Description is one element of a story where it is easier to lose the interest of your reader than to capture it. In most writing styles, description is scaffolding that you want to rest the action of your story on, rather than displaying it for its own sake.

In some literary stories, though, the descriptions are like scrap metal pipes welded into sculptures rather than useful props – and as with all artworks, the appreciation varies from reader to reader, and the more experienced and visionary the artist, the more likely the piece will communicate to a wider audience.

As Elmore Leonard advised, “…when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.”

Description of characters

A good guideline to follow is the more important the character, the less physical description required. There are a number of reasons that this guideline is effective and it’s worth following it unless the physical appearance of a character is important to the plot or characterisation.

Some readers like to imagine themselves in the role of one of the main characters to experience the action from the front seat. If you continuously make reference to this character as, say, a tall, slim, blonde woman with beautiful blue eyes, your short, chubby, dark-haired reader might have some difficulty maintaining that imaginary link to the role.

Even readers who don’t place themselves in the main roles may picture their own version of the characters, so, unless you’ve given a description within a few lines of introducing your character (and even if you have, the reader may have skipped over that bit), you run the risk of jarring your reader when they realise the character doesn’t look the way they pictured him. Ask yourself if it really matters that the reader sees the same face you do.

If the narrative is written from the point of view of a main character, describing this character can become clunky and jarring. We don’t generally go around thinking about our own hair and eye colour, and neither do we list a full physical description of others when we meet them, although we might notice one or two features that stand out.

Minor characters benefit more from specific description because they don’t usually develop as fully as main characters and readers need something identifiable to remember these characters from scene to scene.

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For more help with crafting your skills of description, try Description - Elements of Fiction Writing by Monica Wood