This post was first published in February 2017 and extensively updated in February 2025.
If you’re writing fiction, whether that’s a short story or a novel, you’ll generally need character descriptions. You want your
readers to know what your characters look like – especially when their physical traits are relevant to the story, reveal their character, or reveal something about the person who’s observing them.
It might seem like an obvious way to describe your main character is to have them look in the mirror, like this:
Julia gazed into the bathroom mirror, assessing how she looked. Her hair was neatly parted and just skimmed the top of her shoulders. Her blue eyes were perfectly spaced, and her nose had a smattering of freckles – just right, she felt. The new shade of lipstick, a reddish-pink, went well with her top. But her cleavage was non-existent …
This
might just work if you want to convey a character who’s particularly self-absorbed and who frets a lot about their appearance, but, otherwise, it’s a boring and – often – annoying way to introduce your character to your readers.
So what can you do instead?
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