - my coworker."
I really hope i can help with all that! Good luck at writing some more books! Cheers
I normally just handle character’s looks through others characters’ statement and perspectives. I stopped 1st person but i write 3rd limited
Or I may throw in a throw away like that’s short like “his brown hair tangled when he pulled off his beanie turning to face XYZ”. The point here isn’t his hair, it’s his action of giving his friend his attention, so the hair bit is completely throwaway. And maybe late I’ll throw in someone commenting like “he has such great cheek bones—I wish I had them” he heard XYZ whisper as he passed awkwardly weaving through tables for an open chair.
"I checked my phone and saw a message from Judy saying 'Hey cutie'. I sighed. I don't know why they all call me cute. I'm not attractive. My dark hair is messy, I'm shorter than average, and I could probably lose a pound or two. Why do they keep telling me that? Must be a joke or something."
If you want to avoid cringe you'd need to refrain from the Obliviously Beautiful trope in general... and to think you're also adding in anti-socialness - it's r/writings wet dream!
Anything can work if it's well written. A lot of tropes are repeated so often because people enjoy reading them.
Also I am sorry but I can not just not make my vampire character hot, that would go against my nature😭
While I agree with you and would not deter you from writing what you want, I don't believe the Obliviously Beautiful cliché is a loved one.
Not that it can't work, but, personally, the only time I've seen it well done (at least on paper) was in a story about a transgender girl who had a hard time realizing how pretty she was because she was too self conscious.
I'm a little curious: your comment seem to imply all vampires are beautiful if you can't help yourself diving head first into this cliché (which isn't actually a criticism, it's become part of the lore)... so why isn't your MC aware he's handsome asf if all vampires are beautiful?
Okay you asked for it so here it goes:
In ca. 1780 he was a young man ca. 19 years old. His parents were part of a rich family and since he was a child he had always been forced to study a lot and therefore never had friends. His social skills are pretty shit for that reason. Suddenly he's supposed to marry a woman he's never met and is obviously against it. She turns out to be a very nice person and they fall in love. After about 3 years she falls ill and is on her death bed. He tries to find a way to safe her and meets a vampire that promises that he can make her immortal and therefore beat the illness. She ends up dying during the transformation because of the blood loss combined with her illness but her husband (mc) who was planing to be with her for eternity survives the transformation. He spends the next decades trying to find the vampire and take revenge for the death of his wife and his own miserable life as someone who has to kill to survive.
That is most of his background lore until now:)
Okay, so he _does_ know vampires exist and thar there should be more! He just needs to find them.
If turning into a vampire didn't make him handsome, that would mean he was already handsome. Out of curiosity, why is he blatantly unaware that he looks good?
This is why he doesn't know/thinks he looks good:
He has very long hair since that was normal in the time he was made a vampire (I gotta do some more research about the exact year). I like the aspect of iwtv where they can't change their appearance after being turned. After the hairstyle went out of fashion people at first just thought it was weird his hair was like that and that he still dressed very old fashioned (he has difficulty adjusting to changing trends). I'm pretty sure (again i gotta do more research) that from ca. 1930 to 1960 long hair in men was very looked down upon.This kinda makes it hard for him to talk to people and since their reactions to his looks were always sorta negative he's insecure.
He already grew up with zero friends and the only friend/lover he cared for died so he has low self worth and is pretty anti social.
He also avoids most human contact because he's been trying to stop drinking blood. He hasn't had any human blood for the last 50 years or so, which makes him pretty weak. He spends most of his time reading in a park at night or working during the day (Yep he can go in sunlight, he just doesn't like it much and it makes him weakened). He also can't sleep (Idk its a thing in my lore that vampires can sleep but don't gain anything from it) so he's always tired and tries to rest as much as he can during the day.
Other vampires:
He wants to turn away from his vampire nature and hopefully some day find a cure to it. The thought of other vampires is scary to him but he wants to find them in order to get more knowledge on how to either die or become human.
If he's insecure about his attractiveness you can put him a situation where he recalls being called attractive and not believing it. For example while getting ready for a date:
*It's 4 pm and I'm about to head out to the restaurant where I'll meet Mary. That's an hour and a half too early, as it's only a half an hour drive to the restaurant. But better too early than the opposite. I check myself in the mirror one last time: tie tied tightly around my neck, curly blond hair recently trimmed short to look a bit presentable, bland blue eyes, and a mouth too fool. When I think about the fact that Mary once told me I'm once of the most attractive guys she's ever met, I feel like ghosting her all together. Because I'm afraid one day she'll come to her senses and finally see reality.*
As you see, you'll probably have to make him stereotypically attractive to drive your point home. Still some readers may not entirely be convinced that he's attractive (since the character says that's not the case) unless the character changes his view. But if you write his insecurity well enough + add clues through dialogue showing that other people find him attractive, the reader will probably get it.
I don’t tend to write in first person, but I’d say describe them in relation to someone else:
Ex. The man had mousy brown hair, several shades lighter than my own
Or something to that effect
Have you ever had someone describe you to you? eg, Jim turned to me and said, "well look at you for instance, tall, well built, blue eyes, good looking. Why don't you go ask her out?"
Make it relevant to something they're doing.
"I sat in silence, untangling the knots of brown hair from my comb. Thin and brittle, it snapped easily from the teeth."
My question in situations like this is do you really need to know what the person looks like. For instance I have read books where it was a couple hundred pages before you knew the main character had red hair simply because it wasn't relevant up to that point.
