Legs, legs, my kingdom for a decent description of a pair of legs!

[Tarakan]

Dear All,

Has anyone seen a really, really good description of a pair of womens's legs?

Ploughing through my thesaurus I find the usual suspects e.g. 'curvaceous', 'shapely', 'long'. I rather like balletic, and sinewy, but has anyone seen a really killer decsription?

I don't wish to steal, but I am losing patience with myself writing similar (lame) descriptions. As they are such a wonderful part of a women's anatoma and play a large role in my writing, they deserve better!


All the best,


Tarakan

 

[minsue]

It really depends on the body type of the woman you're describing, though, doesn't it? Personally, I'm partial to "sleek" as a description for the type of slender, toned legs that a dancer would have. (which I assume you're referring to with balletic & sinewy)

 

[Weird Harold]

Dear All,

Has anyone seen a really, really good description of a pair of womens's legs?

Yes aand no.

I've seen outstanding descriptions of parts of a woman's legs that added up to a description of her legs.

I haven't seen any "Really, Really good" description that was about the legs as a single piece.

Well, there was:

I had to go over and investigate this dame; she had stolen Sid Charise's legs and was parading them around like a trophy.

But that only works for a) old farts like me who know who Sid Charise is and b) a bad pulp-fiction detective story.

 

[hydrex]

Maybe a short view of the paragraph or sentence you want to use the phrase in will help. Supple is good though not always for legs. Athletic is ok. Extrodinary might work as well but that's probably used a lot as well.

 

[hydrex]

Yes aand no.

I've seen outstanding descriptions of parts of a woman's legs that added up to a description of her legs.

I haven't seen any "Really, Really good" description that was about the legs as a single piece.

Well, there was:

I had to go over and investigate this dame; she had stolen Sid Charise's legs and was parading them around like a trophy.

But that only works for a) old farts like me who know who Sid Charise is and b) a bad pulp-fiction detective story.

Speaking of Sid Charise, what about gams?

 

[Tarakan]

How about this....

Here is a passage...


The Lamborghini Diablo’s silver metallic paintwork sparkled in the Florentine sunshine. The Countess walked through the VIP lounge towards the parking lot, her long red hair dancing in the strong breeze. Her high heels tapped a sensual rhythm on the marble floor of the airport foyer. Catching sight of a speck of blood on her silver stiletto, she stopped. With a handkerchief taken from her Dior bag, she bent at the waist and removed the offending mark. As she bent, the sun's rays caught the nylon of her stockings and they shimmered, highlighting the fine curvature of her calves and thighs. The duty valet, unprepared for what he saw gulped. He stood motionless, hexed and bewitched. The tall redhead wearing a short leather skirt and fuck me pumps bent over, allowing him an unrestricted view of her long, balletic legs sheathed in sheer flesh tone hose. Tantalizingly, her skirt rode high above her lacy welts revealing milky white thighs and a white lace triangle stretched across her pudendum. The Countess looked around and catching his stare, winked. The valet fumbled for her car keys, trying not to look as casually, she ran her fingers over her legs, checking the red seams against her shapely calves and thighs. Content with her examination, the Countess brazenly raised her skirt higher and pulled her stocking tops taut against her skin, refastening them to her red suspenders. Like a rabbit caught in headlights, the valet’s eyes stayed glued to her legs. Satisfied, the Countess smoothed down her skirt and walked toward the valet. He jumped in surprise when she grabbed his cock and balls......


Tarakan

 

[Weird Harold]

...allowing him an unrestricted view of her long, balletic legs sheathed in sheer flesh tone hose.

I'm guessing this is where you need better description?

I'd replace "balletic" (which isn't a real word anyway) with "ballet dancer's," "dancer's," or "showgirl" in that context.

 

[Tarakan]

Thanks...

Weird Harold,

Thanks for your help.

I think I will either stick with balletic - adj : characteristic of or resembling or suitable for ballet - or lose it. Anything else and the desription beomes heavy and doesn't flow.

I think I am looking for the Holy Grail!!

Tarakan.

 

[herecomestherain]

Just a thought -- with the other references you have to the shapliness of her legs I wonder if you need balletic at all, balletic also conjurs up images of dance rather than legs to me. Pudendum makes me giggle. Sorry if that's not very helpful, just seems you could be in danger over describing a pair of legs. The descriptions you have already create a picture of a fine pair of "pins"

 

[Tarakan]

Point taken,,

Over 'legging the pudding' so to speak...

I agree with you, pudendum sounds clinical - pubis or sex would be better.

Too many leg adjectives.

