This is an expansion of a post I previously wrote on Tumblr back in July 2024, with additional examples and a few new sections. Enjoy!

The original post came about when I remembered the most terrifying description I’d ever read. It wasn’t bad, or even horror. It was well written.

However. The POV character described his sister in a way akin to this (my recreation, not the actual text):

Braden met his sister at the gate. They’d been apart for several years, and in that time, she had truly become a woman. Her curves had filled out, and her crimson silk dressed strained across her tight figure. Her raven hair shone in the late evening light, while her sapphire eyes watched him intently.

No, this wasn’t a brocon thing. The (male) writer was just horny for his female character and … kinda forgot that his MC, her brother, would not feel the same way.

Now, of course siblings growing up together are going to notice the other one maturing, but it’s not going to be … that. This is how I describe 17-year-old Uileac looking at his little sister, 13-year-old Cerie, in 9 Years Yearning:

She’d shot up in height this past year – almost as tall as him, to his dismay. Whatever they were feeding her in the meronym was quite good for her metabolism, as she’d put on a bit of healthy weight. Her cheeks were losing their baby roundness, and the autumnal light accentuated the sharp intelligence behind her green eyes.

In this description, you can feel Uileac’s paternal attitude toward his little sister. “Oh, she’s put on a bit of weight and isn’t a total twig anymore! I’m glad they’re feeding her well. Her face looks more adult. Fuck, she’s almost as tall as me now … I wish I weren’t so goddamn short ….”

This is a much more normal way for siblings to talk about each other, if a bit more Dad Mode than the typical older brother. I mean, who else is going to say “you’ve put on a bit of healthy weight?”

Siblings who grew up together are not going to say “holy shit I can really tell my sister has become a woman, wow her dress is tight over her curves.” If my brother had said that about me while we were kids, I’d throw up and dump a pot of soup over his head.

This kind of thing is generally accidental and has to do with how you feel about a character. But the thing is that even the sexiest femme fatale is just going to be Jennifer, The Stupid Annoying Sister, to their sibling. Our brains are literally wired not to see our siblings as sexy if we grew up with them.

There are many other ways that you must take perspective into consideration when writing descriptions. Here are just a few of them.

Sexual attraction/orientation

You’re going to focus on different things if you’re sexually attracted to someone; namely, you’ll focus in on things like breasts, legs, abs, etc. You’ll also likely devote more attention to describing people of your particular sexual orientation than you would one that you are not attracted to, and you will focus on different things.

This is part of why we hate “men writing women:” they describe every woman as if they want to fuck them. (See the first example.) It has to do with the places that their gazes naturally linger on any woman, which is what they consider important and what they focus on.

But the thing they miss is that just because we are sexually attracted to a specific gender does not mean we would want to bang anyone of that gender. I am a lesbian, but the way I would describe my mom or my therapist is vastly different than how I would describe a woman I am actually attracted to.

Romantic interests should get a more sexualized gaze; not exploitative, just more in-depth, and with more focus on their figure, specific details, etc. Everyone else should get a more basic look at eyes, hair color, height, build, and so on.

In my second book, Pride Before a Fall, Orrinir offers us a frankly embarrassing description of his husband’s beauty right off the bat so we are very well aware of how much of a simp he is.

Cast in the rosy sunlight of late afternoon, Uileac Korviridi’s hair became an anachronistic springtime, still green long after the grass had shriveled and the leaves turned. His peridot eyes were tight with concentration, his movements smooth and sure. The cavalryman’s coloring was so suited to the earthy hues of their beloved country, as if Breme itself adored him.

Those smooth movements like a dancer: Uileac’s scant height and whippet-slim form made him seem elfin next to the animal, though his commanding presence more than compensated for his diminutive stature. As the animal shied and pawed the ground, he sidestepped, his voice like birdsong on the hot wind.

Oh my godddd Orrinir shut uppp you’re so cringe!

A bit later in that chapter, he describes Cerie, his sister-in-law. We can see that he is nowhere near as attracted to Cerie as he is Uileac because of the way he glosses over most of her form.

