LET ME INTRODUCE YOU: The Art of Character Description

 By Jenny Ramaley

While reading pages sent from an author in my critique group last week, the description of a secondary character, one introduced more than 100 pages prior, stopped me in my tracks. “Maria” is a competent and ambitious administrative assistant at a PI’s office. The character’s name and devoted husband hinted at a Hispanic heritage, but it took 101 pages beyond Maria’s first appearance for the author to reveal that the character sported a thick long braid down her back and wore “Frida Kahlo” clothing, including long full skirts and embroidered blouses. 

Hmm. For one-third of the book I’d pictured Maria in capris and a cardigan.

How much is enough when introducing a character, especially secondary or minor characters? While too much information can make a reader think someone is more important than they are in the story, the reader still needs a hint of whether a character is a slime-bucket or a saint—or if they’re a distinctive dresser—regardless of how briefly they appear on the page.

When Lisa Malice asked me to fill in her blog spot while she enjoyed two weeks in Italy (lucky girl!), I thought we could look at how well-known authors, who write everything from dark humor to literary to commercial, introduce us to their primary and secondary characters.

• In Skinny Dip, Carl Hiaasen describes a philandering husband’s latest girlfriend: “Ricca was a noisy one. On no less than three occasions, her orgasmic caterwauling had brought hotel security officers thundering to the door.”

• Meeting John Green’s tragic heroine in Looking for Alaska: “I barely heard him because the hottest girl in all of human history was standing before me in cutoff jeans and a peach tank top … I stared, stunned partly by the force of the voice emanating from the petite (but God, curvy) girl and partly by the gigantic stacks of books that lined her walls.”

• Donald E. Westlake’s, The Hot Rock: Warden Outes “was a latter-day Civil Service type—college-trained, athletic, energetic, reformistic, idealistic, and chummy. Dortmunder hated him.” 

• Here’s two from Dave Barry’s, Big Fat Trouble:

• “‘I look at this ad,’ the Big Fat Stupid Client From Hell was saying, ‘and it doesn’t say to me, Hammerhead Beer.’” 

• “Puggy had held down his job at the Jolly Jackal Bar and Grill, which did not have a grill, for almost three weeks. For Puggy, this was a personal employment record.”

• From Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money: “Grandma Mazur had knees like doorknobs. She’d been a beauty in her time, but the years had turned her slack-skinned and spindle-boned.”

• In John Sandford’s, Deep Freeze: “Rhodes was a tall man, with a short straight nose, a square jaw with a dimple in his chin, a heavy shock of brown hair slicked straight back with gel . . . He was wearing a pale blue suit, which seemed a little summery for January. He was also wearing the faintest hint of makeup.”

• Donna Tartt’s, The Secret History: “Angular and elegant, he was precariously thin, with nervous hands and a shrewd albino face … a black greatcoat that billowed behind him as he walked and made him look like a cross between a student prince and Jack the Ripper.”

• And one from my novel, FIREPROOF?: “Enrique’s tailored black designer clothes and mirrored Versace sunglasses gave him a menacing look, vaguely suggestive of Hollywood’s interpretation of a young drug lord.”

What’s one of your favorite character introductions—from a favorite author or a story you wrote?

Jenny Ramaley had 60-seconds to introduce her novel, 

FIREPROOF? Misadventures of a Health & Safety Officer, 

to a crowd at the Debut Authors Breakfast 

at Bouchercon 2025 in New Orleans. 

Nerve-wracking? 

Sure, but being introduced by Michael Connelly 

made up for the sweaty palms. 

Jenny highly recommends the event to debut authors. 

Visit jennyramaley.com.