People and Faces: Mick Keelty's Potato Face
The following is a description of Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty from an Australian Magazine (6 May 2006) profile by Cameron Stewart.
If Keelty is concerned by the public's lack of gratitude, he keeps it close to his chest. But then Keelty rarely betrays his private feelings, at least in public. He wears his somber, pale, Irish-potato face like a mask. When he smiles, it is usually only fleeting. The only clue to what is going on in -Keelty's head is found in his eyes, which light up when he talks about a topic dear to his heart. He rarely loses his cool. "He is a very calm person," says Dennis Richardson, former ASIO chief and now Australia's ambassador in Washington DC. "Mick is simply a straight shooter and that is a quality which is quite important."
The movement in this paragraph goes from an aspect of the subject's personality ("rarely betrays his private feelings ") to the physical expression of that trait ("wears his somber, pale, Irish-potato face like a mask") then circles back to personality ("rarely loses his cool") and finishes off with a third party confirmatory quote.
This is an example of how good description works in feature writing to enliven and deepen the portrait. The quote from Dennis Richardson is a typical feature quote: a friend or colleague is called upon to describe a key personality trait. However Stewart, gives the stock quote a greater life by placing it in the context of this descriptive paragraph.
Both the quote and the description serve important purposes. While the description gives the quote a context and adds depth, the quote anchors the paragraph by completing the circle and introducing a third party to confirm or give weight to the writer's observations.