Beyond the paddock, the back door flung open, framing his slim sister-in-law busy wiping her hands on a towel. After a pause, the towel dropped to the brown paving stones and the young woman flew toward the pine fence, her mint hair flapping and her green eyes wide with shock.

We just get the barest descriptions of her: she’s slim, young, with mint hair and green eyes. It’s clear that Orrinir does not really care about her physical form, and he’s just noting the basics. Even the part about her being slender tells us a bit about what he’s seeing because her silhouette won’t take up a lot of space.

Feelings about a particular person

You’re going to be more forgiving and complimentary toward someone you care about than someone you hate. Things that would be charming on a friend will be downright annoying on that one asshole at work who always throws projects to you at 5pm on a Friday.

A lover’s thick eyebrows might be called “dashing” or “strong,” while on an enemy, they’d be “overbearing” and “harsh.” Your bestie’s lisp is cute, while it seems babyish on your school rival. Your dad’s meandering sentences give him a sense of harmless musing, but they make someone else look like an idiot.

In Pride Before a Fall, Orrinir has to interact with Lieutenant Drust, his husband’s commanding officer. From his description, we get the idea that Drust is a hardass and not very pleasant to be around.

The man turned around, and Orrinir stiffened his shoulders, hoping he did not look as intimidated as he felt. His own Infantry Lieutenant might have been curt, but he lacked those vicious purple eyes, the raffle of blond hair that had been brutally deprived of its natural curls by a helmet-like pomade sheen.

Firm and bony, as many cavalrymen were, the man had long legs, a short torso, and a red-splotched face settled atop of a veiny neck. Something of Lieutenant Drust told Orrinir that he’d have no compulsions against using a crop on his soldiers if necessary.

Describing his purple eyes as “vicious” and his face as “red-splotched” isn’t very flattering, so we get a good idea of exactly how much Orrinir dislikes this man.

Even calling him “the man” several times is sort of an insult, like Drust isn’t worth being called by his name.

You should also think of the other character’s station and how that influences how the POV character sees them. If you have a character who is prejudiced toward a given group, they are always going to describe that group more harshly than they would a favored group. If they don’t like authority figures, a police officer leaning toward them will seem menacing, when they wouldn’t even notice it otherwise.

A fun option is to give two characters similar traits but describe them differently based on the POV character’s perspective of them. Readers might not even realize that it’s the exact same physical feature!

Previous experiences at a given place

When describing settings, we’re going to give more attention to somewhere we care about, like our home. I imagine you can tell me about every chip in the paint in your bedroom, or that one weird stain in the floorboard you’ve tried everything to fix. Many times, this is a good time to add depth to the character’s backstory by briefly mentioning previous occurrences there.

Would you notice any of those things about a place you’re visiting for the first time? Probably not. You’ll give a more global attention to the scene and provide impressions, not specifics.

Depending on how nervous or adventurous you are, you’ll look for similarities or differences to things that you’re accustomed to. You might compare it to other places you have been, trying to get a frame of reference.

If you’re on a vacation and were really looking forward to coming to this specific spot, you’ll focus on exactly what you came to see, whether that’s the scene from a particular hilltop or a cafe, and this will get the most description.

There are exceptions. The beginning of my first book, 9 Years Yearning, gives a lot of detail to the protagonist’s home because it’s the very first time they’ve stepped foot in it; the house was just built for them as a wedding present. They’re excited and curious about all the details. This is going to be a huge part of their lives for years, so, just like someone house shopping, they want to make sure they don’t miss anything.

Additionally, this is the first time that the readers get to see what a home in Breme looks like: how it differs from one in our world, what decorations it may have, and so on.

By focusing in on the details of this property, we get to learn more about the society. This doesn’t overwhelm the readers with detailed backstory or things they absolutely have to remember, but it still offers context about what kind of world Eirenen is. These concrete points bring up a vision in the reader’s mind that will influence what they believe about the setting.

Current mood

Descriptions change with a character’s mood, even if they’ve been in that place a million times. If they’re happy, they’ll look for things that support that mood, while if they’re upset, they’re pointing out the negatives.

