Eyes?
How to Use Description
For me, eye color and the rest of the description only matters when it plays a part in how the character feels about him/herself or in how another character sees them. Say the character's eyes are brown like a puppy dog's. That might not matter to the character, so he/she doesn't think about it. However, that's what draws another person to them or makes them seem trustworthy. Then the physical description matters. For example, Harry Potter has his mother's eyes, and most of the other characters' initial reactions are to his mother's reflection in his green eyes or his father's reflection in his face. Professor Snape's reaction to him is clearly complicated by Harry's resemblance to both parents at once. This is when physical description matters, when the description is meaningful to the plot, the main character, or both.
The Connotations of Appearance
If the description is more than minimal, it's just window dressing and may be more distracting than helpful. I have heard from experienced writers that physical description should be a brief suggestion, so the readers can fill in the rest with their imaginations. If a woman has "hair the color of a gold coin and eyes as cold as a frozen lake," she's clearly not supposed to be lovable. We get an image without any more than that, though it suggests more. Another female character may have "hair as golden as a sunset and eyes the color of a shimmering pool in summer," which gives us a woman similar in appearance to the first. However, we get a more positive response with this description. We want to meet the second woman but not the first. It may be interesting if both descriptions turned out to be two other character's descriptions of the same woman. But I'll have to think about how that would fit into a story.
The Process
Then, you ask, "What DO I mean by getting the eyes right?" This week, I sat down to reexamine my notes and characterizations preparatory to revising my novel and realized something was missing: images that captured each character for me. No one will see these images but me. However, they're a critical part of my notes. First, as I described before, I come up with the gist of my characters and their relationships to each other. Then, I get more descriptive, using the enneagram. Third, I sit down and find an image that captures my sense of each character. Who is this character to me? How does he or she look and, more importantly, feel like to me? Look at the image above. This child tells a story in his eyes. Without this image, I may just describe a dark-skinned child with almost black eyes. However, staring into this face, into those eyes, I see a soul worth exploring. I can begin by talking about his chocolate brown skin and eyes like a whirlpool at night, troubled and churning. If a picture is worth 1000 words, the image of a soul is worth far more.
Finding the Soul
I look for images that show the eyes from as close up as possible and that give the right character and emotional sense. I may spend quite a long time looking for just the right image because that image will then inform my writing. I may even change the eye color of the character to match the picture. This process helps me capture the character's soul in a way I may not otherwise be able to do. This process may seem like a waste of time to some people since no one will ever see the photo but the writer. But it helps me get the voice right. It is absolutely critical to my writing process. Without it, the character may get lost in the words. Try looking carefully into the images above. Who can you create from these photos? Now, go and find images that fit your characters.
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