Yesterday, I talked about the difference between cosmetic and functional details in a character’s appearance. Today, with the concept at my disposal I’m going to move on to my usual approach to creating and describing a character’s appearance.

If I can, I start by figuring out what the first visual impression the character is likely to give off is. I try to keep this to functional details rather than cosmetic if I can, as those are both the ones that tend more often to give me ideas and the kind that let me pack the most information into a little bit of description; whatever it is, though, it goes into the description as early as I can get it. Sometimes, this is the largest thing in the character’s presentation (a huge weapon, for instance) or the most vivid, or just the most unusual-looking—the kind of thing that would draw a person’s eye. More often, it’s an overall unified visual impression that the character gives—Olathe’s severity, for instance, tends to precede her into her opening scenes, and I had another character whose description was meant to focus on the fact that her age was finally (and we’re talking after-millennia-finally) catching up with her but still being given a merry race for old times’ sake.

Once I’ve got that, I figure out what other functional details need to be covered, often guiding to the kinds of indicators that my viewpoint characters or players are going to be looking for—in my primary game, for instance, the group usually looks at eye color first (particularly if the eyes are clearly sparkly) as an indicator of what sorts of abilities the characters are likely to have (setting detail, what can we say?), then to hair color for a vague idea of region of origin, then to what weapons they’re carrying and what kind of clothing they’re wearing. This is also where I incorporate things like posture, standard emotional range and body language, signs of fitness or lack thereof, quirky magical items, or odd little heirlooms.

Once I’ve got all the functional details, I go back to see what sorts of cosmetic details I might have left out that people would be interested in, and try to figure out how to slot them in—so on the off-chance that I don’t have a hair or eye color or a hairstyle yet, this is where I figure it out. (This is very rare, though; I tend not to be too good at randomly assigning trivial details, so I often try to just make sure the cosmetic details are indicators of something to begin with.)

Now that I’ve got the details, it’s time to give the description. I usually open with the character’s location and/or current actions, that being something that even a first-person narrator would have an interest in, and try to find a way to thread the first impression detail in that sentence. From there, I try to add one more sentence supporting the initial theme; this can be description-but-no-action, but only if the initial sentence wasn’t, and only if the scene isn’t too tense. (In my work, rushed scenes require something to be happening during the secondary sentence; nobody’s going to have time just gawk.) From then on, the rest of the important details go into my “to be added/emphasized as the character emphasizes them” list, and I start hoping like mad she’s the type to play with her brass buttons or that this PC gets attacked soon so I can drop his sectional staff out of the sleeves large enough to hide a small dog in. The key at this point is organic revelation.

It’s not one-size-fits-all by any means, but it serves as a useful little template for me most of the time. How do you handle visually composing and describing characters for the first time?