You’ve seen me complain about characters who are given no physical description. Here is an author who knows how to do it right:
[The] man so exactly suited the image of the funeral director that he could have been playing the part. There was, of course, the obligatory dark suit and somber tie. But the very way he stood seemed to suggest that he was apologising for having to be there. His hands were clasped together in a gesture of profound regret. His face was crumpled, mournful, not helped by hair that had thinned to the edge of baldness and a beard that had the look of a failed experiment. He wore tinted spectacles that were sinking into the bridge of his nose, not just framing his eyes but masking them. He was about forty years old. He too was smiling.
Anthony Horowitz, The Word Is Murder, p. 3
That last line is the master stroke.
Out of Babel 
Character stuff is what I’m trying to focus on improving. It’s def not easy!
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Definitely not. If I had written a paragraph like this, I’d feel as if I was over-writing, but yet, in this mystery novel, it works perfectly and doesn’t bore the reader at all.
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The piece that doesn’t fit is what makes a character interesting.
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Yes.
The paragraph before, the funeral director was ushered into the room by his smiling assistant. Hence, “He too was smiling.” Besides adding a touch of incongruity, it brings us back into the practical part of the action.
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I’ll have to remember that, just a quick phrase to take us from appearance observation to the present moment.
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That’s pretty good.
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