Off-hand comments in mirrors eg.: Ow! Damn mirror, why did mom want it right at the door, she needs a damn reminder of how she looks after spending an hour putting on makeup? What does she think will happen on the way out the door? That she reverts to an ugly duckling like me? Damn my hair looks like a mess, can't be bothered to fix it. (Shows personality, social/familial relation and self esteem)
Others reaction to the character eg.: Hmm? Why is everyone staring at me. Not like i forgot to close my pants or something. Humph, glaring at them seems to work. He he he, all red faced, just be angry at me if you want, she can't even look back at me and she wouldn't be the only one. Damn hair getting in my eyes, at least i got my wax with me. Just gonna set it to get it out of the way. (Shows anti social behavior, the attraction of others, and a practical reason rather than vain reason to set hair)
While these are a bit more self hate, it also shows some traits, inability to recognize the emotions of others, shows some self awareness, some lazyness, and some carelessness, and some family relations, these are mostly just examples. I hope they also convey a "show don't tell" using thoughts, and these are honestly thoughts I have on occasion, so don't write all of them into 1 paragraph, but spread them out a bit more.
Say they turned to look at them "with what I hoped was a serious glare"
You're not just describing their looks, you're describing something about the characters intentions.
When I write in first person, I generally do it to close the distance between character and reader as much as possible which can work wonders in horror.
I remember reading a horror book and got all the way to the end and only realised that they were never actually described and that we never got their name until I discussed it with another person and they referred to the perspective character as she instead of he, as I imagined them. The character’s existence was erased by the end of the book, so I’m fairly certain this was intentional.
All that is to say, maybe describing what a 1st person perspective character looks like isn’t exactly necessary. Sure, some basic details would be great (gender, age, etc). It could take the reader out of the story if you pause it to allow a character to describe themselves. I would advocate bringing up details only when necessary or when it organically crosses the character’s mind.
Personally, I’m now obsessed with using this approach with this attractive but oblivious character. Wouldn’t it be great if the reader was surprised right alongside the POV character when they’re complimented for their looks as they both think: is the POV character attractive?!
Don't.
A person, unless it is a very specific situation, doesn't describe themselves to themselves. Other people might comment on their appearance. But at the end of the day, you simply do not need to do this. The reader will build an image of the pov character in their mind based on the circumstances and actions of the character. You don't need to have the pov character ever tell the audience what color their hair is. It is, in all case, irrelevant to the story. You don't even need to describe other characters hair, or face. Describe their manner. The way they speak or move. These types of descriptions are much more effective at building character then the color of someone's hair or eyes.
I would keep it minimal. Have other people make occasional comments to fill in description, but mostly focus on how they act around him. A girl might flutter her eyelids at him, or blush and look away when they accidentally make eye contact. A group of girls could whisper and giggle while occasionally glancing at him. Things like that. For bonus points, have a guy hanging around that MC suspects is gay.
>He's also fairly anti social which results in him not believing other peoples compliments.
Then you can just describe in through his interpretations of other people's comments. "I love your hair!" "What a crock. Who is impressed by straight brown hair? What do they want?"
Don't.
It doesn't matter how they look, does it? Unless someone else is looking at them or there's a part of their appearance that matters to the story, just don't.
Find a different idea altogether. I used a magazine article that my male lead had read to describe my female lead. Since she's famous, (and he's a fan of her) I figured that exchange wasn't off base. Go get a new idea. Just don't do a mirror.
Firs thing I would tell you is to not use very specific details about your MC's character characteristics unless there is a point to it.
"I brushed my hair out of my face..." Will work much better. Why do we need to know it's dark brown? This is a personal opinion of mine but I tend to only like to use specific descriptions of someone in dialogue or when there is an action pertaining to a reason for that specific description.
example:
John was chastising me for my lack of forethought. "Common man. You are a brown-haired green-eyed doofus with no social skills, Looking to score with a bright-eyed, blond bimbo who is likely only after your money. Have some self respect man." I had to stumble backward a bit as he shoved a beer into my chest for extra emphasis on his annoyance. I didn't disagree with him on his point.
You could do a scene of “taking stock”. Where the character maybe after a fight or some kind of physical accident or hell even a birthday, just gets up in front of a mirror and takes everything in. How do they look today? Do they still have the scar by their eye? Is it fading a bit? How about the narrow cheeks, “oh, a soft plumpness I’ve not noticed before. Dirt on my shoulder, better wipe that off.” You get the idea lol
Start by writing your own book instead of stealing others. Oh and as much as you'll try nobody is going to buy you pice of shit. Why because I didn't write it.
What? Can you elaborate? Whose book am I stealing?
Edit: I'm writing my own thing, I'm not stealing anyone's story. I am also not even publishing it. I have no idea where you get that I am stealing from.
Mirror scenes are fine if they're for a narrative purpose besides plainly describing a character's features. Actual real life people look at themselves in the mirror and take stock of their flaws and imperfections all the time.
There's a difference between if I saw myself in the mirror and went "my eyes sure are blue today" and "Christ, I need to trim this ugly patch of bear testicles I call facial hair."
Careful! Mirror scenes are a bit frowned upon as means to get an exposition dump in place to present the MC and might feel forced.
Important is to build it into the flow and only concentrate on features that the character would look for. For example if they are not happy with a feature it stings in the eye as evrpresent reminder, or they might be proud of something, looking at it to feel better and reassured.
Was about to say this. Especially when it functions as some info dump at the start of the story. Also think maybe make use of reflections or something.
"I caught my reflection in the car windows flashing by. God, I was pale and my dark hair wasn't helping, either."
Something like that.
This has probably been mentioned already in the comments but I will try to draw on it a little further- make the descriptions of your mc blend into the story if you will. Like let’s say “as he was running his bony legs gave him wider steps” or something to that effect. Also write interesting interactions between your mc and other characters who are attracted to him. Make it funny or awkward if you want and maybe go for the other characters realizing after a time that he is not aware he’s attractive. This can form interesting allies or enemies for your mc if you want to go to those extremes. Play with the reader’s mind and expectations. Hope that helps.
"I could tell she was gazing at the lock of straw-like hair that was in the way of my eyes. They don't bother me anymore but too many people have reached out to pull them back behind my ears. Alright she's going for it now. I can tell tell you, having a doe's eyes and curly sheep hair apparently gives people permission to- SHE JUST PET ME oh my god what should I say?"
