: Re: Is it important to describe how the characters are dressed? One thing that I never mention in my stories is how the characters are dressed. Well, except when they are being described for the

@YK4692630

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Above all, you build an impression.

Your character is a rich cloud of emotions, feelings, attractions, fears, repulsions, desires, cold logic and secrets. This is what really acts upon the reader and interacts with their imagination, "makes the story tick". It all boils down to emotional level, and it's the only level that truly matters.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could mix these like chemicals in a test cylinder to produce just the right mix? But as writers we must use more indirect approach. Especially, "show, don't tell." So you can't tell the reader your character is organized, or rebellious, or sinister, or kind. You must show them. In order to do so, you reach to standard tools in writer's arsenal: events, descriptions, little and big actions.

Clothes can tell a lot about certain traits of character.

Think of a man wearing a suit. Impeccably white, perfectly tailored? Or salmon-colored with overstuffed shoulder pads? Or one grey, clean, ironed, but decades out of fashion, faded and nearly threadbare on the sleeves? One ten numbers too big, and with just bare chest underneath? Shiny golden with pearl patterns? With elaborately mismatched sides, one sleeve white, one black, but the composition not clashing?

That's all some ways to show certain traits of character, be it permanent, or temporary quirks of mood. Say, shirt partially sticking out of trousers, one side of the collar sticking up? Certainly the person didn't pay much attention wearing them, be it to laziness, or to being in a hurry.

Don't think about describing clothes in terms of some duty, to fill some gap. Think it as a neat tool of building character. If you can describe someone's character in a way that entirely skirts the issue of their outer appearance, that's great! You managed not to bore the reader with unnecessary descriptions! Our protagonists tracked effects and actions without ever seeing the character, and now as they learn about his/her name, the readers know the character so thoroughly they just don't need the looks of their clothes.

But more often than not you are forced to introduce the character's first impression in span of half a page or so, and giving them outer looks, including clothes, is the easy, fast, reliable, tested and true method of providing that first impression. It's a very basic tool, and it's not that you "should describe clothes". You should create a compelling, complete first impression that won't leave the reader puzzled and grasping at straws as to who is given character. Giving the description of clothes is a good way to achieve that.

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