Not every character in a story needs to be striking. Sometimes the most useful person on the page is the one who blends in — the coworker, the neighbor, the stranger on the train — and writing that ordinariness convincingly is its own skill. Describe an average person too vaguely and they vanish from the reader’s mind entirely; describe them too vividly and they stop reading as average at all. The trick is finding details specific enough to feel real but unremarkable enough to stay in the background. Below are the techniques for striking that balance, each with examples you can study and adapt.
How to Describe an Average Person in Writing
#1. Resist the Urge to Make Them Remarkable
The instinct to give every character a striking feature works against you when the goal is ordinariness. An average person’s description should feel like something you’d forget five minutes after meeting them — plain, functional, unmemorable in the way most people actually are.
He had the kind of face you’d struggle to describe an hour after meeting him, pleasant enough but built from no single memorable feature.
She wore her hair the same practical length it had probably been since college, neither styled nor neglected.
Nothing about his build asked for a second look — average height, average weight, the kind of frame that filled a doorway without needing to duck.
#2. Use Details That Blend Rather Than Stand Out
Choose specific details that are common rather than unique — a haircut everyone has, a jacket everyone owns, a car everyone drives. Specificity still matters for believability, but the details should read as generic within their category, not as personal signatures.
He drove the same silver sedan half the parking lot seemed to own, and twice he’d tried the wrong car door by mistake.
Her cardigan was the exact shade of beige sold in every department store that season, indistinguishable from a dozen others in the room.
His haircut looked like it had been copied from a barber’s laminated price sheet rather than chosen for any particular reason.
#3. Show Them Through Habit and Routine
An average person often reveals themselves through repetition — the same order at the same coffee shop, the same commute, the same seat at the same table. Routine signals a life lived without much disruption, which is often exactly the effect you want.
He ordered the same coffee every morning, in the same voice, to the same barista who no longer needed to ask.
She parked in the same spot every day out of habit rather than assignment, three spaces from the door, always three.
His lunch break ran from 12:15 to 12:45 without fail, timed less by the clock than by decades of doing it that way.
#4. Let Ordinariness Reveal Itself in Contrast
Placing an average person beside someone more distinctive sharpens the effect of their plainness without requiring extra description. The contrast does the work, letting the reader register “unremarkable” instantly by comparison.
Next to his sister’s loud laugh and louder clothes, he was easy to overlook, which seemed to suit him fine.
She stood at the edge of the group photo, the only face nobody would be asked to identify later.
Beside the man in the expensive coat, he looked exactly like what he was — someone who took the bus.
#5. Use Understated Clothing and Presentation
What a character wears communicates effort, or the lack of it, more efficiently than almost any other detail. An average person’s wardrobe tends to prioritize function and convention over expression, which is worth showing directly.
Her clothes were clean, ironed, and utterly forgettable, chosen for comfort rather than any particular impression.
He owned exactly one suit, worn to weddings, funerals, and the occasional job interview, and it fit him well enough not to need thinking about.
She’d bought the same brand of sneakers for fifteen years, replacing them the moment the soles wore thin and never once considering another option.
#6. Give Them Unremarkable, Believable Flaws
Small, mundane imperfections — a slightly crooked smile, a habit of mumbling, a tendency to overexplain — make an average character feel human without making them distinctive enough to stand out. These flaws should be the kind most people have and few people notice.
He had a habit of repeating the last few words of whatever someone said to him, as if buying time to think of a response.
Her handwriting had never improved past the point it stalled at in middle school, cramped and slightly uneven no matter how carefully she tried.
He laughed a half-second late at jokes, always catching up to the punchline just after everyone else already had.
#7. Use Dialogue That Sounds Unscripted
The way an average person talks — filler words, small hesitations, unremarkable opinions — can do as much to establish ordinariness as physical description. Dialogue that sounds too polished or too quotable works against the effect.
“I don’t know, it’s fine, I guess,” he said, the way he answered most questions that asked for more than he wanted to give.
She talked mostly about the weather and traffic, filling silences with the same small observations everyone else made.
“Same as always,” he said when asked how he was, a phrase that had answered the question for the better part of a decade.
#8. Let the Ordinary Person Become Extraordinary Through Action
Sometimes the point of writing an average person is to set up a contrast later — an ordinary life interrupted by an extraordinary event. Establishing their plainness early makes any deviation from it land with more impact, since the reader has a clear baseline to measure the change against.
Nothing about him had ever suggested he’d be the one to pull the child from the water, least of all to himself.
She’d spent thirty years being the least noticeable person in any room, which made it stranger still that she was the only one who’d noticed the fire in time.
He looked like a man who’d never made a difficult decision in his life, right up until the moment he made the hardest one anyone in that building would make that year.
#9. Avoid Cliché Descriptions of “Average”
Phrases like “he was an ordinary-looking man” or “nothing about her stood out” are themselves a kind of shortcut, and overusing them flattens the writing instead of the character. Show ordinariness through specific, grounded detail rather than naming it outright.
His tie was the same navy blue as half the ties on the train that morning, chosen, like most of his choices, to avoid being chosen at all.
She kept a granola bar in her bag out of habit rather than hunger, the same brand she’d been buying since she couldn’t remember why.
He nodded along in meetings at the same intervals as everyone else, contributing just enough to be counted present.
Closing Thoughts
Writing an average person well means trusting restraint — specific enough to feel real, plain enough to stay in the background, and grounded in routine and habit rather than striking features. Done carefully, an ordinary character can anchor a story just as effectively as a remarkable one, and sometimes their very unremarkableness becomes the most powerful tool in the scene.