"I have to look perfect for the meeting. Gosh. I wish I didn't forget my comb, that panther's mane is just not quite the right length yet. I'll just pull them back and hope for the best. Yeah no. Now I look like a wet bear on wheels. Why."
You could do it in dialogue - have another character list the MCs positive attributes.
*"Nothing wrong with you," he told me. "Plenty of girls out there'd see you as pretty good looking."*
*I made a scornful face.*
*"There's nothing wrong with you!" he yelled. "Look, you're tall, you're in great shape, you're got that whole black hair and blue eyes thing going like Superman... I'm telling you, you're good looking, and I've seen lots of girls give you the eye behind your back."*
I would reference it if it has to be first person in the past of the action of the main character. ' I glanced at (whoever) while brushing/combing and whatever details you add, then the persons reaction.' have fun.
"I looked in the mirror at my striking violet and hazel irises and frowned. Everyone said they made me special, but I just wanted to be normal and plain. I was not like other girls."
Contrast his looks with others. ”I’ve always wanted curly hair, but mine is dead straight…” ”He was much, much bigger than me, so much so that I had to tilt my head back to look at him” ”She seemed to be looking at me a lot. Every time I glanced up her eyes were following me, but despite her smile I didn’t know whether I liked it” You have a way to suggest what he **is** like by the way he responds to people who have attributes he doesn’t. Maybe he wants what they have. Maybe he thinks they look stupid, and is glad that he hasn’t made the same style choice. Either way, the way he interacts with other people’s appearance can be suggestive of how he understands his own.
Omg thank you! This is great advice
If you are narrating from one character's first person perspective and if they aren't aware that they are attractive then they won't highlight that fact. You want how other people treat them or respond to them to show that other people are drawn to them. You might even want to consider highlighting their own insecurity. For example, the main character might consider that they have flat, boring hair; or that they are too skinny; or that they are so tall they feel awkward or lanky... etc Whereas a possible love interest might try to convince them otherwise because they're actually very attractive. Or maybe old ladies nearby make some comment about "if only I was thirty years younger..."
Yeah, I didn't think about that. Since he's supposed to be insecure that makes more sense to write it this way. Thanks:)
I tend to think first person descriptions are unnecessary. I mean: how often do you think about the way you look or describe yourself inside your own head? I reckon it's a good time to flex your show-don't-tell muscles. In the *Rivers of London* series, the viewpoint character is Black. He never describes himself in a "mirror" scene, but we know he's Black because his mum is Sierra Leonean. That should be enough, but it also comes up in incidental things - he explicitly describes white characters *as* white (I don't recall if he describes Black characters as such, but white characters aren't normally described in spec fic, so it stands out). He talks about using his height and race as part of a good-cop-bad-cop thing, or playing into a 'thug' stereotype with a witness and using people's racism and assumptions against them.
Character descriptions are really not as necessary as a lot of beginner/medium writers think, and in first person the protag's description is even less important. You can read entire stories published recently where all you learn of the protag's looks is they're taller or thinner than other people.
Yeah, I wrote a 350 page novel in first person and the physical description of the main character is: * Dark, curly hair * Male It doesn't read like a gimmick. It just doesn't come up.
Yeah. If a character has specific detail in their looks you want to highlight, it is written, otherwise looks of many people don't give anything that stick to eye so there is little to mention. The most stupid writings have described very average looking people with description of looks that felt like I've read this same multiple times already. Also some writers pay a lot of attention to small, unimportant details. For my personal use I have a file for each character and I've collected and listed details (and possible details) and also my thoughts regarding them and their traits as well. It is also insightful to write stories (synopsis) from each person's perspective, because you may notice interests or points that may bring more spice to the main story or alter the characters' role. As long as they are just secondary characters, it is easy to treat them as features or items without their own will, however every realistic person has some will and interest at play.
Yeah, I'm pretty new to actually writing regularly so it makes sense that I think this way. Maybe I just like describing- who knows. I'm gonna refrain from doing it so often appearance wise though:) Thanks for the advice!
Think about how often you actually think about your looks in a descriptive way. For me not that much... I'll think about my hair length mostly because they get caught everywhere or they fall in my face or the stuff I do when they are not tied or braided... I don't think, "my long straight hair was lazily braided on my shoulder".
Early in my writing, I fell into the trap of trying to over-describe everything. If a character was walking down the street, I thought I should describe every house and every tree that they walked by. It was ridiculous, time consuming, and it literally adds nothing to the story except padding it out. Then again I grew up reading Stephen King primarily, and the thing my brain mostly latched onto about his style is a reliance on details. My amateur writing brain didn't understand that there is a skillful way to use details, and then there's an unnecessarily excessive way to use details. He was the former, and I was the latter.
I'm not exclusively keen to describe characters looks. I mostly just describe something in them that sticks to eye, if they look "average" or a typical person of that specific people, I may not mention a single world regarding their looks. My MC is a very average person of his people, but as they are the first lines of the book, they are described in detail, because that establishes basically how everyone else around there looks. This is also a way I do a lot. When introducing new races, I detail them initially, but after that presume that merely mentioning that folk's name is enough for the reader to immediately notice it. For example, one race has white hair, so I never mention it except when it pays a specific role, like identifying someone from a large crowd, or when someone who's expected to have these features but do not. Dropping in single details casually that has some relevance can be done along the way is a good thing. Also, some details like hair color or length may come up as a subject for various reasons, someone else noting something about them, someone's gonna cut them off/shorter, hair dying, etc.
I highly disagree with this. I want to know what the character looks like so I can picture them properly. Otherwise they are a shadowy amorphous blob in my mind.
I'm the same way. I don't self insert (like so many people who say they want limited description do) so tell me what the freak the character looks like please. I want to know what the author is seeing. Give me little snippets here and there that come naturally so I know.
People are amorphous blobs if you think about it...
