Hot take: I was describing characters all wrong until I read a Cormac McCarthy book

For two straight years I kept describing every single thing about my characters. Hair color, eye color, height, build, the whole deal. I thought that's what real writers did. Then I picked up Blood Meridian last winter during a layover in Cheyenne and realized McCarthy barely describes what anyone looks like. The Judge is just big and pale. That's it. It hit me that I was wasting paragraphs on description that didn't matter. Readers fill in the blanks if you give them the vibe. Now I pick one weird detail per character instead of a whole shopping list. Anyone else have that moment where you realized you were overwriting something basic?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo_craig6d ago

Three years ago I sat down and counted the description words in a chapter of Moby-Dick against one of my own chapters. Melville used maybe thirty words to describe Ahab's look across four hundred pages. I had used over two hundred in twelve pages. That was the moment I realized readers don't need a catalog of features. They need one memorable thing that sticks in their head like a burr. McCarthy takes that even further with the Judge where the blankness of his description becomes the point. Now I follow the same rule as you pick one odd detail and trust the reader's brain to build the rest.

linda_murphy6d ago

Isnt it funny how we all think more is better until someone shows us the math? I was totally that person too, honestly. I used to describe every little thing about a characters face or clothes because I thought readers needed that to picture them. But youve got me rethinking that whole approach now. That one burr is a good way to put it, like a sharp little detail that catches in your head and wont let go. I guess its about trust too, letting the reader do some of the work instead of handing them the whole picture.