Using Description to Reveal Character

Good storytellers don’t just tell you who their characters are, they reveal their characters through careful and precise description. To tell a story with style and well-developed characters, keep this advice in your storyteller’s toolbox.

Using Description to Reveal Character in Fiction Writing

Using description to reveal character in fiction writing is an essential technique writers employ to help readers understand and connect with characters on a deeper level. The process is not as simple as littering your sentences with adjectives and adverbs. Generally, I’d caution you to remember that adjectives and, especially, adverbs are not a writer’s best friend and both should be used intentionally and sparingly.

An adept writer learns to fine tune their use of description to reveal character, because without balance the effect will be lost. Too little description will often leave characters reading as flat, uninteresting or not relatable enough for your readers to care about. Too much description dumped on readers at once can have the opposite of the intended effect. Paragraphs of details about a character that isn’t paired with any physical action or movement in the story that depicts the attributes being described will fail to hold much weight with readers. It’s too much telling without any show.

While balance of description is key, so is knowing how to describe characters in a way that showcases your unique authorial and narratorial voice and is done with the specific intention to reveal character. Don’t describe characters just to describe them. Consider how each piece of information you impart on readers will impact their view of the character and choose those descriptions wisely and always with the intention to reveal.

Here are some ways you can use description to reveal character in fiction writing along with examples of what specific descriptions may disclose about a character.

• Physical Appearance: Describe your character’s physical attributes, but do so in a way that reflects their personality, upbringing, or emotions. For example, if your character is meticulous and organized, you might describe them as having neatly styled hair or being immaculately dressed. If they’re rebellious and carefree, their appearance might be more disheveled.
• Body Language: Show your character’s emotions and temperament through their body language. A nervous character might bite their nails or fidget, while a confident one might stand tall with a relaxed posture. Use physical cues to help readers understand the character’s inner state.
• Setting: Describe the environment in which your character lives or works. A cluttered and chaotic space might suggest a disorganized personality, while a minimalist and orderly environment could imply a more controlled and disciplined character. If a character’s home is decorated only in the color orange, what might that reveal about them? What if they suddenly painted everything black?
• Habits and Quirks: Mention characters peculiar behaviors or routines that make them unique. It could be something as simple as a character who always taps their fingers when deep in thought or someone who insists on ordering the same coffee every morning. Or it could be something deeper such as a character who takes a longer route to work every morning in order to avoid passing by a certain house. It’s why an author chooses these details and how they use them to reveal character that is important.
• Dialogue: Use the character’s speech patterns and choice of words to reveal aspects of their personality, education, background, and even their mood. A character who speaks in a formal, refined manner will come across differently from one who uses slang and colloquialisms. What does it reveal about the character when the writer makes these differing choices?
• Flashbacks and Memories: Use flashbacks or memories to provide insights into a character’s past experiences that have shaped their personality. These can be powerful tools for character development. Traumas and intense experiences from a character’s past should surely influence their personality in the present.
• Reactions to Others: Show how your character interacts with other characters. Their relationships and reactions to other people can reveal a lot about their own personality. Do they empathize easily or are they more standoffish? Are they quick to anger or patient and understanding? Why?
• Symbolism: Use symbolism in your descriptions. For example, if a character frequently interacts with fire, it might symbolize their passionate and impulsive nature. If a character feels the need to be by water whenever they’re stressed, it may symbolize a desire for healing.

Remember that character development is an ongoing process throughout your novel. Use description strategically and intentionally, allowing readers to learn more about your characters as the story unfolds. Always consider how you can describe a fictional character in a way that makes them more real and relatable to readers. Don’t just say what a character is, for example, she is gorgeous. Instead, show your readers her beauty in a way that will resonate. Consider how author Sherman Alexie accomplished this in the quote below from his novel, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven:

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

Alexie doesn’t describe the character’s hair or any of her facial features, yet without knowing a thing about what she looks like a reader trusts she’s beautiful—so beautiful that wild animals would sacrifice themselves for her sustenance. That offers readers so much more than saying, “She had a pretty smile.”

Next time you sit down to write, consider how you want your readers to envision and think about your characters, then decide if you’re effectively describing them in a way that allows your readers to do just that.

Novel Recommendation: Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

For me, Big Swiss is a masterclass in idiosyncratic character description. In fact, if you google Jen Beagin, you’ll quickly find that her writing described again and again as idiosyncratic—as her style is peculiar and completely original. In a world of writers trying to stand out from one another, I can hardly think of a more complimentary way to be discussed. Beagin writes literary fiction that is funny, odd, slightly traumatic and always character driven.

If you want to study the art of using description to reveal character, check out Big Swiss. It tells the story of Greta, a middle-aged woman with a storied background, who works as a transcriptionist for a sex therapist and lives in a decrepit, bee-infested Dutch farmhouse on the outskirts of Hudson, NY. Greta spends her days listening to recordings of the titillating, and oft boring details, of the sex lives of Hudson’s locals. She knows the patients only by their initials and their voices, which is problematic, because Greta often recognizes them by sound when she’s shopping for groceries or out for a drink at a Hudson bar.

Greta never crosses the line or reveals how much she knows about her neighbors until she falls for patient F.E.W., whom Greta calls Big Swiss—because Greta imagines she’s tall and knows she’s swiss. Greta anxiously awaits each new recording of a Big Swiss therapy session. Greta desperately wants to meet Big Swiss, and as Hudson luck would have it, she finally encounters her during a canine scuffle at the dog park.

Here’s how Beagin describes Big Swiss the first time Greta lays eyes on her, “She was long, lean, very pale and reminded Greta of white asparagus. Except white asparagus is known for its delicate flavor, and there was nothing delicate about this woman.” Readers aren’t expecting a love interest to be described as “white asparagus”, but it works, and reveals character about how Big Swiss looks and the way Greta thinks. Later that night, Greta meets Big Swiss at a bar and when she walks in Beagin describes her as a vision in cashmere and silk, and explains “she looked windblown but also elated and a little surprised, as if she’d arrived by parachute…People did double and triple takes as she moved through the crowd.” Without describing her physical features, Beagin has set a vivid scene where readers can lose themselves.

Greta and Big Swiss go on to develop a love affair as idiosyncratic as the words Beagin uses to describe them. The book will make you laugh and also leave you a bit uncomfortable. If you’re like me, you won’t know quite why you like it, but you can’t stop reading it. Read it first to be entertained. Then, if you’re a writer, read it a second time to dissect all of the brilliant ways Beagin uses description to reveal character.