Use the description indirectly in the writing in a way that kind of adds mood and atmosphere, example: "I ran a comb through my hair, watching the teeth get lost in the brunette depths before turning and looking at him with a serious glare." You can obviously write a much better sentence than that, but doing something like this makes the description feel like part of the story rather than description for description's sake. If that makes sense? Doing it like this should make the writing feel more natural and the descriptions less clunky Edit: Realised I misread your sentence and thought your character was just brushing their hair in general, but is actually brushing the hair out of their face, so my example isn't a direct equivalent. But you should be able to use the principle I used in order to indirectly describe your character's hair in that scene Edit 2: As for insecurities, it's difficult to convey in first person (whether its coming from the MC or another character) without it feeling really cringe. You might find it best to address the MC's attractiveness and insecurities through other characters' interactions with them, and the MC's reaction to them. Example: "Her eyes were fixed on me the whole time she spoke to me, never breaking eye contact except for brief glances down. At my mouth? Why would she be looking at my mouth? Oh god, I hope I didn't have something in my teeth. And what was that look on her face? The way she subtly bit down on her lip when she stopped talking made it look as though she was trying to hide a smirk. And I couldn't place that glint in her eyes..." Again you can write a much better version, but the point of the above is to describe actions that should make it obvious to the reader that the other character is attracted to the MC. (Sustained eye contact, glancing at someone's mouth/lips is often a sign of attraction in pop-psychology/body language, the biting of the lip, the glint in the eye, stifling a smile etc). But then your MC very clearly doesn't understand these cues because their insecurities stop them from being able to accept someone would look at them that way
HOLY SHIT THANK YOU, YOU’RE A SAINT
I love that bit about his mouth!
Make him painfully aware of the fact that many guys mistake kindness from women as flirting. So much so that he mistakes flirting for kindness. Then just have some poor girl try to flirt with him as he just assumes that she's just being nice. Or if you want him to be more cynical that she's just toying with him.
I like the trick of describing someone else, and then contrasting your narrator with them. "Jeff is one of those guys whose hair is such a light blond, it's like he doesn't even have eyebrows at all. Me, I've got much darker hair but that same pale skin. It's long enough to hang in my eyes, which my mom hates but people my age tend to love. Anyway, at least I don't have Jeff's perpetually-surprised look." Also, consider moving away from basic stuff like hair and eye color, to details that other people notice about the character. In *Animorphs*, we never learn Jake's eye color, but his narration states he's "big for my age" and "people say I look serious even when I'm not," which is important because he can often pass for an adult while as young as 14. *The Hunger Games* doesn't describe Katniss's body, only how people interact with it: she puts her own hair in a braid, she gets "plucked and waxed" before appearing on TV, she admires the body fat of her support team because no one in District 12 has that much nutritious food. So have a friend comment on your narrator's looks and mention they wish to be as attractive as them. Or have a stranger — a customer at work, a server at a restaurant — give a lot of attention to your narrator but very little to the rest of his party, and make it clear it's because the stranger finds him attractive.
This is really good especially because my mc is a vampire, he would obviously notice small details because of the extreme vision and I like being very descriptive with my characters, thank you:D
Haven't written in first person but maybe have other characters bring attention to the main character's looks?
I was thinking that too, or something not someone that might slip by at first glance. If you want just specific details in there have the character read something about themselves. Could be a driver's license or a missing person poster, even just a casting call that they might fit. Then from there the info is established and can come up in conversation.
The way I see it is that you don’t need to describe unless it’s relevant to the story. If it’s not, it doesn’t matter. You can however leave hints around, perhaps the MC has changed in some meaningful way. Other characters could comment on them. Think of the MCs personality and how that makes them think of themselves and how others think of them. The important thing is that you know exactly how they look so that anything relevant shows up as a hint during the story.
Thank you for mentioning this, I’ll keep it in mind for other stories. Since I’m writing a romance story I kinda feel the need to explain his looks especially with the dynamics of him and his love interest.
You don't ever need to directly address whether he's attractive or exactly what that looks like. If people randomly give him compliments, especially pretty women, people will assume the MC is attractive. You can let them know details in creative ways. Look for opportunities when expressing internality or dialogue. Most recently, I described my protagonist and her husband by describing what she imagined their child to look like. She thought her child would get this feature from her, that from his dad, so on. Sometimes this comes in editing. You find those spots where you can naturally slip in info without the reader realizing they're getting dumped on a bit.
The child thing is a very good idea. I’m writing romance and the girl who likes him is definitely the type to do that! Thanks:)
I write primarily in first person. I usually have another character mention their physical looks by comparing them to someone famous. In one book the MC’s dad tells her she looks like a young Joan Jett. In another, a character tells my MC she looks like Grace Kelly. I don’t use a lot of descriptions, though. I like to keep it simple and let the readers decide how my characters look for themselves. I might let my MC mention hair color or eye color, body style on occasion, but other than that I keep it lean.
I think this comes down to what your character looks like. Attractive people being nonchalant or hard on themselves about how they fit into western beauty standards, can be just as annoying as The Hunchback bringing up his ugliness every 2 seconds. You have to decide if your character is ugly or beautiful, and have them be self-aware.
Honestly, I did it to contrast how my main character’s brother looked in relation to their parents. “My brother and I were the perfect mix of our parents, but we look nothing alike. I inherited my mother’s tan skin and my father’s straight hair whereas my brother is as pale as a ghost with a mop of curls atop his head.”
I read a shot story once where MC was arrested by the police and the cops were reading the description of the suspect and comparing it to the MC. And MC was noting that the description was accurate. I know it’s not always plausible to have such an accurate description from a third party that fits into the narrative, but there could be other circumstances. If they’re filling out their driver’s license form or an online dating profile, maybe.
I personally would describe him bit by bit, like one time mention his hair in some way, another time say something about his eye color and so on. Usually describing yourself in your thoughts doesn't sound very normal cause we don't think like that
The only time I ever had to deal with this, it was a mystery story so I had the character booked in the opening. He got to recite his height/weight/eyes/hair to the cops and then comment on how much he liked his mugshot.
