What are some creative ways you can describe a persons physical appearance without just listing features?
Well, there are ways you can work it in so that it sounds natural – for example, “Rachel twiddled her brown hair” or “she caught a glimpse of her blue eyes in the mirror”. It works best if it’s part of revealing more about the character herself; for example, Rachel is twiddling her hair because she has natural nervous or restlessness. Don’t worry too much about physical characteristics, though (unless they’re neccessary to the story). The moment a character is introduced into a novel, everyone has a picture in their mind of the character – even if you haven’t described them. Adding a lot of physical details later makes it difficult for the reader, as they have to adjust their mental picture of that person. Does it really matter that we all know they have brown hair and not blond hair? If it doesn’t, don’t worry about it.
