So, you thought maybe facial features don’t matter in writing? Like, who cares if the character has a sharp jawline or lips shaped like Meagan Good’s or Scarlett Johansson’s? Wrong. I can assure you that facial features and expressions are the backbone (to a person’s face, lol—yes, I said backbone for facial features. Moving on).
Think about it: facial features are the first thing we notice when we meet someone. They’re how we recognise family resemblances, how we read emotion, and how we decide in half a second whether a stranger feels trustworthy, terrifying, or swoon-worthy. Take me for instance, I have my father’s Jackson 5 nostrils and so do everyone of my siblings, all 12 of us. If the kid doesn’t come out with our Beals’ nose, chances are, dear old daddy isn’t the father and someone is telling stories. In writing? Same thing. Facial features don’t just decorate your character. They define them.
Why Writers Struggle With Facial Features
Do not fall into the trap.
Some writers skip features altogether, leaving their cast looking like blurred NPCs (Non-Player Character). Other writers tend to drown us in over-description (“her almond eyes were wide under her heart-shaped brows that arched like the Eiffel Tower…”), seriously, we do not need all that. And many forget the most important part: facial features aren’t static—they move, they emote, they carry culture and story. Do not be one of those writers that skip over the facial features with their characters.
This is why learning to write them with purpose is so important.
Why Facial Features Are the Backbone of Your Character
- They’re emotional billboards. Brows furrow. Lips tremble. Nostrils flare. A jaw tightens. You can show conflict or attraction without writing a single “she felt” sentence.
- They carry heritage. A Jackson 5 nose, high cheekbones from a grandmother, a scar running through an eyebrow—features ground your character in family, culture, and history.
- They build attraction or tension. That smirk? That jawline? That “storm-broken” nose? Romance and fantasy thrive on these details.
- They make faces memorable. Characters without distinctive features blur together. But give one arched brows sharp enough to kill, or lips bitten raw from nervousness, and they stick in the reader’s mind.
Eyebrows: Your Character’s Unspoken Sass in Facial Features
Eyebrows are like free punctuation on your character’s face. They rise, fall, knit, arch and suddenly you’ve told your reader everything about the mood without one adverb. In our modern culture, brows are statement pieces (shout out to makeup artists everywhere). Arched, feathered, straight, and bold. Eyebrows can literally make someone angelic or troll-like. Especially us females, we take quite pride and time shaping our brows. Or maybe your character doesn’t shape or pluck/wax them at all.
Lips & Mouths: Where Emotion Break Through the Facial Features
A mouth is never just decoration. It’s the battlefield of expression: smirks, pouts, bitten lips, trembling words. It’s also intimacy central—every romance novel knows this. Describing lips with precision (not clichés) can create either mystery or desire. Take my lips, for instance. Fully rounded, always carrying that warm smile shape—even when I’m not smiling. They promise the kind of moments that stick in your memory vault, the ones you replay like a favorite song at 2 a.m. And let’s not play games, Meagan Good and Scarlett Johansson can sit in the back row. These lips? They own center stage.
Facial features aren’t just decoration. They speak before you do. Lips, brows, noses—they move, they tell, they seduce. And if you’re not using them that way in your writing, your characters are flat.
The Nose: The Family Stamp
The nose is the center stage of the face. It’s cultural, personal, and often the most debated. From a proud Jackson 5 nose to a storm-broken fighter’s nose, it tells you who someone is before they speak. In romance, it’s where kisses and nuzzles linger. In fantasy, it’s often scarred, broken, or marked with pride. Ignore the nose, and you ignore identity itself.
Ears: The Hidden Storytellers
Don’t sleep on earlobes. For warriors, fighters, fae, and supernaturals, ears carry the proof of survival—torn lobes, stretched piercings, burned edges, ritual markings. They may twitch in nerves or burn red with shame. What you do with them can add whole layers of culture and conflict.
Learn How To Write & Make Sense of Dialogues
Why This Matters for You as a Writer
Facial features aren’t optional extras you slap on to make a character “look pretty” or “look tough.” They ground your characters in the reality of your novel. When you give someone a nose that’s proud of their heritage, lips that could hypnotize, or brows that arch like they know a secret, you’re telling your reader, this is a person you’re going to remember. You don’t have to spend paragraphs describing every detail—pick the right ones, the ones that carry weight, and let them do the talking.
Facial features also add layers without saying a word. A twitching brow, a quivering jaw, a smirk that doesn’t reach the eyes—they all convey emotion, tension, or desire in a way words sometimes can’t. Want your character to feel confident? Let their jawline set the stage. Want them to feel vulnerable? Show a trembling lip or a reddening ear. It’s subtle, but it works.
And don’t forget culture, ancestry, and story. That Jackson 5 nose isn’t just a shape—it’s a signature, a badge, a detail that says where someone comes from without having to write an entire backstory. Scars on a warrior’s nose or earlobes aren’t just injuries; they’re proof of survival, proof that your character has lived and fought and come out the other side.
When you start thinking about faces this way, suddenly your characters stop being background extras. They breathe, they move, they seduce, they provoke—all without a single expository paragraph. And that, my dear Writer Bestie, is the kind of writing that sticks in a reader’s head long after they’ve closed the book.
Want the Ultimate Facial Features Vault?
I’ve built a Facial Features Booklet just for writers like you. Inside, you’ll find:
- Shape + texture breakdowns (for brows, lips, noses, ears, and more).
- 21st-century metaphors that don’t sound like dusty Victorian leftovers.
- Romance + warrior/fantasy layers to fit any genre.
- Cultural references that help you write respectfully and richly.
Stop writing blur-faced characters. Start writing faces that readers remember.
Grab the Facial Features Booklet here and level up your character descriptions today.
Before You Click Off
Facial features aren’t optional extras. They’re the soul of a character’s outward expression, the stories etched into bone and skin, the bridges between reader and character. Ignore them, and your people become shadows. Use them well, and your characters breathe.
Looking For Daily Tips On Writing? Follow Us On Tiktok
Stay faithful, stay quirky, and stay writing.
With love and fire,
V.S. Beals
Writer. Watchwoman. Woman of the Word.
Leave a Comment