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As with all descriptions, you want them to both be succinct and tell the story. Try to make your description do double duty. For example:
Describing a character as having gray or silver hair at his temples tells us both what he looks like and that he's an older man.
Describing a character as having sun lines around their eyes tells you they like to be outdoors. Smile lines tell you that they're generally happy.
Pursed lips tell you they're grumpy. Hands at their waist and tapping foot tells you their impatient, or frustrated.
All of this seems really obvious, I'm sure. But the point of this in showing vs. telling is instead of saying:
He was an older man, stooped and graying at the temples.
You could cut out the telling "he was an older man" and let the rest of the sentence do the work for you.
A suggestion I have for you is to take some time and think of your character. Start with when they were born until they reach the person they are when the reader meets them. You may never use any of this information in the story, but in your mind, they will be real--a person with a past, present, and future. Hopefully, as you do this, little quirks of theirs will become apparent to you.
Maybe they wrinkle their nose a lot? Rub the back of their neck when they're frustrated? Perhaps they always leave their collar open because they hate to be confined? You can also give them quirks. Are they afraid of heights? Allergic to a type of flower? Hate pizza? Again, you may never use any of this in the story, but it will make them real, and if they're real to you, you can wordsmith them into being real to the reader.
Now, sometimes this can be a lot of work. So why do it all yourself? Make your characters do some of it.
Bella Andre's TAKE ME said:
She had spent a lifetime with her shoulders hunched to hide her too-big ###### and her hair hanging over her face to hide blue eyes too bright and red lips too big.
If your characters can describe themselves for you, great! You couldn't do this all the time, of course. But it's a tool to use when you need it.
You can also use dialogue to describe your characters, and not just by saying a description out loud, but in the way they talk.
In BAD BOYS AHOY! a servant named Artemis says, "Wot ye be needin', gov'na?" Just from this we can tell the character is of lesser station than the person he's addressing, and his education was poor. It doesn't have to be an accent you use. If the character talks about local landmarks with obvious familiarity, we know they came from that place. It gives them a past.
And, using the last lesson, remember to use all five senses when describing someone. Instead of saying they're a smoker, you can say there is a hint of tobacco in their scent. Perhaps their hands feel callused, which tells us they do manual labor. Perhaps they grit their teeth when they're ###### and we can hear it.
HOMEWORK:
#1 Take one of the protagonists in your WIP. Start from when they were born, and go through until now. See if things in their past give them any special traits or quirks you can use in your story.
#2 Go to the first scene where you introduce a new character. See if there are any instances where you could turn a telling phrase into one of description.
#3 Look through one of your keeper books and find a description of a character that does double duty. If you don't mind, post it here.
