How to Describe a Character's Appearance Without Sounding Amateurish
It's a long name, but I couldn't think of a better way to word it.
Basically, there's a right way and a wrong way to put a character's description in a story. Here's an example of the wrong way:
She had ice-blue eyes and curly blonde hair that reached her elbows. Her face was oval-shaped, with rosy cheeks. She was slim, of average height, and wearing a blue dress, with ivory lace peeking out of the top and sleeves and gold buttons down the back. She smiled at you like you shared a secret with only her; that smile showed off straight white teeth.
This is called a laundry-list description, and is frowned upon for breaking the "show, don't tell" rule of writing. If you must have your readers know exactly what your character looks like, use illustrations, not lengthy descriptions. Otherwise, do one of the following:
- Work their description into your story. Is her hair matted from days of adventuring without a hairbrush? Use this as an opportunity to mention that it's auburn. Is her dress torn? Mention that it's red. A tear just slid from the corner of her eye? A tear slid from the corner of her brown eye, more like it.
- Or, if you must say what they look like immediately, stick with eye color, hair color, and hair length, but nothing more. Work anything else into the story like above.
