Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Describing Faces

Authors Note: I’m sure I missed 1000s of descriptions that can be used on the face. Thus, the first person who finds 20 or more descriptions that I missed and puts them in comments gets this chapter dedicated to them. Please use the find function first to make sure I didn’t bury it in my wall-o-text and specify what body part.

Another issue a lot of authors (myself included) tend to struggle with is the ability to describe facial features. In our brains, it is a lot easier to just describe eye color or hair color rather than trying to describe the contours of one's face. This guide is here to help you more successfully describe people by giving you ideas on how to describe them.

This will not be an easy chapter. Ideally, it would include hundreds of different faces, allowing you to easily visualize what each face actually looks like. Regrettably, I can’t do that. What I can do is break the face down into a couple of categories, then give you key descriptions that fit in each category. If you have trouble imagining what a feature looks like, google it to get an idea.

Face Shape –

The general face shape is occasionally used to describe someone. The common one I’ve heard is a “Heart-shaped face”, simply because it sounds cute and rolls off the tongue well. However, there are a good nine different face shapes you can choose from when describing someone.

There is the heart, the long face (also rectangular), the oval face, a triangle face, a square face (typically described by have a square jaw), a round face, a diamond face, an oblong face (also long), and a pear face.

You can describe the person as having a certain face shape, or you can show their face shape by describing other features. A person with a small face, high cheek bones, and a pointy chin would probably be a heart-shaped face. 

There are also other full face descriptions not part of the 9 types…

Baby-faced, Chiseled, Craggy, Fine, fresh-faced, full-face, furrowed, good-looking, handsome, hatchet-faced, made-up (with make-up), sculpted, seamed, snub-nosed, thin, un-lined, weak, weather-beaten, curved, wrinkled, decrepit.

Nose –

Google Noses and it’s typically agreed there are 14 types of noses. Why 14? I have no clue. But every single site names all 14 with their own unique name of choice. Which is…. Well… silly. If you put someone had a fleshy nose… well, that’s a description I’ve never heard to describe a nose before. Instead, I’ll just give you general descriptions that can associate with noses, and you can match whatever descriptions you want to make up your individuals nose.

Large, Small, Strong, Broad, Straight Bridged, Crooked, Sloped, Curvey, Button, Pointed, Thin, Pug, Aquiline (hooked like a beak), Delicate, Muscular, Broken, Hooked, Petite, Wide, Up-turned, Flat, Sharp, Sloping tip, Bulbous, Pinched, pierced

Nostrils-

Flared, Wide, Small

Cheeks –

Cheeks don’t have nearly as much to describe as a nose, however, unlike a nose, they dictate the rest of the structure. You can’t have someone with high cheek bones and a square face, Its almost contradictory. They also dictate how people will see your character. A person with high cheek bones might be perceived as being more noble, stronger, better. It gives the impression they are happier and more jovial as well.

So how can you describe cheeks? High, Wide, Low, Rosy, apple, pear, and soft. You can also describe them based on emotional descriptions (cute cheeks, beautiful cheek, ect…). But yeah, that’s about all you can get out of cheeks.