Jack Latreille

Hello, all.

Thanks for sticking with me so far. I wanted to remind you that I posted my new short story, The Loon’s Call, on this website. It’s a pretty fun horror story, and I encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already. 

I wanted to talk a little bit about physical character descriptions, specifically why an author might choose to describe the physical attributes of a character in detail or choose to keep it vague.

While developing a character’s personality, relationships, and growth is crucial to character-focused stories, physical descriptions depend on an author’s personal goals. I would say that an author should only describe what they believe will be relevant to the story. Readers tend to develop their own mental images of a character’s physical characteristics and stick to it, even if contrary information is provided. Readers will likely only remember important or basic details like race, gender, and hair color. So if you’re going to mention other than these details, make it significant to the story somehow. Perhaps it’s a facial tattoo that was required for their knightly order or a scar that they received in childhood. These details could be an important key to understanding their background. Perhaps it’s a character walking stiffly or uniquely good posture. Details like these could be indicative of a character’s emotions or self-confidence. Or, it could be something as simple as a character’s eye color or haircut being unique or remarkable, which could point to unique aspects of their personality. 

I tend to leave my characters’ physical traits vague because it doesn’t usually matter that much to the type of short stories that I write. In The Loon’s Call, it doesn’t matter that much if Henry’s hair is black or brown, or if Jason is Black or Asian. What matters is how cruel they are to their friends, or how they react to the creature at the bottom of the well. As they read, the readers will develop their own image, and I wouldn’t want to force an image upon them. While I did describe Lana’s hair color and eye color, I did so largely as a description of the image Henry is looking at. Further, I considered these details ones that Henry would remember about her.

In short, Physical character details are difficult to balance. Too many details pull readers out of the story, so writers have to make sure the details that they choose to include contribute to the story in a meaningful way. That’s all for now.