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Thoughts on character descriptions?

I don't have a set formula beyomd hair color and possibly race, which I will reveal one way or another. I will mention body type, but usually not with specificity. Height and weight are sometimes mentioned, sometimes not. Never a bra size, but cup size has shown up occasionally. Dress size once or twice. I'm not a subscriber to the "let the reader insert their own fantasy" theory, but I don't bog the story down with a wanted poster list of details, either. It all depends on the story and my inspiration for writing it.
 
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Valint said:
Also, the more characters you have, the more incumbent I think it is on the author to keep them distinct. If, for example, you're doing one of those "guy rescues five college students who he will inevitably have sex with" kind of stories, then you probably need to spend time at the beginning giving at least a capsule description (hair color/body type/some evident personality trait) of everyone to help the reader keep them straight.
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I can't remember what the movie was, but I was watching a director's commentary a while back, and the director mentioned that he tried to give each character some visually distinctive feature so the audience could tell them apart. I struggle with faces, so this was FANTASTIC for me.

In fiction, it doesn't need to be a visual element, but there needs to be something.
 
Bramblethorn said:
I can't remember what the movie was, but I was watching a director's commentary a while back, and the director mentioned that he tried to give each character some visually distinctive feature so the audience could tell them apart. I struggle with faces, so this was FANTASTIC for me.

In fiction, it doesn't need to be a visual element, but there needs to be something.
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I'm working on an incest story where two families hook-up together. I gave everyone in one family a name that starts with the letter K as a way to make it clear, "Oh yeah, so now he's boning the other dude's sister. Right!"
 
BuckyDuckman said:
Saying something like:
He went down on her well-waxed pussy​
That informs the reader whose pussy he's eating without repeating a name. Can be very helpful for crowded group scenes.
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As opposed to, say, his well-waxed pussy? I can see that would confuse people. :D
 
TarnishedPenny said:
As opposed to, say, his well-waxed pussy? I can see that would confuse people. :D
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Maybe only one female character had a well-waxed pussy, so that made it explicit. That also means that the author already described all of the women's pussy's.

I suspect that something went awry here.

I try to avoid situations where physical descriptions are confusing. Who? Did what? With what?

Those aren't questions that I want my readers to ask.
 
Just as an example of a case where I do think it's appropriate to start off with a description:

The story I'm working on now starts right out of the gate with a fairly detailed description* of the female main character. The context is, she's looking at herself in a mirror, and the narrator's "objective" description of what she sees does not jibe with what she feels about it. In short, she has "body issues". How she will overcome them, with the assistance of her male lover in the story (who finds her beautiful) will be the motivation for the story's action.

* But no bra sizes, ever!
 
I'm trying to write a story, not talk to a police profiler. I give what I think is enough description to give an idea their brain can work with. "She bent over, baring a hefty butt;" you know she has enough butt that there's still some there bent over. I don't know about yall, but I don't just know a womans breast size when I first meet her, when the shirt comes of they'll be smaller than I though, or if I'm lucky, bigger. Some cup sizes are basically the same, like an Fcup might be the same as a DDD. I might say they're full, so you know she at least has some. Unless there's extremes or it's point of the story, I don't give a lot of details, like say a fat fetish story or a focused character. I think I might have written stuff with no descriptions at all.
 
Well I guess I'll jump in with my two cents worth then...

When I read, if the description is too detailed, I hit the back button, quickly. Even if the description is not right up front I will hit the back button no matter how far I am into the story. I know that when the write puts things like she was DDD that is what he likes, not his readers. When a guy has a 10" cock, that's what the writer wishes he had. Back button.

Leave it to my imagination. Please.

When I write, I try to give just enough info for the reader to fill in the blanks with what he/she likes to see/imagine. I might give them hair color, eye color and sweet or sexy or slutty a woman looks. A guy might have an impressive cock, I never give dimensions of him or her. She had breast that fit nicely into my hand. Her pussy will be spectacular.

I let the reader decide how big her breast are, how big the guys cock is. Isn't that what a story is about, letting the reader imagine ... see what the character looks like in their mind?
 
I think some description is good, especially if it humanizes the character. I always turn off when everyone is chiseled and 6-foot-four with a monster between his legs.
More subtle, specific and realistic traits probably resonate more for people.

Past that I think less is more. I generally think readers grab onto maybe one or two facets of a description, then assign their own imagination to the rest of it.
 
rebel_code said:
Just as an example of a case where I do think it's appropriate to start off with a description:

The story I'm working on now starts right out of the gate with a fairly detailed description* of the female main character. The context is, she's looking at herself in a mirror, and the narrator's "objective" description of what she sees does not jibe with what she feels about it. In short, she has "body issues". How she will overcome them, with the assistance of her male lover in the story (who finds her beautiful) will be the motivation for the story's action.

* But no bra sizes, ever!
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I've used "the girl in the mirror" a few of times. Some people say they find it contrived but I think it works in the right context, as long as it's not overdone.
 
