Obsidian Bookshelf blog

Fall Into the Sun now available for purchase

2012-01-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

Fall Into the Sun is now available for purchase at both Amazon.com for Kindle and All Romance Ebooks in PDF, EPUB, and PRC, at $2.99 for 41,000 words of contemporary gay romance.

However, there is still time for you to win one of five copies by leaving a comment expressing interest at Chris's blog Stumbling Over Chaos.

(And you can also add the book to your TBR shelf on Goodreads.com).

Fall Into the Sun

2012-01-27T13:43:00.007-07:00

Fall Into the Sun
Contemporary gay romance
Cover Art by Jordan Castillo Price
Wordcount: 41,000 words
Release date: Jan 30 (but now available on Amazon)
Price: $2.99

Book Blurb:
They should have spent the past 22 years together, but life took some unexpected turns for Bobby Gallegos and Alejo Sandoval. Heartbreak and rejection can harden the hearts of two passionate, stubborn men. One, deeply devout, wanted to attend college. One, who perfected a tough act to deceive his brothers, might have followed his dad to prison. Now, at 40 years old, they maintain a long-distance relationship as sex buddies, who don't quite trust each other.

Their lives have sharply diverged. One is now divorced with two teenagers, who bring him joy and despair. One has just had a near-death experience on the job. When Bobby returns to Albuquerque, he will use sex, persuasion, and memories of their shared past to try to convince Alejo to take a chance on him and reach for the future together that they were meant to share.

Buy at Amazon.com (USA), Amazon.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and Amazon.es.
Buy at All Romance Ebooks (link coming soon).

Add it to your shelf on Goodreads.com.

Read an EXCERPT (by clicking this link you confirm that you are 18 years old or older).

Reviews coming soon.

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Five Copy Giveaway of Fall Into The Sun at Stumbling Over Chaos blog

2012-01-26T12:09:00.001-07:00

Follow the link to Chris's blog Stumbling Over Chaos and leave a comment for your chance to be one of five winners of a free copy of my upcoming release, Fall Into the Sun.

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Week 2 - What may soon happen to the blogosphere

2012-01-16T04:00:00.004-07:00

You may have heard about the plagiarist who recently got caught publishing fiction stolen from other people at Literotica.com on the Amazon Kindle Direct self-publishing program. I'm starting to wonder if anyone will want to post his or her work anymore if blogs and free fiction sites are becoming the new scavenging grounds for thieves.

Take this quotation from the article at Fastcopy.com by Adam Pennenberg (Amazon's Plagiarism Problem, Jan 12, 2012):

"It's a whole lot easier to copy and paste someone else's work, slap your name on top, and wait for the money to roll in. This creates a strong economic incentive, with fake authors--Sharazade thinks it's possible they are organized gangs based in Asia--earning 70% royalty rates on every sale, earning far more than a spammer could with click fraud."

Up until now, the blogosphere has evolved into a treasure trove of free information. Subject matter experts share their knowledge to entice us readers into visiting their blogs, and we pay them back by buying their related book or product. Or at least linking to them so their blog will rise in the search rankings. A win-win for everybody.

Well, not if their blogs are being looted for publishable content. Reviewers, you're probably safe. But crafters and gardening experts? You bloggers might want to take down your own content and self-publish it for money before someone else benefits at your expense. What a sad situation.

Author news:
Anne Brooke has an upcoming blog tour from Feb 6 to 16 for her new book The Heart's Greater Silence, with full info here (link takes you to her publisher, Riptide Publishing).

Jordan Castillo Price has another installment out for Magic Mansion. (Link goes to her website where you can follow the story by subscribing to her newsletter).

P.D. Singer will have her much-loved Mountain series re-released through Dreamspinner Press this June with what will probably be gorgeous cover art (more info at her blog).

Writing news: I'm wrapping up Fall Into the Sun, which you can add to your TBR list on Goodreads.com. Keep your eyes open for giveaways in the near future. Since it's self-published, I can basically give away a lot of copies!

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.

Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Week 1 - wood shavings everywhere

2012-01-09T09:34:00.002-07:00

The first week is over for 2012. Everybody still holding on to their resolutions? One of mine is to get a hobby (for my nonexistent free time) that has nothing to do with writing or reading. I have tried ...
crochet, and wood carving, which I like even better. But I can't exactly do it while in line at the motor vehicles department, not like people can crochet. Can you imagine? Wood shavings everywhere. Or at the airport? TSA confiscating my chisels.

Book news: My recommendations are up for the best gay romance novels I read in December:

Top Pick - Death by Misfortune by AM Riley.
Recommended Reads -
Counterpoint Dylan's Story by Ruth Sims,
The French Have a Word for It by Josh Lanyon,
The Soldier's Tale (Book 2, Fitzwarren Inheiritance series) by RJ Scott,
Sucks and Blows by Storm Grant.

As of January 4, you can see the detailed reviews on the All Romance Ebooks Cafe archives recommended reads page.

Author news: Tamara Allen is named Author of the Year for 2011 at Speak Its Name gay historical fiction review blog. ~~This year~~ (make that "last year"), I loved her story
If It Ain't Love, which was my top pick at All Romance Ebooks for September 2011. Also, Jordan Castillo Price has GhosTV named Best Paranormal by the members of the M/M Romance group at Goodreads.com. I highly recommend it, and it was my top pick for All Romance Ebooks for April 2011.

Writing news: I published my fourth nonfiction to Amazon, How to Write Sexy Descriptions and Sex Scenes. Also, I've posted an excerpt of my upcoming fiction, Fall Into the Sun: (the first 2000 words)

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Here is an excerpt from Fall Into the Sun

2012-01-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

Here we go from the upcoming release of Fall Into the Sun, contemporary gay romance at 40,000 words. This is the first 2,000 words that you can read, if you're curious, through this link (excerpt contains sexually explicit language - intended for readers 18 or older): Excerpt - Fall Into the Sun

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Just published new nonfiction book

2012-01-02T14:21:00.002-07:00

Damn, it's been a busy end to 2011! Hope everybody is having a good start to their 2012!
Okay, and here we go with the blurb:

Sometimes a writer needs the right word – fast – to keep the momentum racing along while he or she builds up that total word count. When writing sexy descriptions and sex scenes, you may need words such as ache, aching, arch, bare, bared, battle, beg, bite, blush, bounce, brace himself or brace herself, breach, bruise, bruising, brush, buck, bump, burn, burning, captivate, capture, caress, catch, circle, clasp, clench, clenching, coax, cry out, cup, curse, curve, cushion, dampen, dart, darting, deepen, delve, dominate, and so forth.

Here, you get lists of words and ways to use them. Part One gives writing advice. Part Two shows you how to write sexy descriptions about the human body from head to toe. Part Three discusses male-male romance fiction, and Part Four details the common elements of a sex scene, including sexual tension, flirting, arousal, sexy noises, initial touching, kissing, embracing, intimate caresses, disrobing, masturbation, foreplay, penetration, the sex act, orgasm, and afterglow.

This book is written specifically for writers of erotic romance fiction, which includes male-female romance and male-male romance. Erotic romance fiction gives equal emphasis to sex and emotion within the romantic relationship. However, those who write erotica (more focus on sex) and those who write sweet romance (more focus on emotion) can adapt the information here. Others for whom this book may be useful include anyone who wants to write a sex scene for genre or mainstream fiction.

Before I start giving advice, I should make one thing clear. All this is information for you to evaluate for yourself and accept or dismiss. The only "ironclad rules" in writing fiction are the laws of physics and the principles of grammar, and even those can be bent. The most important thing is to write what the readers want to read. Throughout this book, I warn you about things that could break the spell of escapism and jolt the readers out of your story. However, you can write anything you want so long as you are aware of the risks you run. It's all up to you. You can find this book (at 30,000 words) at
Amazon.com (USA)
Amazon.uk (United Kingdom)
Amazon.de (Deutschland)
Amazon.fr (France)
Amazon.it (Italia)
Amazon.es (España)

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

I have gorgeous new cover art

2011-08-30T18:11:00.009-06:00

I have gorgeous new cover art created by Jordan Castillo Price for Fall Into the Sun. Feast your eyes! Here is the blurb:

They should have spent the past 22 years together, but life took some unexpected turns for Bobby Gallegos and Alejo Sandoval. Heartbreak and rejection can harden the hearts of two passionate, stubborn men. One, deeply devout, wanted to attend college. One, who perfected a tough act to deceive his brothers, might have followed his dad to prison. Now, at 40 years old, they maintain a long-distance relationship as sex buddies, who don't quite trust each other.

Their lives have sharply diverged. One is now divorced with two teenagers, who bring him joy and despair. One has just had a near-death experience on the job. When Bobby returns to Albuquerque, he will use sex, persuasion, and memories of their shared past to try to convince Alejo to take a chance on him and reach for the future that they were meant to share together.

[Author note: I will be self-publishing Fall Into the Sun as a novella at somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 words total to be priced at $2.99. It is a contemporary romance told in two alternating third-person viewpoints. Excerpt coming soon.]

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Ink Illusions

2011-03-31T15:48:00.013-06:00

Ink Illusions by Val Kovalin
M/M Contemporary Romance
Stand-alone extended novella
36,000 words
Cover art by Trace Edward Zaber

As a gay man, Aaron never dreamed he'd end up in Houston, Texas, helping a female friend raise her child. Then he learns that the child's father has just been released from prison. Will Travis threaten Aaron's new family? To find out, Aaron conceals his identity and meets Travis during the chaotic splendor of Mardi Gras, when no one is what he seems.

Travis is ruthless when it comes to locating his child. Otherwise, he's not the criminal Aaron expected. Aloof and intuitive, he works as a tattoo artist. The intricate tattoos on his body celebrate his commitment to Asatru, a Norse pagan religion. Meanwhile, Aaron is his polar opposite, a talkative Jewish sales rep from Las Vegas, who never misses a chance to have fun.

What they have in common is neither man can turn down a fight. Neither can resist their affair, which turns into an intensely erotic struggle as each seeks to master the other. As their lust deepens to love, Aaron knows he must tell Travis the true reason they came to meet. Meanwhile, he fears that the darkness inside Travis's soul may lead him to break the law and end up back in prison.

Buy at Amber Allure, Amazon.com, and All Romance Ebooks.

Add to your Goodreads.com shelf
Read an excerpt at Amber Allure

Ink Illusions reviews (forthcoming)

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Call And Answer

2011-03-31T15:34:00.014-06:00

Call And Answer by Val Kovalin
M/M Historical / Paranormal / Shape-shifter
First book in a possible series
31,000 words
Cover art by Trace Edward Zaber

Small-town Louisiana in 1959 is a dangerous place to have a gay affair. But Henri can't help his instant attraction to Gabriel, a handsome black musician who accepts his advances with amused tolerance. Henri hopes for a summer of hot, uncomplicated sex before he leaves for college. He doesn't realize that Gabriel is a powerful shape-shifter who also lives as an alligator in the bayou.

When Henri first sees Gabriel transform into an alligator, he mistakes him for the Devil. Then he learns that Gabriel exists to raise power through sex-magic. For that, Gabriel needs a human lover. In the past, some lovers have helped Gabriel spend the power for the good of the land, and others have squandered it for personal gain. What will Henri do – given that he never wanted to be a magic-wielder in the first place?

As his summer romance with Gabriel deepens into passionate love, Henri must learn to face responsibility as he encounters prejudice, family feuds, and startling glimpses into the underworlds of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Can he persuade Gabriel to take a chance on a future with him?

Buy at Amber Allure, Amazon.com Call And Answer, and All Romance Ebooks.
Add Call And Answer to your shelf on Goodreads.com
Excerpt at Amber Allure.

Reviews:
"Believe me, I want to enjoy the books I choose to review, and when I saw Val’s book available I grabbed it and fast. And oh my goodness, this book did not disappoint me. The writing just grabs you from the get go." From the review by Sirius at Reviews by Jessewave. (Rating 4.5 out of 5.0)

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Wicked Cool

2011-03-31T15:27:00.011-06:00

Wicked Cool by Val Kovalin
M/M Contemporary Romance
18,000 words
Cover Art by Trace Edward Zaber

Junk removal specialist Stu Van der Meer has been burned before in love affairs with corporate professionals who underestimate him as a blue-collar guy who's good with his hands. When he meets property manager Brian Hawthorne, he knows that he shouldn't get involved with him, especially since he senses that Brian might be in serious trouble.

However, he can't ignore their immediate sexual chemistry. He can't deny his curiosity about Brian's secret past, specialized knowledge, and unusual accent. Brian has something to hide, and it tests the limits of each man's willingness to trust the other as Stu pursues the truth.

Is Brian a criminal? A victim? Is he only using Stu as a distraction from his fears? As their relationship deepens, Stu must decide what risks he will take to protect them when Brian faces a threat from the past.

Buy at Amber Allure, Amazon.com, and All Romance Ebooks.
Add to your Goodreads.com shelf
Read an excerpt at Amber Allure.