In Funeral of Hopes, we see Uileac describe the War Academy very differently depending on how he’s feeling. Here, he’s glancing over at it after visiting his parents’ grave, thinking of how his parents would feel about him being a soldier.

He sighed, his face falling as he turned his attention toward the War Academy on the other side of town. Its brown facade, swirling with images of warfare, peeped above a rabble of smooth wooden roofs; its squat tower was studded with the tiny outlines of carrier pigeons awaiting dispatch. Usually he felt so proud that it was his workplace, but on Burning Day, that self-satisfaction fell flat.

His mind focuses on the images of warfare and the carrier pigeons awaiting dispatch to different outposts, which are all reminders of his job.

In another section, he’s heading to the War Academy while feeling a bit overstimulated, so he focuses on the noisiness of the building and its general surroundings rather than its physical form.

There was the War Academy, a magnificent brown block that stared down the solemn High Poet Society meronym at the other end of town. As he came closer, the squat watchtower banged to life, a massive bronze bell competing with the meronym’s carillon. Together, they overwhelmed the shouts of playing children and the melodic screams of barkers tempting customers. 

And here, he’s in a reflective mood, revisiting the schoolroom section of the building and thinking about how different it felt when he was a student there.

A whoosh of air, and they walked into the War Academy’s scholastic area. Every time he visited, it seemed smaller and shabbier, though he knew this was only his perception. Even the air smelled different: soaked in that animal tang of angsty adolescents, their multitudinous colognes.

As the War Academy is a recurring location, we need to change up our descriptions to keep readers from getting bored. I pick out one or two features of the building each time and give a brief description of that rather than going into the same details. Over time, the reader gets a complete image of what the War Academy looks like, whether it’s always crowded or quiet, and so on.

Current need

Your character’s objectives need to taken into consideration as well. As an example, remember the last time that you really needed to pee while you were out.

Were you slowly and casually admiring the scenery? No! You were hunting for the bathroom. If literally anything registered for you, it was anything that looked vaguely bathroom-sign-shaped. Everything around that bathroom sign, and on your path toward the bathroom, got more attention and description to you than anything else.

Any time that your character has an urgent need, is in a hurry, or is in extreme emotional/physical distress, tone down the scenery or people descriptions. Remember that your POV character directs us where to look, so their narration needs to tell your reader what is important in that moment.

Your character’s interests

When describing a scene, you don’t need to define every single little thing in a character’s path. It’s annoying and overwhelming. You need to give us a basic overview (it’s a forest, it’s a grocery store, it’s an abbatoir) and then home in on the specific details that your character finds interesting in order to fill out the entire scene.

We, as people, focus on things we care about, things that we feel are relevant to us. Characters are the same.

Different people will notice completely different things when they walk into the same room. An animal trainer will appreciate a big pet bed and an ergonomic food bowl. An artist will admire the artwork on the walls. A computer nerd is going to roll their eyes at the scuffed-up Mac laptop.

These little details give an Impressionist view of the whole scene, and the reader will insert whatever they feel would be there based on what you suggest. This allows your reader a bit of autonomy in defining the space, which improves their immersion because they have to think and envision for themselves.

Throughout the Eirenic Verses, we get to see Uileac, Cerie, and Orrinir’s home, but only a few details are picked out each time.

In 9 Years Yearning, we see the horseheads and crossed swords above the door because these two men are soldiers and that is what they care about.

Next, Orrinir fixates on their embroidered blankets with horses on them in Pride Before a Fall, as the book has a lot to do with horses.

Uileac is feeling insecure about their relationship in Funeral of Hopes, so there are frequent mentions of gifts the two have bought one another, a subconscious reaffirmation of Uileac’s commitment and his worry that his husband doesn’t feel the same.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t describe other things, too; it just means that your character’s attention is going to be drawn to stuff that they, in particular, like or dislike.

Things like where a character’s gaze lands, how they describe things, and how much detail they give to any particular element are an important part of secondary characterization: how we get to know a character beyond what they do or tell us. It helps to create a fuller picture of their relationships, their interests, and their thought process, and it deserves just as much attention as actions and dialogue.