Since I tend to have large casts of characters where just tossing out names and a couple details might not be much of a refresher and really like painting a picture for readers, I like using character descriptions. I'll try to keep them to a modest paragraph's length and get them out of the way early, though, so there are no surprises. I totally understand and respect the "leaving it to the audience's imagination" technique, but it's never really jived with my own writing.
 
Ever thought of invoking the power of character having a distinctive trait that is brought into play early in the story in a significant way but not revealed until later? Just suggesting there are a multitude of ways to effectively deal with this in fiction.
 
If you are going to front-load character descriptions, please give the occasional reminder of who looks like what throughout the rest of the story. I started reading what ended up being a 16 or 20+ chapter story where all of the characters were described physically in chapter 1 and never again throughout. I stopped reading somewhere around 5 in frustration...

And if you are going to spread out main character attributes over a few pages, don't take too long, or we could get a different image in our heads that contradicts what you were aiming for. Putting a lot of plot between leggy, busty, and blonde, or short, flat, and brunette, we start thinking one way and then read another and it can take me a long time to switch over to the new descriptions you are giving us.
 
If you aren't going to use specific character attributes in your story, you might consider not giving them at all.
 
KeithD said:
Ever thought of invoking the power of character having a distinctive trait that is brought into play early in the story in a significant way but not revealed until later? Just suggesting there are a multitude of ways to effectively deal with this in fiction.
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Can you expand on that? I'd be interested in an example.
 
LightningSeed said:
I think some description is good, especially if it humanizes the character. I always turn off when everyone is chiseled and 6-foot-four with a monster between his legs.
More subtle, specific and realistic traits probably resonate more for people.

Past that I think less is more. I generally think readers grab onto maybe one or two facets of a description, then assign their own imagination to the rest of it.
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Except for the "chisled," I resemble that remark.
 
Bramblethorn said:
Can you expand on that? I'd be interested in an example.
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Kelsey Grammar's character in the comedy Down Periscope. It's revealed early on that he has a tattoo on his tallywacker. As if that's not bad enough, there's something inappropriate about it. Many of the characters seem to know about the tattoo, but the great fun comes later in the movie when you find out the tattoo apparently says, "Welcome aboard!"

In the movie Animal House, one of the pledges is given the name Pinto because of an unfortunate accident with tar that left his manhood permanently stained like the spots on a pinto. (Think horse, not car.)

Similarly, there's an episode of the TV sitcom Cheers where Norm and Cliff squirm uncomfortably for inexplicable reasons after an all-night bender. After searching their pockets, they find a receipt for a tattoo studio. In a panic, they dart into the restroom and learn they have tattoos on their butts. Extra humor is added when it's revealed Cliff received the tattoo of Norm's wife and Norm received a tattoo of the USPS, where Cliff famously worked.
 
Bramblethorn said:
Can you expand on that? I'd be interested in an example.
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I've done it and read it. If I can readily surface an existing example, I'll do so, but I write too much to keep every story in my mind and I don't retain what I've read as individually discernible for very long, so maybe nothing will surface. I do have it in my bag of "maybe we'll do this with this one" techniques, though.

A theoretical example would be a woman introduced by example as a little clumsy in a story, a bit more withdrawn and testy than is normal, going spaced out every once in a while, and depicted as not that sympathetic with a friend's troubles with revolving boyfriends and with the friend having a tizzy fit with broken fingernails. Then later in the story, after the reader has been set up to be irritated with her, it's revealed that she had a leg blown off in Afghanistan and is a lot stronger and easier to understand and sympathize with than the reader previously thought. It's an opportunity to pull the readers deep into the story and challenge them to assess their immediate responses. If she had been described at the beginning as having lost a leg in Afghanistan, you'd lose that opportunity. There would be value even in withholding from the reader that she'd served in battle in Afghanistan until later in the story.
 
KeithD said:
I've done it and read it. If I can readily surface an existing example, I'll do so, but I write too much to keep every story in my mind and I don't retain what I've read as individually discernible for very long, so maybe nothing will surface. I do have it in my bag of "maybe we'll do this with this one" techniques, though.

A theoretical example would be a woman introduced by example as a little clumsy in a story, a bit more withdrawn and testy than is normal, going spaced out every once in a while, and depicted as not that sympathetic with a friend's troubles with revolving boyfriends and with the friend having a tizzy fit with broken fingernails. Then later in the story, after the reader has been set up to be irritated with her, it's revealed that she had a leg blown off in Afghanistan and is a lot stronger and easier to understand and sympathize with than the reader previously thought. It's an opportunity to pull the readers deep into the story and challenge them to assess their immediate responses. If she had been described at the beginning as having lost a leg in Afghanistan, you'd lose that opportunity. There would be value even in withholding from the reader that she'd served in battle in Afghanistan until later in the story.
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Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.
 
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