Reviews:
"Although Brian and Stu felt attracted to each other immediately, they took their time getting to know each other, which I really liked. Also, when they finally got to it, their sex was hot enough to scorch a fender. Brian's secret was well-elaborated and just outlandish enough to make Stu's cluelessness fathomable, and the grand finale...wow. Just that, grand." From the review by Feliz Faber on Goodreads.com (rating 5 out of 5)

"Overall I enjoyed Wicked Cool. It was a nicely written contemporary with well rounded characters and a tightly paced plot. I may not have liked it as much as the author's previous book [Trinity Trespass], but it still showed that Val Kovalin is an author to watch out for and I shall be picking up any of her subsequent books." From the review by Jenre at Well Read blog (rating "Very Good")

"Overall I found Wicked Cool very entertaining and from beginning to end I was engaged in Stu and Brian’s story. Despite being only novella length the author did infuse a lot of details as well as emotional depth into the book. This is Val Kovalin‘s second published work and I eagerly look forward to reading more from her in the future. Recommended." From the review by Lily at Reviews by Jessewave (rating 4 out of 5)

"Kink is something in erotic romance that usually turns me right off, because it can so often seem implausible, tacked-on, or just plain dumb. In Wicked Cool I was riveted. This is kink how it should be done: raw and needy, and integral to the character arcs and the way the two characters converge." From the review by Jordan Castillo Price on Goodreads.com (rating 5 out of 5)

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Trinity Trespass

2011-03-31T15:12:00.018-06:00

Trinity Trespass by Val Kovalin
M/M Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
45,000 words
Cover Art by Justin James

A secret war rages throughout the southwestern USA and Mexico between demons and angels, all of whom are trying to pass for human. For Parnell, a demon living in Las Vegas NV, survival depends upon following orders and resisting the allure of any relationship that might bind him to another in sexual slavery.

In his competitive world, he regards other demons such as his lover Navarro as potential opponents. As for the angels, he knows them as the Enslavers whose evil nature compels them to exploit the drug trade in Mexico.

When Navarro and Parnell go to the no-man's land of New Mexico to capture a renegade angel-demon hybrid named Chavez, the three of them enter an uneasy triangle of sexual attraction.

Chavez hopes to seize psychic power on the auspicious day of Easter and use it to kill his master. Parnell and Navarro must prevent this or face death and the return of their souls to Hell. To save himself, Parnell must decide whom to trust, whom to kill, and whether he can find the strength to give his heart to another.

Buy at Loose Id, Amazon.com, All Romance Ebooks, Fictionwise, and Barnes and Noble.
Add Trinity Tresspass to your shelf at Goodreads.com.

Trinity Trespass excerpt at Loose Id.

Review by Scandalous Minx at Literary Nymphs reviews (4.5 out of 5)
Review by Ocotillo Dawn at Goodreads.com (4 out of 5)
Review by Elisa Rolle at Elisa - My Reviews and Ramblings
Review by Feliz Faber on Goodreads.com (rating 5 out of 5)
Review by Jenre at Reviews by Jessewave (rating 4.5 out of 5)
Review by Lisa at Joyfully Reviewed.

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Cover Art for Call And Answer

2011-02-14T04:48:00.003-07:00

I now have cover art by Trace Edward Zaber for my m/m paranormal shapeshifter story coming from Amber Allure on March 27. Here is the blurb:

Small-town Louisiana in 1959 is a dangerous place to have a gay affair. But Henri can't help his instant attraction to Gabriel, a handsome black musician who accepts his advances with amused tolerance. Henri hopes for a summer of hot, uncomplicated sex before he leaves for college. He doesn't realize that Gabriel is a powerful shape-shifter who also lives as an alligator in the bayou.

When Henri first sees Gabriel transform into an alligator, he mistakes him for the Devil. Then he learns that Gabriel exists to raise power through sex-magic. For that, Gabriel needs a human lover. In the past, some lovers have helped Gabriel spend the power for the good of the land, and others have squandered it for personal gain. What will Henri do – given that he never wanted to be a magic-wielder in the first place?

As his summer romance with Gabriel deepens into passionate love, Henri must learn to face responsibility as he encounters prejudice, family feuds, and startling glimpses into the underworlds of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Can he persuade Gabriel to take a chance on a future with him?

Call And Answer to be published by Amber Allure - March 27

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.

Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

How to finish writing your rough draft no matter what!

2010-07-18T16:26:00.006-06:00

Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I got a comment the other day from JD who described a problem that all of us encounter at least once when we're trying to write fiction -- not being able to finish that first rough draft. Many icky obstacles can rise up to prevent us from finishing. The good news is that countless writers have already experienced the same problems, and have developed many helpful tips. What works for one personality type may not work for another, so you just have to try various solutions and see what works for you. I'll list a few obstacles and solutions as follows …

Obstacle: PERFECTIONISM.
This obstacle jumps into my path a lot! Some writers, including me, can't stand wasting time, which inevitably happens on the rough draft because we're not sure where the plot is going because the idea is so new. We can't stand rambling around with our writing while not knowing where we're going, and then having to cut huge amounts of it later when it becomes more obvious what fits the plot and what doesn't.

Many authors say that they routinely need to delete the first few chapters of their novel because they find out later that it doesn't really start until page 50 or so in the rough draft. But they needed to write those first 50 pages to get to the real beginning.

So we sit, unwilling to start writing until we've either outlined or visualized the entire plot first. Right there, we're already wasting time! Sometimes, you have to start writing in order to get to a point where you can see further along the plot. This involves writing on faith to nudge the plot along. I've heard it compared to driving at night. You can only see what is immediately in the beam of your headlights, which isn't very far, but it is also all you really need to see at that moment. As you continue on, you will see a little farther.

Other writers can't stand how awkward their writing sounds at first when they're not very familiar with their material. They can spend hours writing and re-writing the beginning of their rough draft to make it sound more polished, which kills their momentum. I do some of this, but the time-wasting thing bothers me more.

Solutions for Perfectionism.
1. Give yourself permission to write a really crappy first draft and tell yourself that you can make all the improvements you want as soon as the draft has structural integrity (by that I mean, it has an ending). Nonfiction writer Anne Lamott discusses this in her often hilarious writing guide Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

2. Never stop writing to revise. Keep writing original material until you finish writing the rough draft. I'd advise not even stopping to read back on what you've written. I used to start each new day by reading what I'd written the day before to catch the "mood" of the piece, but I found myself wasting a lot of time reading. If you must read back on what you've written, try keeping it to just that one page that leads up to where you stopped writing for that day.

3. To be added as I and others think of more solutions. Feel free to make suggestions!

Obstacle: TOO MANY IDEAS.
This is what JD is describing here in the comment I received: "… whenever I lie in bed, I develop my story further and, because I delay the writing process, by the time I've done one chapter I have a large amount of ideas. The problem with that is I then get discouraged from writing it when I have a rough idea of an ending because I no longer have the excitement of wondering what happens."

This tough problem can become a strong point if you can keep your momentum going (see next obstacle) because it means you have a fertile imagination. Writers with this problem need to get their ideas under control by documenting them (briefly - with a few words on a list, maybe) and sorting them into groups based on what you'll use for the current project and what might work better in future projects.

A related problem involves losing your enthusiasm to keep writing once you've figured out the ending. That can be difficult, no question! A good practice is NEVER to let yourself talk about your work-in-progress to friends or writing communities or anyone. Talking about it can sap your momentum. I read somewhere that author Amy Tan had this happen to her -- she talked about an idea to the point where she no longer wanted to start writing it.

If you've figured out the ending of your story and it's caused you to lose enthusiasm about writing towards what you've seen, you might have stalled momentum. Me, I'm usually so incredibly happy and grateful to have seen the ending at all that it carries me a long way with the actual writing. But I know what you mean. I've had that moment where I see the ending, I get over being happy, and then I realize how much work it's going to take to write the whole thing up. The thought of all that plodding can kill your energy, at least for a short while.

One thing that helps me is a solution I describe below under "Stalled Momentum." If you've visualized the ending already but don't know how you'll find the energy to write it up, you're already looking at the big picture. Try to shake yourself out of your stalled situation by doing the opposite thing and look at the close-up. Pick the very next small obstacle the hero has to overcome to get to his ending, and ask yourself questions about the details. How will he find out the information he needs? Who will he talk to? What will he have to offer to get their cooperation? And so on.

Solutions for Too Many Ideas.
1. As future scenes occur to you, add them to an outline so that you don't forget them. Then drag your focus back to the place in the novel you're actually working on. If you continue to get a flood of ideas, note them down briefly (so you don't use up your time and energy on lengthy descriptions). Then put them out of your mind and go back to your work-in-progress.

2. Never talk about your work-in-progress with anyone, or post outlines, or interact too much with critique groups, especially where it involves describing your entire work. Ideas can get stolen that way, and at the very least, momentum gets lost. Critique groups and beta readers are most useful when you've finished your rough draft and have revised it close to publication.

3. If you have a problem with too many ideas, you're probably one of those writers who are great with seeing the big picture, but not as good at seeing the close-up. Once you've seen the big picture (the entire plot), choose a scene and focus on the details of that scene to draw yourself back into the writing.

4. To be added as I and others think of more solutions. Feel free to make suggestions!

Obstacle: STALLED MOMENTUM
This problem ambushes me even more frequently than perfectionism. For various reasons, I just can't write any further. If you're a big-picture type of writer (see Too Many Ideas above), you might run out of energy. Try a close-up approach to jolt yourself out of your stagnation. Those like me who are more of a close-up type might not know what to write next. We should try looking at the big picture to force ourselves into motion. Usually, when you try doing the opposite thing than you would ordinarily do, you can jump-start your momentum.

The best thing you can do to overcome stalled momentum is to write daily, which is what Stourmy advises in the paragraph below. Start writing on your project as if you already have good momentum. Sometimes pretending that you do is enough to bring it on. If that doesn't work, try the approach of looking at either the big picture or the close-up view (see solutions list below). If neither approach works at that moment, try writing up things that you might not actually use verbatim in your project, but which will help you understand your main character better -- because plot grows out of desire which grows out of character. Write up a description of your hero's weird childhood, even though you know you won't put any of it in your story. It might jog loose a new idea that will pull you into action.

Fill out a character sheet that lists all of your hero's phobias, physical scars and how he got each, hobbies, and favorites (food, color, music, clothes). All of these exercises can coax forth new ideas and give you a better understanding of your main character. Here's a book that might help: List Your Self. If even that doesn't work, write about how you feel about being blocked, as Stourmy advises below. At least, you're writing now rather than sitting in blocked frustration. You can often think of unexpected ideas this way, or at very least your momentum going.

Here is Stourmy's advice from a recent comment to this blog: "... I read somewhere that a good way to finish what you start or even improve your writing is to do it daily. If you find yourself stuck at a writer’s block in terms of the story, then write on a separate paper why you are blocked. I found that very helpful when I was trying to get my character moved from making herself lunch to the important meeting she had (I didn’t want to just "pull the curtains closed" and have her appear already at the meeting. I wrote in my notebook about why I could not think of how to get her past the kitchen and then several ideas that could work. In the end I used another character to speed the pace and make her want to get to the meeting."

Solutions for Stalled Momentum.
1. Take the big picture view. Imagine yourself viewing your own plot the way you might view your hometown in Google Maps once you've pulled back to a continental view. Figure out the answers to the following essential, but broad, questions: who is your hero, what does he want, what obstacle stands in his way, and what does he do to overcome that obstacle and get what he wants?

Take the original Star Wars movie as an example. Who is the hero? Luke, an inexperienced farm boy. What does he want? To gain experience and have his coming-of-age (see how this grows out of who he is?). What stands in his way? The evil Empire, which wants to acquire information stored on this new droid R2D2 that has fallen into his hands. They threaten to kill him and take his droid, and his droid is the key that he needs to lead him to his coming of age. What does he do to overcome the Empire and get his coming-of-age experience? He takes his droid to the rebellion and joins the fight.

You write all this down, and you have the big picture. (Here is another handy book that can help you analyze popular plots like Star Wars: The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition. To see the big picture to begin with, sometimes you have to look at where your story is stuck and ask what would really happen from here? I can get very bogged down with polishing up the details endlessly. I find it helps me to race ahead and rough in the plot structure with dialog and simple descriptive tags only, and insert the elaborate descriptions (or the sex scenes, ha, ha!) later. Just keep moving. Write your story like a screenplay at first if you have to, and then add the descriptions on your second pass.

2. Take the close-up view. In the Star Wars example above, let's say that you've just introduced Luke and the thing he wants most which grows out of his nature (he wants experience). You know that he ultimately has to be threatened by the Empire because of his droid, and he has to overcome this threat by winning a big victory for the rebellion. But right now, you're stalled on his home planet, having filled in all these great details about the sand everywhere and his boring aunt and uncle, and how he has nothing to do. Where do you go from here?

If you were writing this story as a rough draft, you probably would have begun it with Luke living on Tatooine, feeling bored. Your opening scene would involve him going to the droid market where he acquires R2D2 and C3PO. You need to ask yourself questions about what happens next to start filling in the details. What is special about R2D2? Well, he's carrying a holographic message for help that will connect Luke with both Obi Wan Kenobi and Princess Leia. Who is Princess Leia?

As soon as you answer that, you've filled in some back story. Keep writing to the end. Later, you'll realize that the true beginning involves the spaceship battle and droids' escape above Luke's home planet that you came up with in the back story. You'll rearrange scenes, which is not something you want to distract yourself with right now when you're trying to finish the rough draft. When you chip away at the details with questions and find out things, that should renew your enthusiasm for the story (that you've already visualized) and to help you to write it down.

3. When you're nearing the end of your writing day, try to break off in the middle of a scene. It's much easier to start writing again the next day if you've just broken off while still mentally involved with that scene. By contrast, if you completely wrap up that scene or chapter, it can be hard to start again from a full, cold stop the next day and flesh out a whole new scene or chapter. This is because beginnings are the hardest thing to write.