It is helpful what a second pair of eyes can see!

Tarakan.

 

[Weird Harold]

I agree with you, pudendum sounds clinical - pubis or sex would be better.

A thought to consider: Just what POV is this description coming from?

It's third person omniscient POV narration, but is the narrator always such a pompous, anal retentive, detail oriented narrator with a big vocabulary?

However It seems that the narrator is describing what the valet sees and a typical valet parking attendant probably wouldn't notice name brands -- except for being able to recite the performance specs for the Lamborgini -- and would be as likely think of the "Countess" as "the rich bitch" or "the classy broad" as he would by her title or name (if he knows it.) He'd also use common or slang terms for body parts.

A stuffy pompous narrator (Perhaps the Countess' status conscious hisband or boyfriend) might well use clinical terms and notice things like designer labels, but a lower class working stiff like a parking valet likely wouldn't except where his own interests dictate.

Who is describing something is often more important to the style of descriptions than what is being described.

 

[Tarakan]

Interesting....

Definately third person omnicient.

I don't want to involve the thoughts of either the Countess, or the Valet at this point in the story.

I am intrigued that you think the narrator anally retentive? Does anyone else see this? I could accept detail orientated if it got in the way of the 'feel' and made the piece laborious to read.

I was hoping the narrator was simply setting the scene with a bit of colour, and pandering to men who like legs!

Anyone got any thoughts?

Tarakan

 

[Weird Harold]

I am intrigued that you think the narrator anally retentive?

I was hoping the narrator was simply setting the scene with a bit of colour, and pandering to men who like legs!

It's not the description of the legs that gives the impression of an "anal retentive narrator" it's the emphasis on Designer Labels and Cost/Quality in the rest of the descriptions.

If I had to put a name to your Narrator from just that story-fragment, It would be either "Biff, the Snobby Rich Elitist" or "Clive, the Stuffy Self-important Butler" -- both being largely anal-retentive stereotypes.

If that's the "voice" you intended, it works well. If it it's not what you intended...

 

[GrammarGoddess]

I had to go over and investigate this dame; she had stolen Sid Charise's legs and was parading them around like a trophy.

Nice.

 

[Weird Harold]

Nice.

Sadly, it's stolen (approximately) from a pulp-fiction detective story I read many years ago and no my original work.

 

[Captain Midnight]

Slight correction

As far as I know, the actress-dancer spells her first name as "Cyd."

The last I know of her was a guest shot on that port of last call for so many old-time actors, Murder, She Wrote, sometime in the late eighties or early nineties. She still looked mighty good.

 

[MerelyMim]

quick edit and commentary, also on descriptions

Catching sight of a speck of blood on her silver stiletto, she stopped. With a handkerchief taken from her Dior bag, she bent at the waist and removed the offending mark. As she bent, the sun's rays caught the nylon of her stockings and they shimmered, highlighting the fine curvature of her calves and thighs. The duty valet, unprepared for what he saw[INSERT: comma] gulped.

Note the added comma to "The duty valet..." sentence. The last sentence can also be simplified. Shorter more to-the-point sentences can increase the impact of your words as well as their elegance and flow.-- Example: The duty valet, unprepared, gulped. -- We are pretty sure what the duty valet saw, unless he was surprised by a mischievious squirrel on the sidelines. Remember that commas break up sentences, especially when used in a sentence like the "The duty valet ...".

Another thing to keep in mind here would be the placement of the "unprepared" phrase. It may sound fancier to have the phrase break up your sentence, but would it make a better impact on the reader if you changed it to something like: The duty valet gulped, unprepared for what he saw. This sentence gets the reader right to the point while not sacrificing your florid prose.

The original version of the sentence is also acceptable if you add the other comma, but you might want to consider toying with the structures I suggest as you continue to write.

He stood motionless, hexed and bewitched.

Hexed and bewitched are synonyms. You should not use words with such similar meanings in a list like this, it is repetative. Don't use two words where one would suffice. If you wish the keep the descriptive list, go for words which describe two different aspects of his enchantment. Perhaps a word that covers physical feeling and another which covers his emotional reaction.

The tall redhead wearing a short leather skirt and fuck me pumps bent over, allowing him an unrestricted view of her long, balletic legs sheathed in sheer flesh tone hose. Tantalizingly, her skirt rode high above her lacy welts revealing milky white thighs and a white lace triangle stretched across her pudendum.

