How do I look?(Describing a physical character in FP

[CronusNuzlocker]

So here's an interesting question;
How do you describe the physical attributes of the main character(such as eyes, hair etc) when writing in first person?

I have a very strange writing style that is third person limited, but is flavoured by the mind of the character being focus'd on (i.e. the paragraphs are written using words and sentence structure the character would use but without "I", "we" and other first person terms). Due to my odd style, it's very difficult to describe the main character's attributes. So I'd like to know how do you do it in first person so I have an understanding of how to do it in this style.

 

[CrystaI]

There is the usual method of describing the character him/herself when looking through a mirror or highly reflective glass window. But this is not a very good one because you shouldn't specifically planned this scene for the mere purpose of describing the character's physical features, and it may turns out awkward if your character is not someone like to keep him/herself clean and gloomed. Also even there exist such mirror scene, you are not necessarily having the chance to describe the character's physical feature. Because in 1st-person, you are then going to describing the scene through the mind of the respective character, you should write in his/her speaking tone and speaking attitude. Normally when people looking at themselves through a mirror, do you think people will state specifically in their mind there is a mole under my eyes that makes me look ugly, or that my skins are snow white pale like a cancer patient in their late stage which makes great contrast to my energetic nature, or that my almond blue eye together with silky smooth skin added on my perfectly outlined facial contour makes me such a handsome man that will fascinate all women in the world? (Well I can't say it for sure for the self-conceited characters proud of their physical looking)

So the better alternative will be describing oneself through the actions that involves the physical features of the characters. Not only meaning actions like jerking one's red and white hat, or taking of one's Nike tekkie and lifting up one's blue jean in order to cross a shallow river, or embrace one's sport jacket tightly as a cold wind blowing by, etc. where limited to clothings only. Say for example in a relaxation scene after a fierce battle, all the dirt stirred up during the attacks where now caught in my golden hair makes it look rusty colored, and the dirty sweat on my face covered up my characteristic European skin, makes me now look like a mixed breed of African and European. Note that if character is not facing a mirror thinking something like this in his/her mind, you may have his/her companion talking something like that to him/her. (And command him/her to take a bath immediately!)

Also other than telling it during some action, you may have the character describe him/herself with comparison to other characters too. When a new character pop up in a scene, not only you are going to describe what this new character look like, but you may describe your character indirectly by comparing. Say something like this new guy was about several inches taller than me, having healthy skin color and well-built body, his causal clothing suggesting he is also the outdoor type just like me. How unfair that is as I also exercised a lot, I'm still a shorty with pale skin, where sometimes I may be mistaken as a sicken in rehabilitation by doctors.
But as a sidenote, the comparison method may work better if your respective character hold some form of complexes towards his/her physical features.



BTW, I don't think 3rd-person limited is such an odd style, it is actually everywhere, even I write my fic in this way. But I think you may be a bit mistaken for the 3rd-person limited. It is not just simply rewriting 1st-person without "I" and "we". It is still normal 3rd-person where you the narrator describe the scenes as an invisible nobody that can physically sees it all, so for whatever things that you can sees with your (metaphoric) physical eyes, you are allowed to describe it as it is. It is just that when it comes to mental aka thoughts and mindsets, you don't sees it all, your mind-reading ability is now limited to one character only. The difference between the usual 3rd-person omniscient and 3rd-person limited in actual writing will then be when it comes to describing thoughts of different characters, you are not allowed to literally state it out aloud if the thinking is not the focused character. You may try to interpret thoughts of other characters from their body languages, as those can be seen physically. But be careful of this thought interpretation of other characters, is that you the narrator should't know anything more than the focused character.

 

[Natu? Natu!]

As said above, the mirror is a classic one, but it has been done quite a few times before. Another way is to let someone else say something that describe how your character looks (just make sure it doesn't become some sort of 'as you know, Bob'). It may be a compliment, it may be something like "Wow, I thought you would be much taller". The thing with first person descriptions of physical characteristics is that in order to make it natural, it has to be a situation where most people would think about how they look (I think that's why the mirror is so popular). But maybe the person is mistaken for somebody else, because they look the same, or s/he buys clothes or whatever.