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains the 2000-word article HT Describe Hair from my blog plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

Do you not own a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free Kindle app to read Kindle books on your reader of choice, and it is very easy to install. You click the link for the app you want and it practically installs itself. Believe me, if I could do it, anyone can. With the free app, you can read Kindle books on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Here is the link to all the Kindle reading apps available: all FREE Kindle reading apps located here.

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post. (You're more than welcome to save these how-to articles to your computer for your own private reference.)
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Too Funny

2010-07-01T16:14:00.005-06:00

Thanks to ECPI Editors of the Redlines and Deadlines blog for posting this from YouTube:

The End of Publishing

2010-03-19T11:31:00.001-06:00

Head hopping is the work of the devil.

2010-03-01T11:33:00.004-07:00

Okay, maybe I exaggerate when I call it satanic, but head hopping can be irritating, no question. First, writers, rest easy. There are no rules that weren't meant to be broken. No one, not even a reviewer like me, says that you must not have multiple viewpoints in your fiction. However, head hopping is different, and it's good to know why it's so annoying.

It sounds like something drug-related, and it can feel similarly disorienting to the readers. Publishers (for example, Lyrical Press, bless their hearts) have been known to warn against it in their submission guidelines. If you're a very new writer, you might have heard the term head hopping without knowing what it means.

Head hopping is when you switch viewpoints randomly and frequently in your fiction. First, you describe the perceptions and thoughts of one character. Then you show things that realistically could only come from the mind of a second character. You've hopped from head to head and dragged the momentarily confused reader along with you.

Omniscient third-person viewpoint. How is head hopping different from omniscient third-person viewpoint? Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I almost never see omniscient third-person viewpoint anymore, which is actually fine with me. It seems to be something that went out with Dostoevsky and Melville.

To me, omniscient third-person viewpoint has a smooth, remote feeling. The godlike perspective cruises through the stratosphere, skimming the surface of all the characters' thoughts. By contrast, head hopping takes a deep viewpoint into each character. It's as if you're forcing the reader to dive into a swimming pool, climb out, run gasping and sweating down the block to the next pool, and dive into that one.

Behold my somewhat pathetic example of omniscient third person viewpoint. Here, I convey information from both characters' realistic viewpoints – and beyond, including things they couldn't possibly know. The effect is remote and distancing. It's hard to see Edgar and Yevgeny as having distinctly different personalities. If you write like this extensively, you may fall into the trap of telling the reader information rather than showing it through character action.

"The villagers would someday recover from their memories of the war. The first one would be Edgar who had romantic problems that took precedence. Yes, Edgar, who hunched his shoulders in despair against the sweltering heat as he walked home from the wheat fields. None of his neighbors had a clue that loneliness festered in his heart. If only he could know that another experienced his same piercing isolation! Even now, Yvegeny knelt in the church, praying for deliverance. He believed that his crisis of faith came from his service in the war, but unbeknownst to him he had been cursed by the gypsies …"

An example of head hopping. Omniscient third person viewpoint can cover vast physical distances such as from the wheat fields to the church. Head hopping happens when the characters are in the same scene and the author just can't resist dipping deeply into each person's mind. The deeper the viewpoint, the more jarring the hop for the reader.

"Edgar slapped the dust of the wheat fields from his hat and then sidled into the church, his heart fluttering at the possibility that he might see the handsome Yvegeny. The church itself, redolent of incense, made him nervous, and perhaps this had something to do with the fact that he was a werewolf. He'd never quite had the courage to inquire into the church's official position on werewolves.

Ahead, he recognized Yvegeny kneeling in front of the altar, his trim calves hugged by sheepskin boots. Those legs! A piercing sadness sank into Edgar's heart. That wide back! Why did Yvegeny drive him to such inappropriate thoughts in church? Those hips! Um … Flushed and dizzy, he lost his train of thought.

Yvegeny stood and turned around [and we readers think we're still in Edgar's viewpoint, but we could be in either viewpoint right now]. His heart sank as he recognized one of the farmers, and he felt even worse as he realized it was Edgar. The farmers all hated those like himself who had gone to war. Even though he'd sensed a strange darkness within Edgar that seemed a twin of his own malaise, he still avoided him. Now he noticed that Edgar stared at him strangely. It probably had something to do with the killing he'd done in the war …"

If you see nothing wrong with this example of head hopping, then maybe it really is just me (and Lyrical Press, ha, ha!) who dislike it.

An example of one limited third-person viewpoint. If you stick with just one limited third-person viewpoint, you do lose range of vision. It's a trade off. You can't do as quite as much with just one viewpoint, but it's easier to write the scene and to keep the reader under your spell. Often, you can convey more than you think you can by hinting around in one close third-person viewpoint.

"Yvegeny's knees ached as he knelt on the cold flagstones to pray in front of the altar. Then he heard a footstep further back in the church, and he stood and turned around, his heart pounding. His survival instincts, left over from the war, remained strong. Edgar stood there, probably viewing him with the same suspicion that all the farmers reserved for those who had fought the war that destroyed the croplands. Edgar's eyes glittered and his face had grown flushed. For an instant, Yvegeny thought he might have a fight on his hands – and inside the church, no less! Then he noticed the softening of Edgar's mouth and the heaving of his chest as Edgar gulped the incense-laden air. Could Edgar be infatuated with him? Stranger things had happened …

Why do writers try head hopping? People who are just learning to write fiction might do head hopping without realizing it in their rough drafts as they explore the reactions of each major character that comes into the narrative. Mostly what I see as a reviewer are writers deliberately doing a more refined version of this.

In m/m fiction, it often happens in the sex scenes. Guy #1 experiences the sensations of either doing or receiving some sexual act and suddenly we're in the mind of his partner Guy #2 who simultaneously feels his own set of sensations. New writers may assume that a detailed peek into each mind amps up the excitement quotient.

In my opinion here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, the reverse happens because the reader gets jolted out of the fantasy by encountering the awkward and unrealistic device of a sudden switch in viewpoint. Often the easiest and most reliable way to keep readers immersed in a fictional world is to keep the reading experience simple. Keep it as close to real life as possible. Consider limiting yourself to one character viewpoint at least until you make it through the scene, if not throughout the whole story.

Multiple third person viewpoints. What if you have your heart set on creating multiple viewpoints? It's your fiction, and you can do whatever you want to. Consider some helpful guidelines. Often, but not always, the shorter the fiction, the less room you have for more than one viewpoint. If you want multiple viewpoints without the disorienting effects of head hopping, establish a pattern.

Switch viewpoints only by chapter or only by scene, both of which are natural transition points. Using this system, you can either alternate viewpoints in a consistent order (Guy #1, Guy #2, Guy #1 again) or you can do it at random (Guy #1, Guy #1, Guy #1, Guy #2). Either way, we readers have a pattern by which to navigate: every scene break or chapter introduces the possibility of a new viewpoint.

What about those sex scenes where you want to show how much fun both partners are having? In my opinion, you can do that more effectively in one viewpoint. Pick the viewpoint of the character that will be the most emotionally affected by the sex scene. Stay in his mind and have him observe his partner closely throughout. Often it can be far more emotionally moving and exciting for the reader to see the non-viewpoint character through the eyes of his lover who is trying to please him and who already feels a range of emotions towards him.

In sex scenes and in general, often the viewpoint character can see things for the reader about the non-viewpoint character that Guy #2 doesn't even know. Then you can show the reader false perception, self-delusion, or attempts at deception. This introduces an entirely new level of information in a way that is still more realistic and engaging than head hopping.

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains the 2000-word article HT Describe Hair from my blog plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

Do you not own a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free Kindle app to read Kindle books on your reader of choice, and it is very easy to install. You click the link for the app you want and it practically installs itself. Believe me, if I could do it, anyone can. With the free app, you can read Kindle books on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Here is the link to all the Kindle reading apps available: all FREE Kindle reading apps located here.
Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post. (You're more than welcome to save these how-to articles to your computer for your own private reference.)
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

stormtroopers on their day off

2010-02-17T11:58:00.003-07:00

Ever wonder what Imperial stormtroopers do on their day off? ...

[Photograph, one of many by Stefan.]

Go through this link for many quirky photos.

HT Describe Hair

2010-02-07T04:09:00.012-07:00

Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I tend to recommend "less is more" with physical description in fiction. However, I'll admit that descriptions of hair can be beautiful, especially in romance or fantasy fiction. Look here for tips on describing your character's hair.

You're welcome to print out this how-to for your own use, or your critique group's use, or you can link back to this article from your blog, but please don't copy this content to your blog or website.

History of Male and Female Hairstyles.
I remember a column by humor writer Erma Bombeck in which she described the completely different looks that her daughters versus her sons wanted to achieve through the appearance of their hair: the girls want that wild untamed look, and the boys want to seem cool and in control. Things may have changed since then, but hair is always going to be viewed differently by males and females.

Here is my quick history of hair centered on the western world from roughly 1900 to now. (This is all my opinion here at Obsidianbookshelf.com so I don't have any references to list.)

For males, short hair (above the collar) was considered mandatory until about 1967, and a long-haired male risked serious harassment. Between 1967 and maybe 1980, the counterculture hippie movement made long hair for males trendy, though still not mainstream. After 1980, short hair became the prevailing fashion once more, though long hair on males is no longer seen as shocking.

Short hair on a male is usually a conformist, respectable look – unless it is extremely short. Hair trimmed shorter than 1/8-inch has a paramilitary look and can have some unusual connotations such as skinhead extremist, special ops soldier, or punk rocker.

Females have always had more freedom than males to wear their hair as they like. Consequently, they haven't been able to make as much of a social statement with their hair. An exception is in the 1920s when women who rejected their parents' Victorian values cut their hair. Some women nowadays use extremely short haircuts to convey either their identity as a lesbian or their rejection of traditional standards of beauty for women.

Historically, getting one's hair cut short symbolizes cutting the ties with one's former existence and beginning anew. Initiates to various spiritual disciplines often cut their hair upon acceptance into the cloister.

Hair Types.
Hair comes in four basic types: straight hair, wavy hair, curly hair, and kinked hair. All of these types occur across all racial and ethnic groups. Hair can be classified by volume (thin or thick) and texture of the hair strand (fine, medium, or coarse) [1].

Straight Hair – Truly straight hair has not much of a curve at all, even when cut short. Many with long hair who think they have straight hair get a surprise when they cut their hair. The weight of long hair can pull the hair straight, but it reverts to its natural wavy shape when cut.

Advantages to straight hair include its natural shine. This is because light reflects off a flat surface better than a curved surface. It can be easier to style straight hair towards curliness than to go the other way and iron curly hair flat. Disadvantages? Sometimes straight hair can look limp and flat, especially if you have fine-textured hair or thin hair.

Wavy Hair – Wavy hair has a natural S-shaped curve to the hair strands. It can have the glossy look of straight hair but more "body" and shape to it.

Curly Hair – Curly hair produces ringlets in a coil- or corkscrew-curve. Its advantages include its buoyant shape and volume, which can also be a disadvantage if it isn't tamed down in a suitable cut or style. Because of its curving texture, curly hair doesn't reflect light as well as straight hair and can look less shiny.

Kinked Hair - This is hair with a very tight, frizzy bend to it. Kinked hair, even more than curly hair, will tend to absorb light rather than reflect it, so it will not look as glossy as straight hair. It is also the most delicate type of hair that needs the most coddling to preserve the structural integrity of the hair-shafts.

Haircuts.
There are countless names for countless variations. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I'll list some of the best known for males and females in the range from very short to long. The shorter you go with a haircut, the more the light hits and emphasizes your face so you want to have attractive features and good skin.

Shaved Head – In a word, bald. Almost exclusively a male style. This is a difficult style to wear, especially for pale individuals because it can suggest the look of serious illness (for example, baldness due to chemotherapy). However, a dark-skinned person with striking features might look beautiful.

High-and-Tight – Male style. See the buzz cut. This style takes a buzz cut and then shaves the hair on the sides and back almost to the skin, while leaving the stubble on the top slightly longer. Associated with special-ops soldiers and punk rockers, it is considered an extreme style.

Fade – Male style. A slightly longer version of the high-and-tight.

Buzz cut – Almost exclusively a male style. Hair is reduced to an even 1/8- to 1/4-inch stubble all over the head. This is the military-induction cut. A slightly longer variation is the crew-cut. Some women like singer Sinead O'Connor wear buzz-cuts or crew cuts.

Pixie cut – Female style. Hair is cut into short layers on the sides and back and slightly longer on top. This looks great with straight, shiny hair. It can be a very feminine cut that plays up a woman's eyes.

Bob – Female style. Hair is shaped into a one-length, sleek, straight helmet that curves inward at the ends. This style can have bangs (fringe) or not. It can be chin-length or shoulder-length or in between. This is a versatile and elegant look that looks trendy and edgy towards chin- or even ear-length and classic when at shoulder-length.

Afro – Males and females. Hair is naturally kinked or styled that way via a perm (chemicals and heat). The kinked hair stands out in a puffball halo around the head. It is usually short to medium length.

Layered cut – Males and females. Hair can be anywhere from above-the-collar to shoulder-length or below. The hair is cut into layers which blend together to accomplish anything from taming extremely thick hair or maximizing thin hair.