And finally we get to the meat. One thing that might help in providing compelling descriptions is to make sure you are thinking with more than one sense. I think for a leg description touch would be a good one to focus on in addition to sight, but you would not go amiss to mention her scent either. Scent is very powerful. Writing good descriptions is a very challenging part of writing, and two of the tools at your disposal to ease the burden are metaphors and similies. Do not underestimate these tools as many of the best writers use them to make descriptions more visceral.

You describe her stocking in greater detail later but you may want to switch in that description earlier, since I don't think "welts" really implies what you wanted. I admit I had to look up "welt" in this context but what I found was not very helpful:

welt n.

1. A strip, as of leather or other material, stitched into a shoe between the sole and the upper.
2. A tape or covered cord sewn into a seam as reinforcement or trimming.

Later you use the phrase "red seams" to describe either the fasteners on a garter belt, or the seam which follows the curve of her leg on old-style silk stockings. Of course, if it was a stocking seam, it shouldn't be red.
Regardless, I would say the section where you go into detail on her legs as the relate to her clothers is a little amibugous and should be given a bit more attention.

He jumped in surprise when she grabbed his cock and balls......

Now this does not fit your high-brow style at all. "Grabbed his cock and balls." You change your style as soon as we hit the juicy part. You go from writing with a thesaurus to using street slang. If you want to make this shift on purpose, you should try to make it seem more delibrate. Right now the shift in language seems more like an oversight than a stylistic choice.

One of the problems you run across here is the fact that you are writing with a Thesaurus, they are not perfect tools, oftening offering words that don't quite fit what you want. Writing with a thesaurus can also make one's writing seem pedantic and prolix, thereby leading the reader to feel somewhat alienated from the narrator -- as some others have pointed out in their comments thus far.

My advice on descriptions, if it got lost in the clutter of other comments, is as follows: appeal to more than one physical sense and use metaphors/similies.

Above all this story is your creation; if you dont find my suggestions helpful, don't listen to them.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I've been looking for good leg descriptions for a long time too, and they're hard to come by. My best descriptions come when I'm writing as Matt Danger, my seedy, noir, BDSM detective, who gets to use all that wiseguy gumshoe hyperbola.

"Her legs were a pair of lethal weapons."

I've used "lethal" in other stories too to describe legs. "Long, lean, and lethal" is another Matt Danger description

I've also played with a scissors simile: "She stood there with the headlights shining through her skirt so I could see everything. Her legs were parted like the blades of a scissors." or "Her legs scissored across the tile floor."

Matt again: "She was all legs, tits, and ass, except for that wide, red mouth."
"Legs like stilettos"

"Smooth and sinuous feminine musculature" leaves a nice taste in the mouth too.

I've checked other authors, mosty pulp detetctive guys from the 40's, and they seem to concentrate on the thinness of the ankles. That might just be their avoidance of anything risque, but it also seemed to be a standard device, to talk about her curves and her thin ankles.

I tend to stick with the 'l' words: long, lean, lethal, lithe, lissom. But you're right, it's very hard to come up with a good one- or two-word description or simple metaphor.

---dr.M.

 

[shereads]

I've been looking for good leg descriptions for a long time too, and they're hard to come by. My best descriptions come when I'm writing as Matt Danger, my seedy, noir, BDSM detective, who gets to use all that wiseguy gumshoe hyperbola.

"Her legs were a pair of lethal weapons."

I've used "lethal" in other stories too to describe legs. "Long, lean, and lethal" is another Matt Danger description

I've also played with a scissors simile: "She stood there with the headlights shining through her skirt so I could see everything. Her legs were parted like the blades of a scissors." or "Her legs scissored across the tile floor."

Matt again: "She was all legs, tits, and ass, except for that wide, red mouth."
"Legs like stilettos"

"Smooth and sinuous feminine musculature" leaves a nice taste in the mouth too.

I've checked other authors, mosty pulp detetctive guys from the 40's, and they seem to concentrate on the thinness of the ankles. That might just be their avoidance of anything risque, but it also seemed to be a standard device, to talk about her curves and her thin ankles.

I tend to stick with the 'l' words: long, lean, lethal, lithe, lissom. But you're right, it's very hard to come up with a good one- or two-word description or simple metaphor.

---dr.M.

\

Have you tried, "she skittered across the linoleum like a two-legged spider"?

 

[GrammarGoddess]

\

Have you tried, "she skittered across the linoleum like a two-legged spider"?

hmmm. . .for some reason that puts the image of that mechanical spider from the Will Smith movie "Wild Wild West" in my head.

 

[FatherMuck]

I quite like "Caramel limbs" at the moment. That's a Nick Cave reference if you were wondering. Not leg specific though.

*Note waste of a first post*