If you describe people, don’t just plop the description down in a long passage and pause the story. I see this a lot in novels. I will be reading along, enjoying the story, and out of the blue, a paragraph or more will fall that stalls the story and tells me - in pinpoint accuracy - the look of a character or what he/she is wearing.
I either cut or suggest that a writer cut out some if not most of these descriptions because many of them are not integral to the story. There is no need to tell the height, weight, etc., of every new person that comes onto the scene, and if it <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">is</span> important, then you want to integrate it into the story seamlessly. There should be a “reason” why the material is pertinent to the story at hand.
For example - bad is plopping a whole paragraph into the story in which you describe someone being overweight simply because that character shows up in your story. Good is while this character is sprinting like an Olympian, you tell us about that character being overweight. The former just <span style="font-style: italic;">tells</span> us information we might not need, but the latter <span style="font-style: italic;">shows</span> us the information in an interesting light, <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> we learn something about the character, too.
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