One length non-cut – Males and females. This is long, one-length hair that can look good if the person gets the split-ends trimmed on a regular basis. It can also flatten the hair as its weight drags down its natural wave or curl or shape. This style can look most flattering on females or males with naturally straight, coarse, thick hair.

Describing Your Character's Hair.
Have another look at the traits and qualities I here at Obsidianbookshelf.com have described above and decide how your character's hair can be classified. Straight, wavy, curly, or kinked? Thin or thick? Fine, medium, or coarse in texture? What color?

Is your character male or female? If he's male, does he fuss with his hair a lot or does he ignore it? Does he dye his hair? If so, why? Does he do a perfect dye job so that he'll look natural, or does he do a "punk" job with dark roots showing? Has he cut it short in order to look tough or to keep it from being grabbed in street-fights? Does he worry that it's too pretty and it makes him look effeminate? Does he wear his hair long to make a statement, and what is he communicating? What harassment is he risking by having long hair?

If she's female, does she want the exact opposite type of hair than she's got? Does she worry about humidity and styling issues? Does she spend a lot of money on hair products and getting it styled? Does she dye her hair? If so, why? Does she do a perfect dye job so that she'll look natural, or does she do a "punk" job with dark roots showing? Does she dislike all the pressure put on women to have their hair movie-star perfect? Does she cut her hair extremely short to make a statement, and what is she communicating? What harassment is she risking by having extremely short hair?

Is your character multi-racial or multi-ethnic? Is he or she hassled for having a certain type of hair that is (erroneously) associated only with certain racial / ethnic groups? In Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, he describes growing up in Catholic Ireland and having "Presbyterian hair." Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I'm not sure what he meant by that, but it did make me laugh.

Sensory Details. What does your character's hair look like, feel like, and smell like?

Appearance – The straighter one's hair is, the more it will fall vertically like a curtain or water. The curlier the hair, the more it puffs around one's head like a halo. Long hair that is straight or wavy is often compared to water or cloth: cascades of hair, a waterfall of hair, a thick rope of hair, a skein of hair. Straight or wavy hair gleams, shines, and shimmers when clean. Straight hair can look sleek or polished like a metal surface, especially if it is all one length (no layers). Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I've noticed that straight hair is the type you usually see in television commercials for shampoo because it looks so shiny and clean.

Curly or kinked hair is often compared to a halo or a cloud. It bounces, puffs, and drifts around one's face. It coils and winds around one's fingers and earlobes. It curves sinuously. Especially in romance fiction, curly or kinked hair can symbolize sex appeal and sexual energy as it escapes hairpins and hats (for women) or water-combing or gel (for men) to spring up and take its natural buoyant shape. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I've noticed that curly or kinked hair is often featured in television commercials about conditioner or hair styling product because this hair type looks bouncy and full of volume.

Short straight hair on men and women draws attention to its lines, especially if it is short enough to be shaped by a razor such as the high-and-tight haircut for men. Hair like this is described by its angle or bristle or the way it frames the face. Short curly hair often is described as a mop or a cap of hair.

How does the weather affect your character's hair? Humidity can exaggerate the frizz of curly or kinked hair, and it can draw the curl out of straight hair and leave it limp. Hot, humid weather can curl little tendrils of hair in an enticing way around one's ears and face. Snowdrops or raindrops can glitter in dark hair like diamonds.

What about when hair is dirty or damaged? Its appearance can say a lot about a character. Hair can be greasy, limp, ragged with split-ends, and covered with white, flakey dandruff. It can be over-processed with dyes, chemicals to relax it (if kinked) or curl it (if straight). A character's dye-job can clash with his or her natural skin tone. He or she might let the dark roots grow in without a touch-up. This could be deliberate on the part of an edgy young urbanite, or it could be slovenly.

Hair can be thin and breaking off due to harsh treatment or illness. Men have to worry about the dreaded receding hairline, which means that the hair towards the forehead thins out. Eventually they may experience male-pattern baldness, which usually leaves the head bare on the top with an unattractive fringe of hair around the sides.

What a male chooses to do about hair-thinning or balding says a lot about his personality. Is he silly enough to try the much-ridiculed comb-over? This is when he'll arrange hair strands from either side of his head to lie across his gleaming bald pate. If so, he's not fooling anyone.

Will he just shave his head completely for a bad-ass image? That can work, depending upon the man. Will he just leave his hair as is? That can indicate many things such as a spiritual tendency to devalue appearance, unshakable self-confidence, or low self-esteem.

Touch – Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I have to point out that it's become a cliché to say that hair is soft or silky. If you must compare hair to silk, go further in your imagination. In a love scene, does one character bury his hand to the wrist in his lover's silken mass of hair? This brings more sensory detail to the comparison. However, hair can also feel coarse like a horse's mane or fluffy (if cut into layers) like feathers.

Curly or kinked hair can feel springy under the hand. Very short hair-stubble can feel velvety soft like suede.
Thick hair is the most pleasurable to touch. Even when straight, it will have a springiness and plush feel. As with curly hair in romance fiction, thick hair can symbolize hidden sex appeal that contrasts intriguingly with a repressed, buttoned-down surface. A woman might have thick hair pinned into a severe style. A man might have thick hair buzzed into a military induction cut. When their lovers finally get to touch their hair, it is an unexpected pleasure.

Damaged or dirty hair is unpleasant to the touch. It may feel brittle like dry straw. On the other hand, it could feel greasy and heavy as if coated with soap scum.

Smell – At best-case scenario, hair has a pleasing fragrance from one's shampoo. Figure out what that smell would be. Something fresh and simple like apples or lavender? Something complex and mysterious like sandalwood or patchouli? Something masculine and almost unscented or something richly floral that a woman would wear? What about the poor guy who runs out of shampoo and must use his girlfriend's perfumed brand? Does he feel self-conscious?

Hair is like cloth and will pick up odors in the air. Depending upon recent surroundings, your character's hair could smell like cigarettes, fresh-cut grass, wood-smoke, cheap perfume, the stench of deep-fryer oil, or even gunpowder. (References: 1. Andre Talks Hair by Andre Walker. ISBN 068483880X, Fireside Press, copyright © 1998. P.27-35. and 2. Hair Shapes. My image.)

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains this 2000-word article HT Describe Hair from my blog plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

Do you not own a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free Kindle app to read Kindle books on your reader of choice, and it is very easy to install. You click the link for the app you want and it practically installs itself. Believe me, if I could do it, anyone can. With the free app, you can read Kindle books on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Here is the link to all the Kindle reading apps available: all FREE Kindle reading apps located here.
Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post. (You're more than welcome to save these how-to articles to your computer for your own private reference.)
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

HT Describe the Large Male Body Type

2010-01-30T03:59:00.012-07:00

Are you looking for a list of descriptive terms for fiction writers to help prod your imagination into action? Maybe words and their connotations fascinate you. When you're writing physical descriptions of your characters, you can use numerous terms depending on their sex and size.

This article is for describing the large male body type. You're welcome to print out this how-to for your own use, or your critique group's use, or you can link back to this article from your blog, but please don't copy this content to your blog or website.

Be aware of your genre's expectations. In literary fiction, science fiction, and mystery fiction, readers may view too much physical description of characters as the mark of an amateur writer. Keep your descriptions limited to one or two distinctive features and show through action.

In fantasy fiction and romance fiction, physical description is more important. Of course, all rules were meant to be broken. If you're well read and know what you're doing, you can write your fiction however you want.

Weight:
Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com I try not to specify a character's actual weight because it doesn't really help readers to know how he looks unless they know how much of that weight is fat and how much is muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. Unless your character is a bodybuilder or a boxer or has some reason to be concerned with his actual weight, skip the numbers and just describe his build.

Note: The standard for male attractiveness is to be height-weight proportionate, and to have broad shoulders, a broad, muscular chest, a narrow waist and hips, and long legs. An overweight male usually puts on weight around the mid-section. This is what guys are talking about when they mention the beer gut and the spare-tire. The love-handles are those rolls of fat on the sides of his waist.

Some poor unfortunate guys gain weight in the typical female pattern: the pear-shape, which consists of more fat on the backside and thighs and less bulk on the upper body. When a guy gets very overweight, the fat will be evenly distributed all over his body and face.

Height:
Feel free to state your character's height. As an absolute measurement, it doesn't have the potential for error that stating his weight has. Below are some Western guidelines for the categories of short, medium, and tall males that may not apply to cultures outside of Europe and North America.

Short. Less than or equal to 5-foot 7-inches tall (170 cm). A male character shorter than 5 feet tall (152 cm) is unusual and needs further explanation – is he a dwarf, a gnome, a hobbit, a little person, or something like that?

Medium. Between 5-foot 8-inches (173 cm) to 6-feet tall (183 cm).

Tall. Greater than or equal to 6-foot 1-inch (185 cm). Some romance readers refuse to read books in which the hero is less than 6 feet tall! A male character taller than 6-foot 6-inches tall (198 cm) is unusual and needs further explanation – is he a basketball player, a giant, a superhero, a vampire, or something like that?

Descriptive Terms:
These terms are for the large male body type, which is tall or overweight or both. Most, if not all, of these words are worn-out clichés. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I'm listing them as those terms that need to be sharpened and personalized with additional description and specific, vivid details.

In addition, sometimes words pick up additional shades of meaning over time that are irrational but exist, and you won't find these connotations listed in the dictionary. Below, I've given the dictionary definition in italics from The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition (Houghton Mifflin, 1982, 1985, 1991, ISBN 0395329434). Then I add whatever additional connotations occur to me and why.

Beefy. Resembling beef. Muscular in build; brawny. Applies to a tall to medium size male with more muscle than fat. He could also be slightly overweight. The connotation here is big and strong and awkward. Bouncers in clubs and bodyguards and thugs are always getting described as "beefy" in fiction.

Big. Of considerable size. This is a neutral term that just means "not small." When I read the term "big man", I tend to think of a very tall man who has the big-boned frame and height to carry his heavy weight. Recently, the trend in marketing and politically-correct speech has been to refer to overweight men as "big men" to try to make it sound less pejorative.

Brawny. Strong and muscular. This is a tall or medium-height man with well-developed muscles, no fat, and a lot of strength. Note: A reader suggests, "Be careful with burly and brawny when describing characters of color. It carries old connotations of slaves being bred for muscle."

Bulky. Extremely large; massive. 2. Clumsy, unwieldy. I see this word as similar to beefy in that it applies to a medium-to-tall male who is muscular and strong, but here he has a greater fat to muscle ratio. So he's similar to a beefy male, but fatter and more awkward.

Bullish. Like a bull; brawny or bullheaded. Think of "beefy" combined with physical aggressiveness. This is a large, strong, tall man who overwhelms smaller people with his bulk and forcefulness to get what he wants. No subtlety here. It's a mix of positive connotations (we reluctantly admire him because he's forceful and no weakling) and negative connotations (he's pushy and overbearing).

Burly. Heavy, strong, and muscular. This is a term for a medium height to tall male who is strong and muscular. He could have a layer of fat over his muscles, but you'd need to bring this out with additional description. See note at Brawny.

Chubby. Rounded and plump. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Chubby implies an abundance of flesh, usually not to excess. This is a term for a slightly overweight male. He can be tall or short. It has connotations of cuteness, harmlessness, and possibly weakness. A chubby guy brings to mind the image of the friendly fat man. The word itself has a reductive sound: a chubby guy is only somewhat fat. A really fat guy is going to need a stronger descriptive term.

Corpulent. Excessively fat; obese. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Obese is employed principally in medical usage with reference to extremely overweight, and corpulent is a more general term for the same condition. See Obese. This is an overweight male who could be tall or short – but I tend to think of him as tall because this word suggests a lot of body mass. Think of the Baron Harkonnen from Dune by Frank Herbert. The term (corp = body) also makes me think of physical strength, gross sensuality, and extreme physical appetites. The word corpulent also looks similar to corrupt, and so it picks up that connotation for me as well.

Dumpy. Short and stout; squat. This is a term for a short, slightly overweight male. It's similar to chubby in its reductive cuteness but carries a further connotation of smallness and untidiness.

Fat. Having much or too much fat or flesh. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Fat always implies excessive weight and is generally unfavorable in connotations. This is an overweight male who could be tall or short. These days, the word "fat" has become a vague and worn-out term by people within five pounds of their ideal weight referring to themselves as fat. It's hard to know what is meant by a fat man. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, when I hear the term, I tend to think of someone who is very overweight – that is, so heavy that he looks obviously overweight when wearing clothes. Most of us standing around fully dressed can be as much as 40 or 50 pounds greater than our ideal weight and we still won't look more than slightly overweight. A fat male is heavier than that.

Fleshy. Having much flesh; corpulent. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Fleshy implies an abundance of flesh that is not necessarily disfiguring. I disagree with the dictionary comparison to "corpulent", especially since it is contradicted by the Synonym Usage Note that I just quoted (which I agree with). To me, fleshy is not as extreme as corpulent. Fleshy is similar to chubby and dumpy but without the connotations of cuteness or weakness. A fleshy male is slightly overweight and can be tall or short.

Hulking. Unwieldy or bulky, massive. This is a large male in the sense of being strong, awkward, bulky, and tall. He could be overweight but it's more likely that he has an overdeveloped physique like a bodybuilder.

Husky. Rugged and strong, burly. This is a medium height to tall male who is strong. He might be a little overweight but mainly he is ruggedly muscular and strong.

