1. What you describe. A lot of times a writer comes to the part where they must describe their character, and they dawdle around until they finally jot "He was a handsome man with blue eyes and blond hair." *Zzzz....* There are millions of people in the world that have blue eyes and blond hair! We need more than that to get a picture of this person! Each description should be unique and bring to life certain quirks about the way that character looks. I loved the very first description of Four in Divergent.
Page 59: "He" is the one attached to the hand I grabbed. He has a spare upper lip and a full lower lip. His eyes are so deep-set that his eyelashes touch the skin under his eyebrows, and they are dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color.
I don't know about you, but that was enough to give me a pretty good first look at this character, and Veronica Roth didn't even go into hair color or body type. I believe the trick is using the most powerful descriptions you can, in the shortest amount of time.
Here is a description from my book: His hood and mask fell during the scuffle, revealing the young man's pallid, angular face. His breaths are long and furious. He appears to be in his late teens, perhaps a couple years older than myself. A mess of unevenly-cut black hair falls across his face but fails to hide his eyes. His eyes! A deep shade of violet, almost glowing in the shadows; they look warm against his cold sharp features. "Are you finished?" his lips twist. He would be attractive if not for that sneer.
Now, this description goes into a little more detail than the last one, and it's probably not as concise as it could be. But you get a pretty good idea of what this guy looks like. Cocky. Mysterious. And then there's those glowing eyes... What's up with that? The description is meant to make you realize that this dude isn't normal.
2. Don't clutter your writing. Another thing about writing descriptions is I CAN'T STAND IT when it takes half a page to describe something. We get it. She's pretty. If it takes half a page to describe a character, then the writer could be writing a lot more concisely. I think it's better to be short and powerful when it comes to descriptions. And another thing is that you don't have to describe everything about that character in one place. Feed your readers little nuggets of information about their appearance and quirks. They'll catch on. Information dumps can work, but they often slow the pace of your writing.
3. Have a picture in your head. In order to plant a picture of your character in your reader's mind, you must have that picture in your own mind first. You can write a willy-nilly description and go back to fix it later, but make sure that you have that picture in your head. In order to evoke something on the reader, you must know what you are trying to evoke. If you are struggling with coming up with a character description, I would suggest either sitting down and writing about that character until it becomes clear or look at pictures on the internet to come up with ideas.
A very helpful exercise I have used is taking a picture of a person, and describing them as best I could. Then I would write different descriptions of the same picture according to the mood I wanted to convey.
These are just a few tips that I would suggest. This is still an area that I struggle with myself. I wish you luck in creating your characters! :)
(Thank you for listening to my ramblings. My ebook, Crutch, is now available at Amazon for only 0.99 cents: http://www.amazon.com/Crutch-Kari-Rushmer-ebook/dp/B00X4B2PA0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430765666&sr=8-1&keywords=crutch+alex+rushmer I would love it if you checked it out and left me a rating.)
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