Worst Writing Fears

I worry that I put too little physical/visual description into my characters. I think my settings are adequately described, if sometimes a little underwhelmingly, but the characters?

Here's the thing: I've read a lot, I mean a whole lot of amateur literature that goes right off the bat with each new character the author talks all about how they look and dress (sometimes down to brands of clothing) and what color their hair is and their shoe size and blah! As a reader, I don't care about every last detail of their wardrobe, I care about what they do and how they interact with others. A book I read a little while ago was in first person and only in the second to last chapter did I even find out what the main character looked like! It was like "By the way, that's what I look like. Long blond hair because I'm Norwegian and this whole story took place is Oslo and you knew that already, and a bushy beard because it helps me quickly change my appearance if the police are after me." That's all. It didn't agree with the mental image I had so far but I don't care because what he does is more important than what he looks like. The note of his appearance only came up because the first-person narrator commented on how his hair was frozen onto his own forehead with sweat, which is more descriptive of the setting than a character visual.

What I try to do is something I see most published authors do, and I'm not sure if I do well: I try to mention a couple of details that signify other personality traits. Attentively curled hair to signify some degree of vanity, dirty fingernails for a comparison of job-doing to self-caring, an impatient stride to show self-importance, wearing a belt and suspenders to show over-cautiousness or secretiveness (seriously, who does that?). Things that might make a reader say "Oh, one of those kinds of people" in response to a visible stereotype. I just think I'm still undershooting it and leaving readers with a hazy mental image of how these people should look.

Spoiler: One short example.

These two are probably the third and fourth most important characters in my story right now, and they get 1.5 sentences of visual description each. Too much or too little? Let me stretch it out a bit.

Let's talk about the woman: her height and weight suggest maybe she was raised as an athlete, certainly not a dainty flower, probably is aware she has a comparatively imposing physique and may not be afraid to try to intimidate some people. Her eye expression is contradictory, so maybe she's a liar, or has some other psychological complexity under the surface. The braid in her hair is foreign (I know where from, but I'm not saying because why should I?), so she's not from around here and may have different values than most other characters. She dresses in upper-class clothing of simple colors, so although she has money she may not particularly enjoy flaunting that fact like a strutting peafowl.

All this from a loose estimate of height and weight, two-word hairstyle (but not color), eye expression, and vague description of clothing. Should a redhead be a more effective leader than a brunette? What if she's African, or Thai, or Eskimo? What if her hair braid is Chinese, or Scandinavian, or Persian, or French? What if she has green eyes, or brown, or one orange and one half-purple-half-magenta? Do any of those things, within a story not about experiencing prejudices or being a foreigner in a new land, have any impact on the story?

On the other hand, wouldn't it be nice to have a casting decision for the movie playing out in your head? There's the balance I think I'm missing.

 

I wonder about my writing being good enough by itself. I come up with crazy funny things in my head (or, at least I think so), but I'm afraid it won't come out good on paper.
If I'm writing a story in English, I always worry about my grammar, even though I learned English by myself and do everything instinctively nowadays...

 

I did want to write a book, but I think my imagination is bad on paper, I also have a handwriting so fucking bad and my time is not much.

 

I hate not finding the exact word I want to use when typing, meaning I feel like I'm not that descriptive as compared to every other author out there.
When I edit, it usually takes me a while to figure out a better word, and sometimes, my "accent" gets the better of me, as I put more slang then what's really needed. Although it's nice for characters that live on the street, it's not the best for a royal king to be talking in slang. XD

 

Well, both us twins are writing and will hopefully publish novels, right now my fears are forgetting ideas that I think of. I'm currently planning out the novel, and since I have to juggle this with school dedications as well, I fear that, during class times, I forget my ideas that I have for the novel.

 

My worst fear is that nobody reads stories anymore.

 

I struggle so much conveying the mood or mannerisms of a character. Half the time I'm inclined to simply roll out endless convos without descriptions getting in the way of the flow.

 

Honestly one of my worst fears is that I'll leave a note I made to myself or an editor's comment in my story when I post it. I've started going ctrl+f for parenthesis before I post things, just because I'm so afraid of doing that.

Aside from that, I'm afraid I'll be too vague about plot points. I like foreshadowing stuff, but I'm afraid I'll make a detail noticible but confusingly vague. The worst thing you can do is leave your reader confused for no reason.

 

I'm afraid of losing motivation, or momentum. It happens a lot where I'll be doing something, but I'll just kinda fade out of it