Looming. Loom - To come into view as a massive, distorted, or indistinct image. This describes a tall male like an imposing structure looming over smaller people. Along with considerable height, the word carries the connotation of body mass as well – a muscular or overweight man, but you'd have to bring it out with further description.

Massive. Consisting of, or making up, a large mass, bulky. This word applies to a tall male who is either very muscular or very overweight. Picture a mountain of flesh.

Obese. Extremely fat; corpulent. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Obese is employed principally in medical usage with reference to extreme overweight, and corpulent is a more general term for the same condition. An obese man is immediately recognizable as having a huge amount of body mass. Fat will overflow from his clothes. Every part of his body including his face will carry excess fat. He will probably also have many associated health problems such as high blood pressure, aching joints, and sleep apnea.

Plump. 1. Well rounded and full in form; chubby. 2. Abundant, ample. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Plump is applicable to a pleasing fullness of figure, especially in women. This term means slightly overweight and carries a soft, comfortable connotation. It can apply to a male who is either tall or short. Plump is a neutral word that means well-rounded and can carry an attractive, pleasing connotation when applied to women. In western culture, it's probably going be a slightly negative term applied to males – but even that general rule is open to individual interpretation. I've read m/m fiction where a male has a plump ass, which is considered an attractive quality. I think of a plump male as having a slight, spongy layer of fat evenly distributed over his frame. He probably looks trim in clothes but overweight when he's naked.

Portly. Comfortably stout. (Archaic meaning): Majestic and imposing. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Stout and portly are sometimes used as polite terms to describe fatness. Stout, in stricter application, suggests a thickset, bulky person. Portly, is one whose bulk is combined with an imposing bearing. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I have to admit that I really like this word. The word has connotations for me of dignified wealth and luxury. This is probably because I'm seeing the root-word "port" and thinking of fine wine. A portly man is a slightly to medium-range overweight male who could be small, medium, or tall in height – but who carries his extra weight with dignity and strength. He probably has perfect posture. This is probably the only term for "overweight" other than "stout" that carries a dignified connotation.

Pudgy. Short and fat; chubby. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Pudgy describes someone who is thickset and dumpy. Pudgy applies to a small, chubby male and has further connotations of weakness and insignificance. A pudgy male probably whines a lot.

Robust. 1. Full of health and strength, vigorous. 2. Powerfully built, sturdy. Robust can apply to a male of any height, though usually medium-height and tall. It doesn't mean he's overweight, but rather that he's rugged, strong, and powerful. A robust man is not thin, slim, slender, or delicate but he's not overweight either. He's muscular and healthy.

Roly-poly. Short and plump; pudgy. This term is a lot like pudgy in its reductive cuteness, but carries a connotation of cheerfulness that pudgy lacks. It also suggests a more overweight male.

Rotund. Rounded, plump. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Rotund suggests roundness of figure in a squat person. I disagree with the dictionary slightly here in that it defines a rotund man as a short man because shortness plus fatness gives a rounded silhouette. I can understand this, but I've always seen rotund as a term that means a fat man who could be small, medium, or tall. Rotund means not just slightly overweight, but significantly heavy.

Stocky. 1. Solidly built, sturdy. 2. Chubby, plump. Stocky is a term for a short or medium-height male who has some muscular bulk with possibly a layer of fat over that. A tall man with that kind of build will be more massive or beefy than stocky. I tend to associate stocky more with its first definition than with the second: that is, I see a stocky male as more muscular than chubby.

Stout. 1. Strong in body; sturdy. 2. Bulky in figure; corpulent. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Stout and portly are sometimes used as polite terms to describe fatness. Stout, in stricter application, suggests a thickset, bulky person, and portly, one whose bulk is combined with an imposing bearing. Again, I disagree with dictionary definition #2 in that corpulent is too extreme a term to equate with stout. A stout male is like a stocky male. He is a short to medium height male that is solidly built. He is muscular and he could have a slight layer of fat over the muscles.

Sturdy. 1. Substantially built, strong. 2. Stalwart, robust. 3. Vigorous, lusty. Sturdy is a term that I associate with short to medium-height males who are strongly built. It is a positive term, but oddly enough it's not a sexy term. I usually see it applied to people and things that are cute like children ("a sturdy child"), the hero's sidekick (his sturdy friend or assistant), and Shetland ponies ("the sturdy pony pulling its cart").

Squat. Short and thick. Applies to normal weight and overweight males who are short and somewhat thickset. A squat male can be a short man who is fat or he can be powerfully built with bulky muscles. It is an unflattering term, which has toadlike connotations.

Thickset. Having a solid, stocky body; stout. This term applies to a medium overweight male of any height and has an awkward, negative connotation that I don't associate with stout.

Tubby. Short and fat. This term applies to a short male who is overweight. It seems to me to take the cuteness inherent in "chubby" and make it even more insulting. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I tend to see a tubby male as heavier than a chubby male.

Terms That Are Similar:
Muscular: Beefy, Brawny, Bullish, Burly, Husky, Robust, Stocky, Sturdy
Overweight, Slightly: Fleshy, Plump, Stocky, Stout
Overweight, Medium Amount: Chubby, Dumpy, Portly, Pudgy, Thickset
Overweight, A lot (looks fat in clothes): Bulky, Fat, Roly-Poly, Rotund, Tubby
Overweight, Extremely: Corpulent, Massive, Obese
Tall: Big, Hulking, Looming, Massive,
Short: Dumpy, Pudgy, Roly-Poly, Stocky, Stout, Sturdy, Tubby

Negative Terms:
Bulky, Chubby, Corpulent, Dumpy, Fat, Hulking, Looming, Massive, Obese, Pudgy, Roly-Poly, Rotund, Thickset, Tubby

Neutral to Formerly-Positive Terms:
Note: Nowadays, most all terms implying anything less than muscular leanness are seen as negative so I'd advise never using any of these terms conversationally. When writing a description of your characters, you could consider the following terms, which have had neutral to positive connotations: Beefy, Big, Bullish, Husky, Portly, Plump, Stocky, Stout, Sturdy

Positive Terms:
Brawny, Burly, Robust,

Describe your viewpoint character through his actions:
Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com I should point out that most fiction nowadays is written in either first-person viewpoint ("I did this,") or close third-person viewpoint ("He did this"), which means you are deep inside the character's viewpoint and will only receive information that he would know or reasonably be expected to think about. Most first-person and close-third-person narrators are not going to be thinking about a detailed list of their physical attributes unless they're very conceited or very insecure.

If that's the case, then you have to adjust the tone of your narrator's description of himself to sound conceited (He smirked when he thought of his tall, brawny physique) or insecure (He knew he was the heaviest guy in the room). These days you can rarely get away with writing down a grocery list of your viewpoint character's description: He was tall and lanky with floppy brown hair and twinkling brown eyes. This is because it has a distancing effect on the readers. They know that your character wouldn't think of himself that way. It's okay if he's describing someone else.

Try to avoid the clichéd situation where your character notices his reflection in the mirror or a shiny surface and launches into a detailed description of himself. You can get away with it if you keep whatever it is he notices succinct and focused on one thing like his disheveled hair.

Note: See the comment below where Jordan Castillo Price says "description without context sounds amateur, but description in context, description that's doing double-duty or that shows how characters relate to their setting from within their bodies, is going to work a lot better and capture readers' imaginations a lot more than, 'I'm five-foot-ten and trim.'" Great informative examples there!

Descriptive action for a large man:
Try describing your viewpoint character through his actions. If he's tall, have him curl up to crawl into the backseat of a small car. Have him notice how others glance up to speak to him. Does he have to crouch to avoid knocking his head in small spaces? Does he have problems fitting into a seat at a movie theater, on an airplane, or at the waiting room in a doctor's office?

If he's heavy, have him sit on a chair and feel it creak under his weight. Extremely overweight males sometimes have problems breathing because of all the fat weighing down their chest and lungs. They may feel their fat jiggling when they walk, or have problems with excessive sweating and chafing where the folds of skin overlap.

In conclusion:
As with all suggestions, what you've just read is food for thought and not an absolute rule. Rest easy! Use what appeals to you and ignore the rest. With something as subjective as writing, anything goes. The landscape is littered with published works that contradict good advice. In the end, weigh your options and do what feels best.

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains the 2000-word article HT Describe Hair from my blog plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

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HT Describe the Medium Male Body Type

2010-01-29T04:27:00.025-07:00

Athletic. An athlete is A person possessing the natural aptitudes for physical exercise and sports, as strength, agility, and endurance. Athletic is 1. Of, pertaining to, or befitting athletics or athletes. 2. Physically strong, muscular. This is a strong, tall to medium-sized man who has well-formed muscles evenly distributed across his frame.

Beefy . Resembling beef. Muscular in build; brawny. Beefy applies to a tall to medium size male with more muscle than fat. He could also be slightly overweight. The connotation here is big and strong and awkward. Bouncers in clubs, bodyguards, and thugs are always getting described as "beefy" in fiction.

Brawny. Strong and muscular. This is a tall or medium-height man with well-developed muscles, no fat, and a lot of strength.

Buff. Slang, no official definition. Buff is attractively muscular and strong-looking. This applies to a strong, tall or medium-sized man who is a bodybuilder type – a man who has large, well-defined muscles evenly distributed on his frame for a handsome, but perhaps ostentatiously vain, look. This man has enough spare time to lavish on improving his physique through bodybuilding (lifting weights) rather than a man who is strong and muscular through hard labor or combat.

Built. Slang, no official definition. This is similar to Buff in that it applies to a bodybuilder type of man who is tall or medium height and handsomely muscled, but it's not quite as ostentatious. A man might be referred to as "built like a brickhouse" or even "built like a brick shithouse". This implies a rugged, massive, natural level of muscle. The terms sound weird, but are considered a compliment. Most places in the English-speaking world apply those terms only to men. In the U.S., sometimes (but never seriously) they're applied to a big, voluptuous woman. Remember the Commodores' hit song "Brick House" in 1977?

Burly. Heavy, strong, and muscular. This is a term for a medium height to tall male who is strong and muscular. He could have a layer of fat over his muscles, but you'd need to bring this out with additional description.

Chiseled. Having a clean, hard, sharp-lined appearance as if carved out of a hard material such as stone with a sharp metal chisel. A man with chiseled musculature is a bodybuilder type. A man can't get that appearance of precise, balanced musculature without applying himself to a specialized weight-lifting program. He won't be able to get the chiseled look through hard labor, sports, or combat alone. A chiseled musculature is de-emphasizing massive size in favor of balance, proportion, and shape of each muscle. A man with a chiseled build will have well-formed muscles that are all in proportion with one another and distributed all over his body. His sinews will stand out and his skin will sometimes achieve a smooth, papery look (especially right before a bodybuilding competition) that further emphasizes the lines of muscle and tendon. The slang terms "cut" and "ripped" apply as well – but you've got to apply them to the muscles (cut musculature, a ripped build) and not the man, or it has different connotations (He's ripped = He's drunk or under the influence; He's cut = He's circumcised).
Cut. Slang, no official definition. See Chiseled.

Defined muscles. See Chiseled.

Hale. Sound in health; not infirm. See Hardy.

Hardy. Stalwart and rugged; strong. This is a tall to medium-size male who is strong and robust. It seems to apply more to his strength and energy level than to his appearance. Similar to robust.

Husky. Rugged and strong, burly. This is a medium height to tall male who is strong. He might be a little overweight but mainly he is ruggedly muscular and strong.

Lanky. Tall, thin, and ungainly. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720. "Lank" describes one who is thin in proportion to height, and "lanky" one who is thin, tall, and loose-jointed. Applies to underweight or normal weight males who are tall or medium height. Similar to gangling but implies less clumsiness.

Lean. Not fleshy or fat, thin. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720. Lean and spare often suggest desirable absence of flesh in one who is athletic and vigorous; sometimes, however, they have no particular connotation. This word applies to a male of any height and implies strength, athleticism, and a musculature that is more defined than the streamlined muscles of a male dancer but nowhere near as bulky as those of a weight-lifter. Lean is the most popular word applied to an attractive male character.

Lithe. 1. Readily bent; supple. 2. Marked by effortless grace. Lithe is flexible and supple and strong. A lithe male possesses the streamlined muscles of a dancer. The more bulky the muscle, the less flexibility a male possesses. Most lithe males are young.

Muscular. 1. Having well-developed muscles. 2. Of great strength, mighty. A muscular man has well-built, well-defined muscles. Depending upon the rest of your description, he could have the bulky muscles of a weight-lifter or the lean muscles of a boxer. See Chiseled.

Rangy. Having slender long limbs. Rangy doesn't carry the connotation of clumsiness that gangling and lanky do. However, it does have sort of a fresh, unsophisticated, young feeling similar to coltish. In addition, dogs are sometimes described as rangy, meaning inclined to roam. This might be why "rangy" has an unsophisticated feeling when applied to humans.

Rawboned. Having a lean, gaunt frame with prominent bones. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720. Rawboned suggests the lankiness or sparseness of an outdoorsman. The most common term applied to cowboys is rawboned. It has a lean, but possibly homely or plain, connotation for me.

Ripped. Slang, no official definition. See Chiseled.

Robust. 1. Full of health and strength, vigorous. 2. Powerfully built, sturdy. Robust can apply to a male of any height, though usually medium-height and tall. It doesn't mean he's overweight, but rather that he's rugged, strong, and powerful. A robust man is not thin, slim, slender, or delicate but he's not overweight either. He's muscular and healthy.