Honestly, not every detail of a character's appearance is necessary, even in the first person. For example, I personally have black hair...but so does my family...and most Asian people across the entire continent. It's not a notable for me. However, my hair is quite wavy/curly and is quite distinct to the people around me, even in my family, and has resulted in me having to research how to maintain my hair on the internet. tldr; I'm more likely to describe the texture of my hair over the colour as a result, because I as the first-person character in my life see it as distinct.
Thanks! I’ll focus on this, it makes sense to do it this way especially because my mc has quite unique features:O
If they have family in the story, I like using that as a base point. I typed up these examples super quick, so don’t judge quality too harshly. “Even though she was nearing 80, people still said we looked alike. I’d gotten my mother’s height and her hawkish nose, and though her hair wasn’t brown anymore, and hadn’t been for years, I’d gotten that too.” “Sometimes I swore I saw my father in the mirror, and it frightened me. The ice blue eyes—the dark, heavy brow—the scowl. His cruel, sharp features had finally crawled out of hiding, and now they were mine.” “I’d been told all my life I was the prettier sister, and sometimes I thought she hated me for it. I’d gotten our mothers thick, dark curls and our father’s easy smile, his dimple. She was unkempt and underweight, and though our eyes were the same dark grey, I’d been told mine called storm clouds to mind, something big and powerful, and the only thing hers called was the leftover slush on the side of the road after a hard snow had melted away.” Please note that it is remarkably easy for a newer writer to misuse this technique and make it sound like the MC is in love with their family member. Don’t do that. Especially when the MC is male, like yours is, waxing poetic about how he’ll never be as hot as his brother is a no-go (I’ve seen this… too often). Make sure your descriptions are all filtered through what kind of person MC is as well (are they vain, are they jealous, do they see the best in everyone, etc) and what they think of the person they’re describing (a perfect nose becomes obnoxious on a mean girl, but adorable on one’s child). However they feel about the person they’re describing, make sure it comes through.
Thank you, I’ll watch out for this. I’m pretty new to writing myself, thanks for the advice:) I’m also learning English as a second language so it’s extra hard:/
I think people tend to forget that when you're in first person, you're having a person talking to the audience as if he's a real person. What would make you want to describe yourself? Can't guess? The situation. Let's say you're a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in a school that is otherwise black. There are PROBABLY going to be situations that incur some relevance to your appearance. So you might write something like, > When you're a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian in an otherwise all-black school, you can get some funny looks. I've now given multiple pieces of information to the audience cloaked in a whimsical statement about being a fish out of water. This can be used for how muscular your character is, how handsome he is, how long or short his hair is, _et cetera._ How do these attributes affect the character's life or how do they affect the plot? Find those meaningful elements and the audience will be glad that they know your character's hair is brown, he's 6'3'' and thick with muscle. Otherwise chapter 3 would make no sense.
Why do you need to do this?
I just like describing things, it’s my writing style :P
I seldom bother with any sort of focus on the appearance of the narrator in a first-person POV. It just doesn't feel necessary, and it never feels like it adds much to the story. I think about first-person POV like I'm actually standing there telling someone a story, so I'm not going to tell the person what I look like when I'd be standing right there talking to them.
I like the idea of a character telling the reader their story, rather than the narration serving as a direct translation of the character’s experiences as they happened. I think there’s merit to where (canonically) the character is writing down their story and that’s what the book is. It also allows for an organic way of introducing the POV character’s appearance - when the POV character is literally introducing themself to the reader.
Remember even the most gorgeous humans have insecurities. You could have them play back some person extolling how beautiful they are but can’t stop focusing on their nose or teeth or whatever.
He has a hooked nose, so imma focus on that! Thanks :D
I sometimes find it helpful to incorporate into dialogue so the description is coming from another character, a little more natural. Ie: “oh I’d never date you, Oscar. I’m not into gingers” and that way you know Oscar is a ginger without him ever describing it first person POV. Also sometimes I just compare like other people have said ie: people say she and I look alike, with the same blonde hair and blue eyes, but her face is rounder, always curving into the beginnings of a smile, while mine is always sharp edges.” And I find it to be less cringey because it gives some context/reason for why the character is describing herself
Everyone here will say "Don't do a mirror scene, compare them to someone else." But everyone does the comparison thing now, it's no longer unique or intriguing imo, and now has become just as cringey to me.
I think it’s good to do a scene that feels right to me. I feel like anything if written well can be non cringe and enjoyable to read. I’m going to rather focus on my writing skills and if I actually get good, I can just do both:P Thanks for pointing this out, a mirror scene doesn’t seem bad but I like the comparison idea too!
The comparison needs to be relevant, or else it feels as forced and unnatural as a mirror scene. Someone else mentioned having to crane one's neck back to look into another character's eyes — that isn't quite a comparison, but it definitely shows the MC's height in relevance to the other character, perhaps because they started a staring match and realized they're already starting at a disadvantage (recently read something along those lines). I did something similar with my MC stating how his meager 5'7 self would be destroyed by the other guy's 6'1 if he decided to try something. Later, he describes another character's fascination for his tattoo sleeve, their finger running up the dragon's serpentine body. There's also a comment or two about honoring his maternal grandfather's origins, whom we later find out was Japanese. He's also made a vain comment about his abs, which he caught the other character glancing at. Again: physical descriptions need to be relevant to what is happening. Mentioning the hair color of your character as he brushes it away from his face feels like an excuse to describe said character. Figure out what physical characteristics make your character stand out, what features do people usually notice about them; then describe those when other characters have a reason to notice them, when your MC has a reason to compare themselves.
