Unpopular Creative Opinion: It is frequently unnecessary to describe the physical attributes of a character. If you’re going to describe a physical attribute, better have a reason.
Eye and Hair Color: please stop assuming that everyone cares about this. These should only be remarked upon if they are unusual. Additionally, most non-white people have dark eyes. Obsessing over a paragraph’s description of blue-green is utterly inattentive to this fact.
Height: height is relative. It doesn’t matter how tall the character is until they’re standing next to someone else. Even then, who cares if Sasha is 5’5” and Cindy is 5’7”? Height matters when you’re a giant, it matters when you’re tiny, and it matters when it affects eye contact or physical intimidation and that’s about all it matters.
Weight/Build: again, when it’s useful to inform WHO that character is, or it’s a basis of comparison to a different character, and that’s kind of it. Are they wiry and lean? Abnormally muscular? Enormously fat? Does this tell you something about their values? If not, why are we wasting time on this? It’s self-indulgent narrative flab that readers don’t care about.
Attributes that could use more coverage:
Exact Skin Color. Gee, I wonder why white writers don’t pay attention to this. If you’re from a demographic where MOST people have brown or black hair, and brown eyes, the features you pay attention to also change.
Weirdness. If you really want the overall look of someone to be distinctive, point out some conventional “flaws.” Acne scarring. Stubby fingers. Eyes very wide-set in the face. Any kind of lateral asymmetry.
Face Shape and Bone Structure. It’s faster to characterize overall implied height, weight, and look with the emotional assessment the reader is supposed to have. Just cut out the middleman.
“She was fragile, wide-eyed and angular as a baby heron. But just as a heron is a bird of prey despite its slim delicacy, Annika’s limbs tensed with a preternatural awareness of two commands - fly, and kill.”
Most of her description is implied by the reader’s knowledge of name origins (“Annika” is probably Nordic), a mental image of a heron (usually white or gray, possibly picturing a great blue heron - so I don’t have to say a hair or eye color, but you sure pictured those) and the knowledge of what an “angular” human body does.
She’s just strange-looking enough to perhaps not be natural. Her limbs are tensed, which means she is waiting urgently for something. Are the commands in her body instinctive, learned, or programmed? Why does she have to be fast? Who does she have to kill?
Describe people first and foremost by WHAT THEY DO, and trust your reader to understand what’s been left in the margins.