Rugged. 1. Having strong features marked with furrows or wrinkles. 2. Vigorously healthy, hardy. This word applies to a medium-size to tall male and conveys great strength and endurance. The man is probably muscular and lean, and he may be slightly plain, homely, or rough-hewn in the face and body. He's not graceful, subtle looking, or handsome.

Sinewy. Sinew itself has the definition: 1. A tendon. 2. Vigorous strength; muscular power. Sinewy is 1. Like or consisting of sinew. 2. Lean and muscular. 3. Strong, vigorous. Sinewy means lean and strong with ropy muscles that could be somewhat chiseled in appearance. It can be an attractive look.

Slim. Small in girth or thickness in proportion to height or length; slender. Applies to normal weight males of any height. Slim is a neutral word that has no connotations of weakness. It means not fat, and can be due to either fitness or being naturally slim. A slim man is unlikely to have much muscle mass or bulk; his muscles will be supple like a dancer's muscles.

Spare. Thin or lean. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720. Lean and spare often suggest desirable absence of flesh in one who is athletic and vigorous; sometimes, however, they have no particular connotation. Applies to underweight or normal weight males of any height. This is a neutral word but has connotations of toughness and leanness. A spare male has little or no fat and his muscle is streamlined, not bulky.

Stalwart. 1. Having physical strength, robust. 2. Resolute, uncompromising. This word is complimentary but rarely used seriously nowadays because of its connotation of knights or superheroes. It has become too overblown for normal use.

Stocky. 1. Solidly built, sturdy. 2. Chubby, plump. Stocky is a term for a short or medium-height male who has some muscular bulk with possibly a layer of fat over that. A tall man with that kind of build will be more massive or beefy than stocky. I tend to associate stocky more with its first definition than with the second: that is, I see a stocky male as more muscular than chubby.

Stout . 1. Strong in body; sturdy. 2. Bulky in figure; corpulent. Synonym Usage Note at "Fat", p.492: Stout and portly are sometimes used as polite terms to describe fatness. Stout, in stricter application, suggests a thickset, bulky person, and portly, one whose bulk is combined with an imposing bearing. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I disagree with dictionary definition #2 in that corpulent is too extreme a term to equate with stout. A stout male is like a stocky male. He is a short to medium height male that is solidly built. He is muscular and he could have a slight layer of fat over the muscles.

Strapping. Tall and sturdy. This is similar to Stalwart in that it has almost become a joke term, but not quite. You often hear of a strapping young man. This is a tall, big, brawny man.

Sturdy.1. Substantially built, strong. 2. Stalwart, robust. 3. Vigorous, lusty. Sturdy is a term that I here at Obsidianbookshelf.com associate with short to medium-height males who are strongly built. It is a positive term, but oddly enough it's not a sexy term. I usually see it applied to people and things that are cute like children ("a sturdy child"), the hero's sidekick (his sturdy friend or assistant), and Shetland ponies ("the sturdy pony pulling its cart").

Svelte. Slender and graceful in figure or outline, slim. This word has a totally different connotation for me than its dictionary definition. I associate "svelte" with the fitness industry – specifically, a fussy branch of fitness practiced by a middle-aged woman attempting to regain her girlish figure. Svelte makes me think of an effeminate man or an older woman who has managed to achieve a somewhat artificial slimness without strength that is considered "not bad for an older lady."

Toned. From physiology: 1. Tone is the tension in resting muscles. 2. Tone is normal firmness of tissue. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I get many of the same associations with Toned that I get with Svelte, but Toned does not seem quite as effeminate. For me, a toned person is a woman or maybe a man who lavishes a lot of spare time on sculpting his or her figure through passive disciplines such as yoga and Pilates into a pleasingly slender shape. A toned man will be athletic, but in a supple and non-muscular way. Unlike a svelte man, he will be strong, but his muscles will be streamlined like a dancer's muscles.

Tough. 1. Strong and resilient; able to withstand great strain without tearing or breaking. 2. Physically hardy; rugged. Tough applies to medium- to strongly-built men of any height and implies great strength and endurance.

Trim. 1. Being in good or neat order. 2. Having lines, edges, or forms of neat and pleasing simplicity. Applies to normal weight males of any height. Could apply to underweight males but not drastically underweight because it means having a neat and pleasing symmetry to one's silhouette. It implies being slim and physically fit. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I associate the term trim with military men.

Vigorous. 1. Robust and hardy. 2. Vigorous and lively. This word is less of an appearance term and more applicable to energy and strength, but it applies to a man of any height who is of medium- to strong-build.

Virile. 1. Of, or having the characteristics of, a man; masculine. 2. Having energy, vigor, or force. 3. Capable of performing sexually as a male; potent. Virile is not an appearance term so much as a sexual- or potency-term, but it implies a man of traditionally masculine appearance. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I think of a virile man as being of medium to tall height and medium to strong build, and having a huge amount of robust energy.

Well-built. See Built.

Wiry. 1. Sinewy and lean. 2. Slender but tough. Wiry applies to underweight to normal weight males of any height. It means slim or lean but tough. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I mostly associate it with shorter males, but it can be used for tall males. This is probably the single best word that can describe the ideal physique for the Special Forces soldier (see below).

Describe your viewpoint character through his actions:
Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I should point out that most fiction nowadays is written in either first-person viewpoint ("I did this,") or close third-person viewpoint ("He did this"), which means you are deep inside the character's viewpoint and will only receive information that he would know or reasonably be expected to think about. Most first-person and close-third-person narrators are not going to be thinking about a detailed list of their physical attributes unless they're very conceited or very insecure.

If that's the case, then you have to adjust the tone of your narrator's description of himself to sound conceited (He smirked when he thought of his tall, brawny physique) or insecure (He knew he was the scrawniest guy in the room). These days you can rarely get away with writing down a grocery list of your viewpoint character's description: He was tall and lanky with floppy brown hair and twinkling brown eyes. This is because it has a distancing effect on the readers. They know that your character wouldn't think of himself that way. It's okay if he's describing someone else.

Try to avoid the clichéd situation where your character notices his reflection in the mirror or a shiny surface and launches into a detailed description of himself. You can get away with it if you keep whatever it is he notices succinct and focused on one thing like his disheveled hair.

Descriptive action for a medium sized man:
Try describing your viewpoint character through his actions. If he verges towards tall, have him curl up to crawl into the backseat of a small car. If he's heavy, have him sit on a chair and feel it creak under his weight. If he's somewhat short, have him unable to see over people's shoulders as he walks down the sidewalk within a crowd. If he's lightweight, have him knocked off balance by a big dog jumping on him. Have your character notice how others glance up or down to speak to him.

The Ideal Physique for the Perfect Soldier:
Is your male character a mercenary or a member of an elite special-ops branch of the service? This would include U.S. Army Rangers, U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets), U.S. Navy SEALs, U.S. Marine Corps Force Recon, Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, British Army SAS (Special Air Service), Russian Spetsnaz, Israeli Sayeret Matkal, and so forth.

Guess what the ideal physique is for a guy who will do well in special-ops? If you're thinking a big, brawny type, think again. The ideal special-ops soldier is wiry, sinewy, lean, and tough. He's not going to want a lot of muscle-bulk on his own frame to carry in addition to all the equipment he has to haul into the field.

He's probably going to be of medium height, between five-foot-nine inches (176 cm) tall and six-feet (183 cm) tall and have a very lean fat-to-muscle ratio. He will have a lot of upper-body strength and leg-strength. When he's dressed in civilian clothes, he won't stand out as a noticeably brawny-looking man. Rather, he'll look trim and athletic, but not especially imposing.

Here is some of the physical training that the U.S. Army Rangers are expected to do:
(courtesy of Military.com – see Links below)
80+ push-ups in 2:00 minutes
80+ sit-ups in 2:00 minutes
12+ pull-ups (Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I'm not sure which grip you get to use; palms facing out is the most difficult.)

A massively tall and muscular man is going to suffer, trying to force his own body-weight through this sort of training. It can be done, but not as easily as the wiry guys can accomplish it.

Case in Point:
Take this excerpt from the terrific military memoir (no gay content) In Pharoah's Army: Memories of the Lost War by Tobias Wolff who did U.S. Army basic training, Airborne Ranger training at Ft. Benning, Special Forces training at Ft. Bragg, and then ended up in the Vietnam War, poor devil. From page 48:

"Military training agreed with me. My body was right for it – trim and stringy. Guys who would have pulverized me on the football field were still on their third push-up when I'd finished my tenth. The same bruisers had trouble on our runs and suffered operatically on the horizontal bar, where we had to do pull-ups before every meal. Their beefy bodies, all bulked up for bumping and bashing, swayed like carcasses under their white-knuckled hands. Their necks turned red, their arms quivered, they grunted piteously as they tried to raise their chins to the bar. They managed to pull themselves up once or twice and then just hung there, sweating and swearing. Now and then they kicked feebly. Their pants slipped down, exposing pimply white butts."

In conclusion:
As with all suggestions, what you've just read is food for thought and not an absolute rule. Rest easy! Use what appeals to you and ignore the rest. With something as subjective as writing, anything goes. The landscape is littered with published works that contradict good advice. In the end, weigh your options and do what feels best.

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains the 2000-word article HT Describe Hair from my blog plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

Do you not own a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free Kindle app to read Kindle books on your reader of choice, and it is very easy to install. You click the link for the app you want and it practically installs itself. Believe me, if I could do it, anyone can. With the free app, you can read Kindle books on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Here is the link to all the Kindle reading apps available: all FREE Kindle reading apps located here.
Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post. (You're more than welcome to save these how-to articles to your computer for your own private reference.)
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

HT Describe the Small Male Body Type

2010-01-28T04:57:00.016-07:00

Are you looking for a list of descriptive terms for fiction writers to help prod your imagination into action? Maybe you're just fascinated by words and the informal connotations they pick up. When you're writing physical descriptions of your characters, there are numerous terms you can use depending on their sex and size.

This article is for describing the small male body type. You're welcome to print out this how-to for your own use, or your critique group's use, or you can link back to this article from your blog, but please don't copy this content to your blog or website.

Be aware of your genre's expectations. In literary fiction, science fiction, and mystery fiction, too much physical description of characters can be viewed as the mark of an amateur writer. Keep your descriptions limited to one or two distinctive features and show through action.

In fantasy fiction and romance fiction, physical description is more important. Of course, all rules were meant to be broken. If you're well read and know what you're doing, you can write your fiction however you want.

Weight:
Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com I try not to specify a character's actual weight because it doesn't really help readers to know how he looks unless they know how much of that weight is fat and how much is muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. Unless your character is a bodybuilder or a boxer or has some reason to be concerned with his actual weight, skip the numbers and just describe his build.

Note: The standard for male attractiveness is to be height-weight proportionate, and to have broad shoulders, a broad, muscular chest, a narrow waist and hips, and long legs. An underweight male might be self-conscious about his thin chest, arms, and neck. If he's really unlucky, he'll worry about his narrow shoulders as well.

Height:
Feel free to state your character's height. As an absolute measurement, it doesn't have the potential for error that stating his weight has. Below are some Western guidelines for the categories of short, medium, and tall males that may not apply to cultures outside of Europe and North America.

Short. Less than or equal to 5-foot 7-inches tall (170 cm). A male character shorter than 5 feet tall (152 cm) is unusual and needs further explanation – is he a dwarf, a gnome, a hobbit, a little person, or something like that?

Medium. Between 5-foot 8-inches (173 cm) to 6-feet tall (183 cm).

Tall. Greater than or equal to 6-foot 1-inch (185 cm). Some romance readers refuse to read books in which the hero is less than 6 feet tall! A male character taller than 6-foot 6-inches tall (198 cm) is unusual and needs further explanation – is he a basketball player, a giant, a superhero, a vampire, or something like that?

Descriptive Terms:
These terms are for the small male body type, which is short or underweight or both. Most, if not all, of these words are worn-out clichés. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I'm listing them as those terms that need to be sharpened and personalized with additional description and specific, vivid details.

In addition, sometimes words pick up additional shades of meaning over time that are irrational but exist, and you won't find these connotations listed in the dictionary. Below, I've given the dictionary definition in italics from The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition (Houghton Mifflin, 1982, 1985, 1991, ISBN 0395329434). Then I add whatever additional connotations occur to me and why.

Angular. 1. Bony and lean, gaunt. 2. Lacking grace or smoothness, awkward: an angular gait. Applies to an underweight / normal weight male. Could be used for a short male, but mostly used for medium-height and tall. Angular means little or no fat to obscure the angles of his skeletal structure. It has connotations of awkwardness, clumsiness, and strength.

Bony. Having protruding or prominent bones, lean, gaunt. Applies to underweight males of any height. Bony means little fat or muscle on the bones. It has connotations of weakness due to age or infirmity.

Dapper. 1. Neatly dressed, trim. 2. Small and active. Applies to underweight or normal weight males who are short. Dapper means small, active, and trim. This word also has connotations of being neat and stylish. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I picture a cute little man like a leprechaun.

Delicate. 1. Pleasing to the senses, esp. in a subtle way. 2. Exquisitely fine or dainty. 3. Frail in constitution or health. Applies to underweight and normal weight males who are short. Usually women or children are described as delicate. A man with a delicate build is probably small, slender, and childlike. Delicate conveys prettiness but also weakness. A delicate male may look effeminate unless he's very young. He won't be bony because delicate implies prettiness, but he will have undefined or smooth muscles.

