Physical Descriptions of Characters

How detailed should physical descriptions of characters in a novel be?

Many, if not most novels I’ve read recently include almost immediately after the introduction of a character, a detailed description of the character’s physical characteristics—age, height, weight, hair and eye colors, physique, and on and on.

Without a lot of premeditation, I find that my characters are described rather generally. The reader knows whether the character is young, middle-aged, or old, good looking, plain, or just plain ugly, but that’s about it.

I defend this approach in terms of giving readers the freedom to fill in the details rather than having me do it for them. For example, one reader wrote to me in regard to Erin, a principal character in Slipping on Stardust whom I describe in the book as “a young girl, for many years cute, now airily inhabiting the cusp between seriously pretty and downright beautiful” saying that the reader thought of her as a young Audrey Hepburn. To which I say, Great! That’s the image that reader’s imagination has conjured up. My point is that other readers should have the option to imagine a different one, e.g., a Sandra Dee with brains.

I think my approach is the result of my background as a playwright. Playwrights can detail physical descriptions in the script until they're blue in the face, but when it comes to performance, what you see on stage is what you get. I like to avoid that stricture by making my descriptions in my novel general, rather than specific.

I’d really treasure hearing other novelists’ views on this question. I’m as old as dirt, but not too old to change, particularly as I’m in the process of writing a sequel to Slipping on Stardust. I suspect that there is no right choice—only ones that suit a particular writer’s general approach to the task of producing a compelling and appealing novel.