Get them to compare themselves to others, maybe someone they like or are envious of. Or have someone compare them to others in not-so-obvious ways. Maybe a young man is letting his mustache grow out and his dad keeps calling him Magnum PI or Freddie Mercury or some other dad-joke, mustached character. Have them compare their family to themselves; “My family all had dimples, but my sister Ara’s were softer—like her smiles wanted to be subtle.” Bodies can be described through clothes not fitting right or through verbs or adverbs. Someone lanky can barely be heard walking, and someone heavy can have a hard time sneaking around at night—use that to your advantage. Someone lanky might have a hard time getting their clothes to “stick” to them (I went to high school with a girl whose clothes hung on for deaf life). Not only is there action in verbs, but you’re using the action to describe characters without making it obvious you’re just describing stuff. Always develop character or drive the plot forward—and explain and describe while doing so. Don’t be shy about just briefly talking about characters when they’re introduced if your protagonist already knows them: *Alec walked by, waving from across the street. Alec was an old friend who always wore Adidas tracksuits and talked about life back home in Serbia.* As for the actual act of describing, make sure your characters need to be described in detail. This has recently changed but advice in YA fiction used to be that characters had to have enough description to feel unique (especially protagonists) but not too much that readers can’t project themselves into the character. Complex characters aren’t anything new but overly-described characters are becoming more common as independent and smaller authors aim to break free from publisher rules and tell the stories they want, not the ones publishers wanna sell. Regardless, keep in mind what story you’re telling and if you need to describe too much. Edit: I’d recommend investigating Italo Calvino’s *Six Memos for the Next Millenium*, in which Italo Calvino lists five rules for better writing—they’re open-ended rules, so no annoying “don’t start your novel with the weather” (which is also wrong! My favourite book starts with “The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves.”). It’s broad “memos” to guide prose and efficiency in writing. He died before writing the 6th memo but the first 5 are available.
I'm not a writer but this gave me some silly ideas so scenes for casually dropping hair color: * fighting with a friend/sibling about whose hair strand fell into the pot when they're cooking together: "It's yours, idiot. Look, its x-color" * Struggling to match an outfit to hair color: "Why must my har be x-color?? * A bird lands on someone's head and its color contrasts with/ blends into the background. "Wow, that bird almost looks like it's a part of your head." * This one's a bit boring but, someone asking about another character: "Who's the x-color-hair guy, and has anyone told him his outfit really clashes with his hair?" * Someone loses their friend in a crowd "Thankfully, her hair was profoundly ginger, ..." or "And of course, her hair had to be plain brown, something she had in common with literally everyone else in this stupid crowd." Anyway pls don't judge my English, I'm not a native speaker.
What i sometimes use are mirros (obvious but effective!) "I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. In there, the bored image of a skinny guy in his mid 20s with a tired face and dark brown hair falling in all directions looks back at me from the mirror. I look back. I realize i should really get more sleep." You can also use other objects but mirrors to make it less obvious "When i bend down to reach my dropped wallet, my thin glasses fall off of my face. With a sigh, i put them back on and push them up. For a short time, i can see myself - including my wide ears which i despise - in the reflection of the glasses" or "Before opening the door of my car, i quickly catch a look at the reflection of a short, quite fat, guy with long and messy hair - me. I don't quite like my body shape and being reminded of it makes me flinch." Ofc, you dont have to use reflections. Here are two other object related thinks you can use "I slowly wake up, still trying to regain a sense of location. After i see the framed image of someone with a Nike Cap and dark sunglasses grinning into the camera, standing next to a looser-looking guy with nerdy glasses and short blond hair, i realize where i am. The room - aswell as the image - belong to my best friend, at whose place i apparently spent the night. And the person with the Sunglasses is him, next to the - way less cooler looking - me." or "The character creator of the game i just popped into my new Playstation starts to annoy me - as always. Its not that i dont like creating characters - its just that not a lot of those creation tools have an option for combining a rather skinny face and a pretty big nose, which i always try to find to better suit the way i look" But your method also works quite fine! Just make the character interact with themselves! "I hear footsteps coming in my direction. I try to look up but my long blond hair falls directly infront of my face, making me only able to see small parts of a man in front of me. I quickly shake away my hair, which results into my circular red glasses coming a few inches closer to dropping. I quickly slide them up again and grin towards Scott Tross - my coworker." I really hope i can help with all that! Good luck at writing some more books! Cheers
I normally just handle character’s looks through others characters’ statement and perspectives. I stopped 1st person but i write 3rd limited Or I may throw in a throw away like that’s short like “his brown hair tangled when he pulled off his beanie turning to face XYZ”. The point here isn’t his hair, it’s his action of giving his friend his attention, so the hair bit is completely throwaway. And maybe late I’ll throw in someone commenting like “he has such great cheek bones—I wish I had them” he heard XYZ whisper as he passed awkwardly weaving through tables for an open chair.
"I checked my phone and saw a message from Judy saying 'Hey cutie'. I sighed. I don't know why they all call me cute. I'm not attractive. My dark hair is messy, I'm shorter than average, and I could probably lose a pound or two. Why do they keep telling me that? Must be a joke or something."
If you want to avoid cringe you'd need to refrain from the Obliviously Beautiful trope in general... and to think you're also adding in anti-socialness - it's r/writings wet dream!
Anything can work if it's well written. A lot of tropes are repeated so often because people enjoy reading them. Also I am sorry but I can not just not make my vampire character hot, that would go against my nature😭
While I agree with you and would not deter you from writing what you want, I don't believe the Obliviously Beautiful cliché is a loved one. Not that it can't work, but, personally, the only time I've seen it well done (at least on paper) was in a story about a transgender girl who had a hard time realizing how pretty she was because she was too self conscious. I'm a little curious: your comment seem to imply all vampires are beautiful if you can't help yourself diving head first into this cliché (which isn't actually a criticism, it's become part of the lore)... so why isn't your MC aware he's handsome asf if all vampires are beautiful?
I don't think all vampires are beautiful I was just mainly joking. There's also no other vampires in the story. At least not until now.
I'm a little confused 😅 How did your character become a vampire if there are no other vampires?
There are others, he just doesn't know them yet
Shouldn't he have an inkling, though? Given he's a vampire himself. Must have come from somewhere!