Diminutive. Of very small size, tiny. Applies to underweight or normal weight males who are short. This word has connotations of cuteness.

Elfin. 1. Small and sprightly, mischievous. 2. Fairylike, magical. Applies to underweight or normal weight males who are short. This word is means "resembling an elf" and also conveys cuteness, smallness, magic, and mischief.

Gangling or gangly. Tall, thin, and ungraceful; rangy. Applies to underweight or normal weight males who are tall. The word has connotations of being clumsy, awkward, and unrefined and having long arms and legs. Teenage boys are often gangling because they are growing fast and not very coordinated. See Lanky.

Gaunt. 1. Thin and bony; angular. 2. Emaciated and haggard; drawn. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720: Gaunt implies thinness that gives undue prominence to the bones and may suggest illness or hardship. Applies to underweight males of any height. This word implies an unattractive thinness due to hardship or disease or advanced age. It can imply toughness due to hardship; the overall context will depend on your further description. A gaunt male has a thin build that is either skin-and-bones or very tough, leathery muscle over bone. It isn't usually an attractive look but can be a striking or formidable look in an older man.

Lanky. Tall, thin, and ungainly. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720. Lank describes one who is thin in proportion to height, and lanky one who is thin, tall, and loose-jointed. Applies to underweight or normal weight males who are tall or medium height. Similar to gangling but implies less clumsiness.

Puny. Of inferior size, strength, and significance; weak. Applies to underweight males who are short. A puny male is small, weak, and even insignificant, poor devil. He might even be sickly.
Sawed-off. Slang: Short and runty. This is a height term that applies to short males who are usually normal weight. It is a slightly insulting term but can imply toughness maybe because we tend to think of sawed-off shotguns.

Scrawny. Gaunt and bony. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720. Skinny and scrawny imply unattractive thinness associated with underdevelopment and undernourishment. Applies to underweight males of any height. The word implies weakness and insignificance and is similar to puny. Often old men are described as scrawny.

Short. Having little height; not tall. This term means a male of any weight that stands less than 5-foot 7-inches (170 cm).

Shrimpy. Shrimp = small, unimportant person. Applies to underweight males who are short and is a slang term. It is not quite as negative a word as puny. Often young boys are called shrimpy.

Skinny. Very thin. Synonym Usage Note at "Lean" p. 720. Skinny and scrawny imply unattractive thinness associated with underdevelopment and undernourishment. Applies to underweight males of any height. It can perhaps apply to normal weight males and carry a connotation of healthy youthfulness – a skinny boy who is young and undeveloped. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I have to disagree with the synonym usage note and say that to me skinny is a neutral word in that it doesn't carry the connotation of hardship or illness found in words like gaunt or bony. A skinny male can be strong but he usually isn't because he lacks the musculature.

Slender. Gracefully slim. Applies to underweight or normal weight males of any height. Slender implies no fat and maybe not much muscle mass unless the male has the streamlined muscles of a dancer. It is a youthful or even feminine look. Boys can be slender before they develop adult bodies. Slender is a neutral word, but a slender man is unlikely to have a lot of physical strength.

Slight. Slender or frail; delicate. Applies to underweight males who are short. Implies weakness though a slight man may not be quite as thin as a bony or gaunt man.

Slim. Small in girth or thickness in proportion to height or length; slender. Applies to normal weight males of any height. Slim is a neutral word that has no connotations of weakness. It means not fat, and can be due to either fitness or being naturally slim.

Spare. Thin or lean. Applies to underweight or normal weight males of any height. This is a neutral word but has connotations of toughness and leanness. A spare male has little or no fat and his muscle is streamlined, not bulky.

Spindly. 1. Slender and elongated. 2. Of weak growth. Applies to underweight males of any height, but usually tall males. It means slender and elongated as in long, thin limbs. It has an additional connotation of weakness.

Squat. Short and thick. Applies to normal weight and overweight males who are short and somewhat thickset. A squat male can be a short man who is fat or he can be powerfully built with bulky muscles. It is an unflattering term, which has toadlike connotations.

Thin. Lean or slender of figure. Applies to underweight males of any height. This is a very worn-out, generic word that simply means not fat. Since it also means no muscle mass, it seems to carry an additional connotation of weakness. Thin can encompass a range of underweight body types from bony or gaunt at its most pared-down to lean or slim at its most normal.

Trim. 1. Being in good or neat order. 2. Having lines, edges, or forms of neat and pleasing simplicity. Applies to normal weight males of any height. Could apply to underweight males but not drastically underweight because it means having a neat and pleasing symmetry to one's silhouette. It implies being slim and physically fit. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I associate the term trim with military men.

Wee. Very small, tiny. Applies to underweight to normal weight males who are small and short. Wee is primarily a Scottish term that means tiny and cute.

Willowy. 1. Flexible, pliant. 2. Slender and graceful. Applies to underweight to normal weight males of any height. This word is mostly used to describe women, girls, and young boys and in adult males can carry an effeminate connotation. It means slender, flexible, and graceful.

Wiry. 1. Sinewy and lean. 2. Slender but tough. Applies to underweight to normal weight males of any height. It means slim or lean but tough. I mostly associate it with shorter males, but it can be used for tall males.

Terms that are similar:
Bony, Gaunt – Unattractively thin due to illness or hardship
Dapper, Diminutive, Elfin, Wee – Small, trim, neat, and cute
Delicate, Willowy – Gracefully thin and flexible and perhaps effeminate
Angular, Gangling, Lanky – Awkwardly thin and clumsy with long limbs
Puny, Scrawny, Shrimpy, Spindly – Small, thin, and weak
Sawed-off, Short, Squat – Not tall. Squat carries additional connotations of being thickset.
Skinny, Slender, Slim, Thin, Trim – Not fat. Skinny is the least flattering term.
Spare, Wiry – Thin but strong.

Negative Terms:
Angular – neutral to unflattering
Bony, Gaunt - Unattractively thin due to illness or hardship
Diminutive, Elfin, Wee – attractively slim but can carry a dismissive or cute connotation
Delicate, Willowy – Gracefully thin and flexible and perhaps effeminate
Angular, Gangling, Lanky – Awkwardly thin and clumsy with long limbs
Puny, Scrawny, Shrimpy, Spindly – Small, thin, and weak
Sawed-off, Short, Squat – Not tall. Squat carries additional connotations of being thickset
Skinny, Thin – Can imply weakness

Neutral to Positive Terms:
Dapper – small but neat and stylish
Slender, Slim, Thin, Trim – not fat. Thin is neutral to negative. Slim and Trim imply physical fitness.
Spare, Wiry – Thin but strong.

Describe your viewpoint character through his actions:
Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com I should point out that most fiction nowadays is written in either first-person viewpoint ("I did this,") or close third-person viewpoint ("He did this"), which means you are deep inside the character's viewpoint and will only receive information that he would know or reasonably be expected to think about. Most first-person and close-third-person narrators are not going to be thinking about a detailed list of their physical attributes unless they're very conceited or very insecure.

If that's the case, then you have to adjust the tone of your narrator's description of himself to sound conceited (He smirked when he thought of his tall, brawny physique) or insecure (He knew he was the scrawniest guy in the room). These days you can rarely get away with writing down a grocery list of your viewpoint character's description: He was tall and lanky with floppy brown hair and twinkling brown eyes. This is because it has a distancing effect on the readers. They know that your character wouldn't think of himself that way. It's okay if he's describing someone else.

Try to avoid the clichéd situation where your character notices his reflection in the mirror or a shiny surface and launches into a detailed description of himself. You can get away with it if you keep whatever it is he notices succinct and focused on one thing like his disheveled hair.

Descriptive action for a small man:
Try describing your viewpoint character through his actions. If he's short, have him unable to see over people's shoulders as he walks down the sidewalk within a crowd. Have him notice how taller people glance down at him – or, more realistically, ignore him. Have him get elbowed aside by bigger males. If he's lightweight, have him get knocked off balance by a big dog jumping on him.

In conclusion:
As with all suggestions, what you've just read is food for thought and not an absolute rule. Rest easy! Use what appeals to you and ignore the rest. With something as subjective as writing, anything goes. The landscape is littered with published works that contradict good advice. In the end, weigh your options and do what feels best.

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains the 2000-word article HT Describe Hair from my blog plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

Do you not own a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free Kindle app to read Kindle books on your reader of choice, and it is very easy to install. You click the link for the app you want and it practically installs itself. Believe me, if I could do it, anyone can. With the free app, you can read Kindle books on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Here is the link to all the Kindle reading apps available: all FREE Kindle reading apps located here.

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post. (You're more than welcome to save these how-to articles to your computer for your own private reference.)
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

HT Write Physical Description

2010-01-17T04:01:00.111-07:00

Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I'm offering the following as my opinion, which is only a tiny representative sample of the writing advice you can find out there on the worldwide web. Remember, you can take or leave anyone's opinion and experiment with writing however you like.

You're welcome to print out this how-to for your own use, or your critique group's use, or you can link back to this article from your blog, but please don't copy this content to your blog or website.

My Preference. As a reader, I like minimal physical description of main characters because I'd rather imagine them myself. I enjoy quirky and vivid descriptions of the minor characters because they're not as important in that they're not in the story long enough for me to identify with them.

This preference is typical of readers of literary fiction, mainstream fiction, mysteries, and science fiction. Readers of fantasy fiction will want more physical description.

If you're writing romance ( m/m, m/f, or f/f), you need to include a lot of physical description of your main characters because the genre centers on love and sexual attraction. Both males and females in romance fiction tend to be very beautiful and described in great detail. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I've had a lot of trouble trying to remember to do that!

That said, I love descriptions of eye color.

How descriptive you get depends on your genre, but it can also vary based on what else you're trying to do with the description. Descriptions can serve different purposes. I've found some examples for you from fantasy, romance, mystery, and mainstream fiction.

Description that gives a basic snapshot.
Some writers, especially those with a cast of hundreds, just want to nail down a few physical traits so that readers can tell their characters apart. The following descriptions are boring and static in my opinion, but they serve their purpose. See how the images are workmanlike, basic, and in my opinion too wordy.

From page 23 of Rhapsody (fantasy fiction) by Elizabeth Haydon: "She had long straight hair with just a hint of a wave to it, and it hung like a silken sheet down her back. In the dark it appeared to be the color of pale flax …Her face was delicately formed, with large, dark eyes fringed with black lashes and an upper lip shaped like a longbow."

From page 3 of The Eye of the World (fantasy fiction) by Robert Jordan: "He was a head taller than his father, taller than anyone else in the district, and had little of [his father] in him physically, except perhaps for a breadth of shoulder. Gray eyes and the reddish tinge to his hair came from his mother …"

From page 15 of A Game of Thrones (fantasy fiction) by George R. R. Martin: "He was big and broad and growing every day, with his mother's coloring, the fair skin, red-brown hair, and blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun … Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast."

Description that understates to highlight a particular feature.
Ellen Kushner has a literary style that doesn't overburden us readers with physical description of characters. Like me, she seems fascinated by eye-color. Look at her minimal description of Richard St. Vier, one of the two main characters:

From page 4 of Swordspoint (fantasy fiction) by Ellen Kushner: "He was younger than most of them there; dark-haired, of average height, his face dirty and stubbled."

Later on, we get his eye-color and it remains his most distinctive feature because everything else about him is so understated:

From page 40 of Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner: "The swordsman's eyes were, incongruously, the deep lavender color of spring hyacinths."

Description that conveys personality.
From page 6 of Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner: "Alec dreamily laced his long fingers in his hair. His hair was fine and leaf-brown, worn down his back in the long tail that was the defiant emblem of University scholars … Alec's eyes, turned to the window, were dark and green, like the water under the Bridge."

Along with giving us a physical image, Kushner conveys many intangibles about Alec in that physical description: dreaminess, defiance, scholarliness. He seems refined: fine hair, long fingers, and he's a scholar. But there is also an unsavory quality about him: his eyes are dark and green like water under the Bridge. What lurks under bridges? Moss and slime? Trolls? Highwaymen?

Description that upholds the larger design of the novel.
From page 17 of Kushiel's Dart (fantasy fiction) by Jacqueline Carey: "It is not, of course, that I lacked beauty, even as a babe … My hair, which grew to curl in charming profusion, was the color of sable-in-shadows … My limbs were straight and supple, my bones a marvel of delicate strength … My eyes, when they settled, were that color the poets call bistre, a deep and lustrous darkness, like a forest pool under the shade of ancient oaks."

This description does a lot. At first, you might think that narrator Phaedre is conceited, especially because she's conveying it in first-person viewpoint! If you read the description in context, however, you realize that she's very matter-of-fact because all of her countrymen, the D'Angelines, are known for their supernatural beauty. So the description goes beyond Phaedre and does some world building within the Kushiel series.

Plus, note how ornate the writing is. This tone echoes the dreamy, baroque, feverish experience that is Phaedre's story in the Kushiel books. The experience just wouldn't be possible if it were written in a minimalist way.

From page 207 of Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey: "Indeed, there was very little about Joscelin Verreuil that was not beautiful. He had the old-fashioned, noble features of a provincial lord and the somber, ash-grey garb of a Casseline Brother adorned a tall, well-proportioned form, like the statues of the old Hellene athletes. His eyes were a clear blue, the color of a summer sky, and his hair, caught back in a club at the nape of his neck, was the color of a wheatfield at harvesttime."

