Le Professeur de Français. Plot To Punctuation, LLC: editing services by Jason Black. The question came up on the NaNoWriMo Forums as to whether to include a little or a lot of character description. I think less is more, and I’ll tell you why. It’s all about believability. We’ve all seen books where characters are introduced with a lengthy, dry passage of description that sounds more like a police blotter report than anything else: Jakob walked into the room. 6’2", burly build, wearing pin-striped Armani tailored to perfection.
His shoes were black patent leather, with flawless white spats. His hair was a close-cropped buzz cut, greying, but still echoing his background as a Navy Seal. Boring, isn’t it? The problem with this is not that any of the particular details are bad. The problem comes in the attempt to paint a fully unambiguous picture of the person, one that leaves no flexibility whatsoever in the reader’s mind as to how you envisioned the character. Stereotypes are good When introducing a character, you’re usually better off sticking with broad strokes. Strunk, William, Jr. 1918. The Elements of Style.