Jurai looked at her reflection dancing in the pool of cool water she was relaxing in and saw what most would consider a very beautiful woman. She had a well balanced face with a delicate, slightly upturned nose, prominent cheeks and full lips that rarely smiled these days. Her smooth skin was the color of warm copper and her intense green eyes were topped over by a gracefully arched brow. Her long brown hair had a slight wave and was long enough that it just covered her soft, round breasts. For a moment even Jurai thought that she was beautiful, that is until she noticed the vertically slit serpentine pupils that were encased in those emerald eyes and the tops of her long leathery wings that rose over each shoulder that, when spread out, gave her a wing span of over eleven feet, and standing at 5’10” it was a perfect balance. As if all of that weren’t bad enough she could never forget the four foot long powerful tail hidden beneath the water which was nearly as long as one wing and provided balance while in flight and could even be used as a weapon and could easily smash through a ten inch thick tree.
I'd be a lot more interested in what Jurai thinks of herself (or what others think of her) rather than just a straightforward description of her appearance. There's no emotion, other than the nice hint that she thought for a moment she looked beuatiful. I think you'd be better concentrating on her internal landscape than her external appearance.
You aren't alone in making the mistake of drowning the reader in adjectives. You'll find that this opener is considered one of the "Things to Avoid at All Costs." Opening with adjective-plagued description, particularly when it's a static scene of the character viewing herself, is a sure-fire way to put your reader to sleep. You need to bring some action into the scene, and it's always best to work in the character's description as seen by another character.
One of the things to consider is that character description is completely unnecessary, unless there is a characteristic that affects the plot. If they are lame and can't move around easily, it matters--but the color of their hair does not. You should briefly mention the character has wings and a long tail so your reader knows that, but leave out the details of what the wings look like or what the tail can do until there is action in the story to support it.
Orson Scott Card wrote the entire novel "Saints" without once describing his main character. He was proud of that fact, and took note that readers he talked with reported a strong visual imagery of the character. They were all certain of what she looked like, but whether they thought of her as blonde or brunette was a case of self-identification, which means he was successful in allowing the reader to slip into the role.
Allow your reader some latitude in creating their own visual imagery. You don't need to force your mental picture on them. Spend your words wisely and use them to move the plot forward, which means you should focus on the action, not the description.
[This message has been edited by Elan (edited August 07, 2005).]
I also agree with Lanfear and tchernabyelo that it sounds too much like something from a role play. In this paragraph, you're telling instead of showing us. What I mean is, you can describe Jurai by saying something like: "Frustrated with her appearence, she turned and smashed through a near tree with her tail." That shows us that she has a powerful tail without you having to spend time telling us exactly what the tail looks like and what it can do. It also tells us a little about her character and a little of what she thinks about herself. And like Elan said, unless it's important to the story, we don't need to know hair color, eye color, exact height, etc.
Just remember to show us, not tell us. In other words--like Elan said--focus on action, not description.
Thanks everyone!
I wrote an entire dialog between two characters once, knowing I'd never include it in my story, because I tend to write like an improv actor acts and I needed to know what was said and how the characters thought about that conversation. The affect of the conversation was relevant in the book, not the conversation itself. It was a very useful technique.
Suffice it to say, you can view a sample from my early years as a writer here:
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum11/HTML/001238.html
... to see why loading up on the adjectives makes for poor reading. In a word, my earlier work sucked.