The one with the honking nose, luscious lips, sea-foam green eyes, and the daddy issues

How vital is it to describe your characters?

I'm of the "draw your own conclusions" school. I tell you what the characters say and do, and you tell me who and what they are.

To me, when a crit group member says, "I couldn't visualize the character" or "Which one said that?" or "Add more physical description," I think:

The character isn't well enough imagined. His dialogue or actions aren't specific enough. He isn't unique. He isn't yet 3D.

So, I punch up his dialogue, make sure he's conveying his feelings in ways/actions only *he* would. I do *not* add a physical description.

To me, physical descriptions limit a reader's imagination, rather than spark it.

I try to respect the characters, and:
Detailed physical description labels a character, rather than telling the reader about him as a singular being going through a singular story. My characters aren't types-- they're people.

Just like I don't tell my dad about every unruly red hair on my best friend's head while I'm venting to him about what she just did, I don't go into time-wasting and character-degrading description digressions while writing. I only give a general physical sketch when it's vital to the story, and even then, often through the prism of another character's dialogue.

I try to respect the readers, and:
I'd rather err on the side of subtlety. Readers are smart and easily bored-- they *want* to draw their own conclusions. And because I enjoy collaboration between audience/storyteller, *I* want them to have their own interpretation of the story, too.

It's arrogant to think that I fully understand the story I'm telling-- the skills of a literary critic are very different from the skills of a writer. I only (try to) present an enjoyable, clear story to the audience. It's their job (and hopefully, their pleasure) to judge and interpret it... and it's not my place to do their job for them.

I bring this up, because in the Washington Post's piece "Words, Camera, Action!," movie critic Ann Hornaday claims that detailed, ultra-specific physical descriptions of characters are a mark of a good script:

Consider how characters from the hit romantic comedy "He's Just Not That Into You" are introduced in the script: Gigi, "pretty and approachable," Conor, "cute but holding on to his frat boy roots" and Anna, "hot in an earthy sort of way." And compare that level of detail to how writer-director John Patrick Shanley describes Loretta, the leading lady of "Moonstruck," in the first few pages of the script: "Italian, 37. Her hair black, done in a dated style, is flecked with grey. She's dressed in sensible but unfashionable clothes of a dark color."After a few tartly revealing exchanges of dialogue, Shanley writes that Loretta gives a florist "a sudden, brief, blinding smile. It's the first time we've seen her smile. She has gold work around one of her two front teeth." The audience has a clear, indelible, even poignant image of Loretta (ultimately played in an Oscar-winning performance by Cher) as a woman who might be practical and even tough, but whose longing for romance has yet to be completely extinguished. All by the time the opening credits have rolled.

But throwaway physical descripts don't mean throwaway characterization. Detailed, ultra-specific characters are a mark of an excellant story, but their looks have nothing to do with it-- even in a visual medium.

Characters' actions speak louder than their words, and their words louder than their looks.