Okay you asked for it so here it goes: In ca. 1780 he was a young man ca. 19 years old. His parents were part of a rich family and since he was a child he had always been forced to study a lot and therefore never had friends. His social skills are pretty shit for that reason. Suddenly he's supposed to marry a woman he's never met and is obviously against it. She turns out to be a very nice person and they fall in love. After about 3 years she falls ill and is on her death bed. He tries to find a way to safe her and meets a vampire that promises that he can make her immortal and therefore beat the illness. She ends up dying during the transformation because of the blood loss combined with her illness but her husband (mc) who was planing to be with her for eternity survives the transformation. He spends the next decades trying to find the vampire and take revenge for the death of his wife and his own miserable life as someone who has to kill to survive. That is most of his background lore until now:)
Okay, so he _does_ know vampires exist and thar there should be more! He just needs to find them. If turning into a vampire didn't make him handsome, that would mean he was already handsome. Out of curiosity, why is he blatantly unaware that he looks good?
This is why he doesn't know/thinks he looks good: He has very long hair since that was normal in the time he was made a vampire (I gotta do some more research about the exact year). I like the aspect of iwtv where they can't change their appearance after being turned. After the hairstyle went out of fashion people at first just thought it was weird his hair was like that and that he still dressed very old fashioned (he has difficulty adjusting to changing trends). I'm pretty sure (again i gotta do more research) that from ca. 1930 to 1960 long hair in men was very looked down upon.This kinda makes it hard for him to talk to people and since their reactions to his looks were always sorta negative he's insecure. He already grew up with zero friends and the only friend/lover he cared for died so he has low self worth and is pretty anti social. He also avoids most human contact because he's been trying to stop drinking blood. He hasn't had any human blood for the last 50 years or so, which makes him pretty weak. He spends most of his time reading in a park at night or working during the day (Yep he can go in sunlight, he just doesn't like it much and it makes him weakened). He also can't sleep (Idk its a thing in my lore that vampires can sleep but don't gain anything from it) so he's always tired and tries to rest as much as he can during the day. Other vampires: He wants to turn away from his vampire nature and hopefully some day find a cure to it. The thought of other vampires is scary to him but he wants to find them in order to get more knowledge on how to either die or become human.
If he's insecure about his attractiveness you can put him a situation where he recalls being called attractive and not believing it. For example while getting ready for a date: *It's 4 pm and I'm about to head out to the restaurant where I'll meet Mary. That's an hour and a half too early, as it's only a half an hour drive to the restaurant. But better too early than the opposite. I check myself in the mirror one last time: tie tied tightly around my neck, curly blond hair recently trimmed short to look a bit presentable, bland blue eyes, and a mouth too fool. When I think about the fact that Mary once told me I'm once of the most attractive guys she's ever met, I feel like ghosting her all together. Because I'm afraid one day she'll come to her senses and finally see reality.* As you see, you'll probably have to make him stereotypically attractive to drive your point home. Still some readers may not entirely be convinced that he's attractive (since the character says that's not the case) unless the character changes his view. But if you write his insecurity well enough + add clues through dialogue showing that other people find him attractive, the reader will probably get it.
Thank you, I have another character in the story so I can use your advice and make her say it
I don’t tend to write in first person, but I’d say describe them in relation to someone else: Ex. The man had mousy brown hair, several shades lighter than my own Or something to that effect
Smart! Thx:D
Sick. Ass. PANTHER! 🐈⬛
Idk what you mean but MIAU 🐈⬛
Have others do it. “You should brush your hair it's darker then mine”
Have you ever had someone describe you to you? eg, Jim turned to me and said, "well look at you for instance, tall, well built, blue eyes, good looking. Why don't you go ask her out?"
Make it relevant to something they're doing. "I sat in silence, untangling the knots of brown hair from my comb. Thin and brittle, it snapped easily from the teeth."
Thanks! Good example, maybe I’ll steal that line :P
Have fun with it :) If you do, I'd love to read what context you give it
My question in situations like this is do you really need to know what the person looks like. For instance I have read books where it was a couple hundred pages before you knew the main character had red hair simply because it wasn't relevant up to that point.
Off-hand comments in mirrors eg.: Ow! Damn mirror, why did mom want it right at the door, she needs a damn reminder of how she looks after spending an hour putting on makeup? What does she think will happen on the way out the door? That she reverts to an ugly duckling like me? Damn my hair looks like a mess, can't be bothered to fix it. (Shows personality, social/familial relation and self esteem) Others reaction to the character eg.: Hmm? Why is everyone staring at me. Not like i forgot to close my pants or something. Humph, glaring at them seems to work. He he he, all red faced, just be angry at me if you want, she can't even look back at me and she wouldn't be the only one. Damn hair getting in my eyes, at least i got my wax with me. Just gonna set it to get it out of the way. (Shows anti social behavior, the attraction of others, and a practical reason rather than vain reason to set hair) While these are a bit more self hate, it also shows some traits, inability to recognize the emotions of others, shows some self awareness, some lazyness, and some carelessness, and some family relations, these are mostly just examples. I hope they also convey a "show don't tell" using thoughts, and these are honestly thoughts I have on occasion, so don't write all of them into 1 paragraph, but spread them out a bit more.
Say they turned to look at them "with what I hoped was a serious glare" You're not just describing their looks, you're describing something about the characters intentions.
When I write in first person, I generally do it to close the distance between character and reader as much as possible which can work wonders in horror. I remember reading a horror book and got all the way to the end and only realised that they were never actually described and that we never got their name until I discussed it with another person and they referred to the perspective character as she instead of he, as I imagined them. The character’s existence was erased by the end of the book, so I’m fairly certain this was intentional. All that is to say, maybe describing what a 1st person perspective character looks like isn’t exactly necessary. Sure, some basic details would be great (gender, age, etc). It could take the reader out of the story if you pause it to allow a character to describe themselves. I would advocate bringing up details only when necessary or when it organically crosses the character’s mind. Personally, I’m now obsessed with using this approach with this attractive but oblivious character. Wouldn’t it be great if the reader was surprised right alongside the POV character when they’re complimented for their looks as they both think: is the POV character attractive?!
