descriptors in game flavor pics

Description Creation Tips


... or, how to be a good(?) writer fast

The basics: hands, arms, legs, feet, body, neck, shoulders, waist, chest, and head. On the head: eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, skin, hair and facial hair (or lack thereof), ears, chin, and brow.

Pick one adjective to describe each of the above listed body parts and write it in the order above. For ease of use, I've created a character descriptor list you can choose from. Here's an example: 
	Big hands and thick arms are complemented by tree-trunk 
	legs and gnarled feet.  His body is thick, taller than 
	average, with a long neck and broad shoulders.  His waist 
	is wide with a barrel-chest, and his head is square. Crescent 
	eyes and a roman nose hang between a knife-line mouth, 
	chiseled cheeks, and a jutting brow.
Decide on a path of motion. When you're giving someone a -good- once-over, where does your look start? What do you look at first, where do you look next?

Get a picture of Claudia Schiffer and look at her (or a pic of one of the Baldwin boys if you like). This picture would, preferably, be clothed and in something other than a swimsuit ;) Where do you look first? Write down your path of motion, then describe it in your desc. Decide how each point in the path relates to the next part and describe that relation. One relation per two parts, per sentence. 

	Crescent eyes peer from either side of a hatchet nose.  
	Shaded below, is a pair of knife-thin lips.  A chiseled 
	chin juts out, holding them up, and his square jaw is 
	sternly part of this.  His ears are large and round, in 
	contrast to his jaw.  Small bits of hair touch their 
	tips.  The hair is sandy-blond and whispy.
Note, we haven't even left the face, and we have our four lines.

General tips

Don't use "you"

Personally, I avoid ever using the word "you". It's too tempting to use it to influence people reading your description (which is against description rules) Things like "You think" or "You feel" or "You want" and just about any other verb other than "You see" are not allowed.

Don't mention position

I never use "Standing before you is.." or "Before you, you see..." because your char won't always be standing, and your char won't always be 'before you'. I dunno. I'm picky. I tend to launch right into the description (as in the examples above).

Vary your word choice.

There's a great big List on this page, and you shouldn't need to use the same adjective more than once with this in mind. Same would go for verbs. Vary them.

Make your features lively instead of passive.

Instead of saying "he has blue eyes", try "blue eyes rest on either side of his nose", or "blue eyes reside... " Use a thesaurus to expand your vocabulary. Look up some of the words you would use and try to find another word like it.

Try to avoid 'wandering eyes' or 'staring' eyes.

Eyes won't always wander, and they won't always stare (think about being asleep?)