THE WRITING CHEAT CODE MANUAL

Chapter 11: the trick to describing eye color

The trick is to know WHEN to describe the eye color.

1. If the character of focus is standing far away from the viewing character, it definitely won't make sense to describe the eye color unless;

(a): your viewer is short sighted
(b): the character of focus has unusually a vivid/attractive eye color like red glowing eyes, yellow piercing cat eyes or black eyes (this especially comes in handy when writing paranormal genres)

2. The listing format can get boring.

This is whereby you're introducing the new character and you list of his physical attributes like a grocery check list.

For example:

'I turned around coming face to face with Lala. She was tall with brown hair (check!), blue eyes (check!) and tanned skin( check!)'

Think about how many books you've read that have applied technique. A lot, right?

Now if you want to be original or a little bit more creative with character eye descriptions you can;

(a): add more aesthetic value to their eye color by contrasting it to nature.

'His grey eyes darkened like the raging sky on a stormy night.'

- this sounds more intriguing, right? And you've attached some emotional aspect to his eyes, by contrasting human rage to mother nature's most raging phenomenon. Storms.

(b): add emotional value to your characters eyes.

'When his grandfather, farmer Luke, died we watched on at the funeral as Nathan's grieving blue eyes watered, willing out the streams of tears that would later paint the landscape. For the skies too mourned the loss of the man who had worshipped them to the end.'

-here we can feel the sadness and painful emotional loss that cuts across two characters who share the same color. The sky and Nate's eyes are both blue, but to bring out the emotional aspect, we pinned death to the story to make them both 'cry' so to speak.

That's just a few ideas I had in mind.
If you have any ideas on this topic, leave a comment and I'll add it to the list & give you credit for it!