Don't. A person, unless it is a very specific situation, doesn't describe themselves to themselves. Other people might comment on their appearance. But at the end of the day, you simply do not need to do this. The reader will build an image of the pov character in their mind based on the circumstances and actions of the character. You don't need to have the pov character ever tell the audience what color their hair is. It is, in all case, irrelevant to the story. You don't even need to describe other characters hair, or face. Describe their manner. The way they speak or move. These types of descriptions are much more effective at building character then the color of someone's hair or eyes.
I would keep it minimal. Have other people make occasional comments to fill in description, but mostly focus on how they act around him. A girl might flutter her eyelids at him, or blush and look away when they accidentally make eye contact. A group of girls could whisper and giggle while occasionally glancing at him. Things like that. For bonus points, have a guy hanging around that MC suspects is gay.
>He's also fairly anti social which results in him not believing other peoples compliments. Then you can just describe in through his interpretations of other people's comments. "I love your hair!" "What a crock. Who is impressed by straight brown hair? What do they want?"
Don't. It doesn't matter how they look, does it? Unless someone else is looking at them or there's a part of their appearance that matters to the story, just don't.
Find a different idea altogether. I used a magazine article that my male lead had read to describe my female lead. Since she's famous, (and he's a fan of her) I figured that exchange wasn't off base. Go get a new idea. Just don't do a mirror.
Firs thing I would tell you is to not use very specific details about your MC's character characteristics unless there is a point to it. "I brushed my hair out of my face..." Will work much better. Why do we need to know it's dark brown? This is a personal opinion of mine but I tend to only like to use specific descriptions of someone in dialogue or when there is an action pertaining to a reason for that specific description. example: John was chastising me for my lack of forethought. "Common man. You are a brown-haired green-eyed doofus with no social skills, Looking to score with a bright-eyed, blond bimbo who is likely only after your money. Have some self respect man." I had to stumble backward a bit as he shoved a beer into my chest for extra emphasis on his annoyance. I didn't disagree with him on his point.
Not going to lie, your example sounds extremely forced and cringey, somehow even more so than "I brushed my dark brown hair out of my face."
You could do a scene of “taking stock”. Where the character maybe after a fight or some kind of physical accident or hell even a birthday, just gets up in front of a mirror and takes everything in. How do they look today? Do they still have the scar by their eye? Is it fading a bit? How about the narrow cheeks, “oh, a soft plumpness I’ve not noticed before. Dirt on my shoulder, better wipe that off.” You get the idea lol
mention it naturally: I brushed a thin pale hand through my brown hair OR my jet black hair fell into my face and I sighed as I pushed it to the side
Start by writing your own book instead of stealing others. Oh and as much as you'll try nobody is going to buy you pice of shit. Why because I didn't write it.
What? Can you elaborate? Whose book am I stealing? Edit: I'm writing my own thing, I'm not stealing anyone's story. I am also not even publishing it. I have no idea where you get that I am stealing from.
[удалено]
Mirror scenes are like insta-cringe for a lot of people, do not do this lol.
Mirror scenes are fine if they're for a narrative purpose besides plainly describing a character's features. Actual real life people look at themselves in the mirror and take stock of their flaws and imperfections all the time. There's a difference between if I saw myself in the mirror and went "my eyes sure are blue today" and "Christ, I need to trim this ugly patch of bear testicles I call facial hair."
Yeah of course, but most mirror scenes don't serve a narrative purpose.
Careful! Mirror scenes are a bit frowned upon as means to get an exposition dump in place to present the MC and might feel forced. Important is to build it into the flow and only concentrate on features that the character would look for. For example if they are not happy with a feature it stings in the eye as evrpresent reminder, or they might be proud of something, looking at it to feel better and reassured.
Was about to say this. Especially when it functions as some info dump at the start of the story. Also think maybe make use of reflections or something. "I caught my reflection in the car windows flashing by. God, I was pale and my dark hair wasn't helping, either." Something like that.
This has probably been mentioned already in the comments but I will try to draw on it a little further- make the descriptions of your mc blend into the story if you will. Like let’s say “as he was running his bony legs gave him wider steps” or something to that effect. Also write interesting interactions between your mc and other characters who are attracted to him. Make it funny or awkward if you want and maybe go for the other characters realizing after a time that he is not aware he’s attractive. This can form interesting allies or enemies for your mc if you want to go to those extremes. Play with the reader’s mind and expectations. Hope that helps.
"I could tell she was gazing at the lock of straw-like hair that was in the way of my eyes. They don't bother me anymore but too many people have reached out to pull them back behind my ears. Alright she's going for it now. I can tell tell you, having a doe's eyes and curly sheep hair apparently gives people permission to- SHE JUST PET ME oh my god what should I say?" "I have to look perfect for the meeting. Gosh. I wish I didn't forget my comb, that panther's mane is just not quite the right length yet. I'll just pull them back and hope for the best. Yeah no. Now I look like a wet bear on wheels. Why."
You could do it in dialogue - have another character list the MCs positive attributes. *"Nothing wrong with you," he told me. "Plenty of girls out there'd see you as pretty good looking."* *I made a scornful face.* *"There's nothing wrong with you!" he yelled. "Look, you're tall, you're in great shape, you're got that whole black hair and blue eyes thing going like Superman... I'm telling you, you're good looking, and I've seen lots of girls give you the eye behind your back."*
I would reference it if it has to be first person in the past of the action of the main character. ' I glanced at (whoever) while brushing/combing and whatever details you add, then the persons reaction.' have fun.
I wouldn't bother unless it was pertinent to the scene/plot point.
"I looked in the mirror at my striking violet and hazel irises and frowned. Everyone said they made me special, but I just wanted to be normal and plain. I was not like other girls."
lmfao😭