Describing my main character

My next book, Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor, will be pub­lished ear­ly next year. It is, as they say, in pro­duc­tion. I get the first copy-edit­ed pass this week.

The sto­ry is told by Pete, in the first per­son. Today, I received this note from my editor’s assistant:

“One more thing: Our art direc­tor has asked me for a phys­i­cal descrip­tion of Pete, to give to the jack­et illus­tra­tor. I’m look­ing through the man­u­script and not find­ing any­thing too spe­cif­ic. Would you mind let­ting me know how you pic­ture Pete?”

In oth­er words, though this book has been in my head for some­thing like eight years, active­ly work­ing on it for four years, only now am I required to think (con­scious­ly) what my lead char­ac­ter looks like.

I write back (note: the sto­ry is set in 1951):

“He’s 12 years old, just about to go into his growth spurt. (His best friend, Kat, the girl in the sto­ry, is taller than he is.) But at the moment, his is youth­ful look­ing, not par­tic­u­lar­ly ado­les­cent. Rather inno­cent, in fact, though on the edge of grow­ing old­er. Stands tall. Wants to be tall. No slouch. Wish­es his voice was low­er. I’d bet his hands seem a lit­tle big, like­wise feet, but not his ears. Nose, blunt, round. One or two freck­les on his still round cheeks. His eyes are dark and that is the most intense aspect about him. He looks at things, peo­ple. Curi­ous. He will be tall, (taller than his father) and on the slim side, long faced. (He would like to look like a lean, hard faced movie detective…but won’t, ever.) Black hair. Curly. Not par­tic­u­lar­ly neat in dress or hair. Wears Con­verse sneak­ers. Lumpy vest sweaters his grand­moth­er knits. Col­lared shirts. No t‑shirts to school. Might have a den­im Eisen­how­er jack­et. There is noth­ing ath­let­ic about him—but he enjoys play­ing sports, punch ball, dodge ball, stoop ball—city sports. He’s a read­er, but does not wear eye­glass­es. Kat does. There are not many laughs in the book, but I bet he has a good grin, and he likes jokes. When he is wor­ried, it is obvious.

Will this work?”