Just for contrast, the description of Joscelin does nothing for me. The author has missed the mark with this description in a way that she didn't with the gorgeous description of Phaedre (especially Phaedre's eyes). I think it's because he sounds so generic to me: well-formed like a statue, sky-blue eyes, hair the color of wheat. It's nowhere near as striking as Phaedre's description, which set the bar pretty high.

From page 46 of Captain's Surrender (m/m romance fiction) by Alex Beecroft: "The movement took him from deep shadow into lamplight, baring his shirtless skin to Josh's rapt gaze. … Such arms he had, pale and strong, the yellow light pooling in their curves. His long neck and flanks and chest were sleek as cream and scarcely scarred. And his back, the elegant curve of spine brutally cut from waist to shoulders, swollen, bruised, and oozing blood."

This is an amazing description. We've got a leitmotif going here, a theme or image that recurs.

In this case, it's liquid: "pooling in curves" and "sleek as cream" and even "oozing blood." If you can repeat an image this gracefully while managing to vary it slightly like this, it makes for a wonderful reading experience. There is a connectedness and symmetry to a leitmotif that sinks into the reader's subconscious and is immensely appealing.

Apart from the literary creativity going on here, this description conveys something about Peter, the one being described. "Sleek as cream" is the phrase that really grabs me. It's an unusual way to describe a man, but striking. Peter is beautiful, but there is also a connotation of luxury, self-awareness, arrogance, and entitlement to him.

Description that reveals the watcher's personality.
From page 34 of Always (mystery fiction, f/f romance fiction) by Nicola Griffith: "She felt my gaze and looked up. Grey-blue eyes, soft as dove feathers."

From page 39: "She had wide shoulders, a tight waist flaring into rounded hips, and muscles on her fingers and forearms and neck. I guessed her back was also finely muscled, and her legs. It was muscle that comes with intensive training from an early age, the kind a trapeze artist or a free climber or high diver develops."

This is in Aud's first-person viewpoint. She's a martial arts expert and a former cop so she would value strength and physicality. She knows a lot about fitness and how you develop certain muscles.

Plus, she's immediately attracted to this woman, and it comes across in the sensual touches (a tight waist flaring into rounded hips) and in the unusual contrast she points out between the woman's muscled form and her eyes "soft as dove feathers." This description reveals as much or more about Aud as it does the woman being watched.

From page 3 of In the Bleak Midwinter (mystery fiction) by Julia Spencer-Fleming: "She was plain, no makeup and nondescript dark blond hair scraped back in a ponytail. She had that overbred look he associated with rich women from the north side of town: high cheekbones and a long thin nose that was perfect for looking down at folks … Her eyes were the only exceptional thing about her, true hazel, like granite seen under green water."

This is the heroine as seen in third-person viewpoint by the hero. See how unemotional and observant he is. He ticks off characteristics like a cop making a list: blond hair, ponytail, no makeup. In fact, he is the chief of police.

Note the chip on his shoulder against the upper classes: that overbred look, a nose perfect for looking down on folks. Yet, you can tell he's interested in spite of himself (and in spite of how disinterested she is in her own appearance what with her scraping back that ponytail): he takes the time to notice her eyes in detail.

If you guessed that he is from the working class (cop) and from an unsentimental culture (rural Yankee) and that she is more cerebral than appearance-oriented (she's an Episcopal priest), you're right. It all gets conveyed in the type of details he notices and what connotations he gives to those details.

From page 3 of In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming: "He had a fit, outdoors look to him, still slightly tan from last summer, his dark brown hair picked out with gold and copper. She'd have to disagree with Lois, his nose was too big and his lips were too nonexistent to call him handsome. But he looked like a man who had lived comfortably within his skin for the past forty-odd years … His eyes were Fourth-of-July blue, high and bright with the snap of a flag in the wind. But behind them she could see something moving, like pages turning in a book no one was allowed to read."

Okay, this is the hero as seen in third-person viewpoint by the heroine. You definitely get an image of him as an outdoorsy guy. You also get a sense of her trying to mask her interest behind an intellectual sort of detachment: she's just disagreeing with Lois, and of course it was Lois who first brought him up.

Look at what she finds attractive: that he's lived comfortably within his skin for a long while. That's a cerebral, spiritual thing to notice rather than, say, that he has a cute ass. Later we find out that she's an Episcopal priest. She's also intuitive enough to sense his darker side as shown by the last line. With alcoholism and the Vietnam War in his past, he has some shadows on his soul.

Description that reinforces ideology.
I don't usually enjoy being led by the nose, but I love how over-the-top Ayn Rand's descriptions are. You read a physical description and you know immediately whom you're supposed to like and dislike.

Her descriptions are way too heavy-handed for today's readers, but I'm including them so you can see how much mileage she gets out of each description. They're so revealing of personality.

Warning to romance fans: We the Living has a love triangle, but the author is more interested in showing the evils of Communism than to give us an HEA (happily ever after) ending – just so you know.

From page 44 of We the Living (mainstream / literary fiction) by Ayn Rand: "Kira's eyes were dark gray, the gray of storm clouds behind which the sun can be expected at any moment … Kira's mouth was thin, long. When silent, it was cold, indomitable, and men thought of a Valkyrie with lance and winged helmet in the sweep of battle. But a slight movement made a wrinkle in the corners of her lips – and men thought of an imp … Kira's hair was short, thrown back off her forehead, light-rays lost in its tangled mass … a face that had escaped from the easel of a modern artist who had been in a hurry: a face of straight, sharp lines sketched furiously to suggest an unfinished promise."

Kira is a typical headstrong, self-absorbed Ayn Rand heroine. She's striking rather than pretty, and is so involved in her chosen work that she doesn't waste time on primping and dressing up. So she comes across as intense, hasty, unpredictable, independent – and effortlessly beautiful despite, or perhaps because, of her indifference.

The above description of Kira Argounova is fun if you read it in context. She's standing in a barren office in front of a little Communist drone who is writing down her description so that he can issue her the all-important labor book.

He sets down the bare minimum such as "Eyes – Gray" and then the narrative goes into this huge elaboration about "…the gray of storm clouds" et cetera. Ayn Rand is showing us how the Communist bureaucracy squeezes the vitality and heroism out of these larger-than-life individuals.

Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I find it hard to believe that the Communists would care enough to have a place on the form for a description of one's "Mouth" (the drone writes down, "Ordinary"), but that's okay. How else are we going to launch into a comparison of Kira with a Valkyrie?

From page 61 of We the Living by Ayn Rand: "He was tall; his collar was raised; a cap was pulled over his eyes. His mouth, calm, severe, contemptuous, was that of an ancient chieftain who could order men to die, and his eyes were such as could watch it."

This is Leo Kovalensky, whom I've got to like because his surname is so close to my own, ha ha! Otherwise, he's your typical Ayn Rand hero who can be summed up in one defining word: arrogant. He's the son of an admiral under the old regime – that is, the imperialists who fought the Reds. Therefore, like many Ayn Rand heroes who defy collective mediocrity with their innate splendor, he's doomed.

Note how minimal his physical description is. He's tall (and presumably not fat) but we have no real idea of his build, hair color, eye color, or even how attractive he is.

What's most important is his individual arrogance. Isn't that an amazing thing to say about a character: "His mouth … was that of an ancient chieftain who could order men to die, and his eyes were such as could watch it."

From pages 74 – 75 of We the Living by Ayn Rand: "… two gray eyes that looked like the eyes of a tamed tiger; but she was not quite sure if it was tamed or not. There were four straight lines on his face: two eyebrows, a mouth and a scar on his right temple … He was tall and young. He wore a cap and a leather jacket. He walked like a soldier, his steps deliberate and very confident."

Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I love that description of Andrei Taganov who is not just a Communist, but also a member of the GPU (the secret police). This is the ultimate in a sinister occupation, and yet he is supposed to be a noble man who doesn't fully realize the evil of the system for which he crusades.

He, too, is tall, young, and confident. But he's not completely arrogant. He walks like a soldier, which is manly and all, but also suggests that he, like any soldier, obeys orders.

He has the eyes of a tiger – but possibly a tamed tiger! Poor Andre could've been a real man like Leo if he hadn't had thrown his lot in with those Communists! Just for the record, he's my favorite character in the novel.

Even more fun are Ayn Rand's descriptions of the villains: that is, all the Communists except for Andre who is supposed to be attractive enough to form a love triangle with Kira and Leo.

From page 69 of We the Living by Ayn Rand: "[referring to Comrade Sonia] …short, husky legs and flat, masculine oxfords; a red kerchief tied carelessly over short, straight hair; eyes wide apart in a round, freckled face; thin lips drawn together with so obvious and fierce a determination that they seemed weak; dandruff on the black leather of her shoulders."

Thin, weak lips and dandruff! Ick! No wonder she's a Communist!

From page 70 of We the Living by Ayn Rand: "[referring to Pavel Syerov] A young speaker stood on the platform, rubbing his hands solicitously, like a sales clerk at a counter. His face looked like an advertisement that had stayed in a shop window too long: a little more color was needed to make his hair blond, his eyes blue, his skin healthy. His pale lips made no frame for the dark hole of his mouth …"

The description of Syerov is one of my all-time favorites. "Rubbing his hands solicitously" makes me think of a housefly – how loathsome! And that sun-faded advertisement metaphor conveys weakness, impotence, venality, and mediocrity.

Description that gives pleasure to the reader.

From page 4 of Slave to Sensation (m/f romance fiction) by Nalini Singh: "She had the night-sky eyes of a cardinal Psy – an endless field of black scattered with pinpricks of cold white fire."

From page 6: "She had rich ebony hair that absorbed light like ink and curled so wildly that she was forced to pull it back in a severe plait every morning. Her skin was a dark honey."

From page 4: "Well over six feet tall, he was built like the fighting machine he was in the wild, pure lean muscle and tensile strength. His black hair brushed his shoulders but there was nothing soft about it. Instead, it hinted at unrestrained passion and the dark hunger of the leopard below the skin … Four jagged lines, reminiscent of the claw marks of some great beast, scored the muted gold of his skin [on the right side of his face]. His eyes were a hypnotic green."

From page 26: "In spite of the black pantsuit and stiff white shirt she wore like corporate armor, he could tell her breasts would overflow his hands … The curve of her hip was sensually female, her bottom a heart-shaped enticement."

These descriptions fulfill many different purposes. They reveal personality: the heroine's wild curls tamed into a severe plait, and her voluptuous form hidden in formal clothing. You read this and realize that she's repressed, defensive, and out-of-touch with her own beauty and sensuality.

The descriptions also reveal what's important to the character doing the watching (the hero is having a meltdown over her breasts). Plus, we readers can't help but realize how attractive the hero and heroine are to each other. The pleasure they're taking in each other's appearance is building up reader anticipation for their first sexual encounter.

Beyond all of that, this is a romance novel, and its job is to create a pleasurable sensual and romantic fantasy for the reader. We want the hero and heroine to be not just gorgeous but imbued with strong emotion: passion, or repressed passion, or loneliness, or yearning. Or all of the above!

It is part of the sweeping escapism that readers look for in the romance genre, be it mm or ff or mf. Romance is the genre that will demand the most physical description of your characters.

So what should you do when describing your characters?

Figure out what genre you're writing for.
For literary fiction, mysteries, and science fiction, tradition dictates that you don't describe main characters that much. For erotica, romance, and fantasy fiction, tradition dictates that you describe main characters in detail. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, you have to know the traditions before you decide to obey them or break them.

Consider focusing only on one unusual physical feature.
This is what Kushner does with Richard St. Vier. She spotlights his violet eyes and downplays everything else about him. We can guess that he's young and trim since he's a swordsman so she doesn't need to describe him. This descriptive technique is more memorable than flooding us with unnecessary details.

For hair/eye color, reach for an unusual comparison. Look at the Jacqueline Carey excerpts above. Her description of Phaedre's eyes ("a deep and lustrous darkness, like a forest pool under the shade of ancient oaks.") is far superior to her description of Joscelin's eyes ("His eyes were a clear blue, the color of a summer sky"). This is because everybody uses "summer sky"; it's a cliché. Read a lot, and soon you'll see what's overused.

Describe your characters actively, not passively.
Look back at the Haydon, Jordan, and Martin descriptions that give a basic snapshot. See how boring they are? The characters aren't doing anything and so we're getting a mug shot. Now read the Kushner description of Alec who is looking out the window and running his fingers through his hair. See how the words move and give us readers a more vivid mental picture?

Consider focusing only on an overall impression.
What if you just ditched the usual details of hair-color, eye-color, shape of face, and build, and instead showed your character's demeanor, energy, or personality. Look back at Ayn Rand's descriptions.

Kira's description emphasizes her energy and potential: "Kira's hair was short, thrown back off her forehead, light-rays lost in its tangled mass … a face of straight, sharp lines sketched furiously to suggest an unfinished promise."

With Leo, we get even less physical details and even more personality: "His mouth … was that of an ancient chieftain who could order men to die, and his eyes were such as could watch it." We readers are fascinated, and we're going to imagine our own physical details, and therefore Ayn Rand has us more intellectually engaged than if she just gave us a mug-shot description.

Choose physical details that reveal personality.
In whose viewpoint are we when we get a character description? What details attract or repel the watcher? In Nicola Griffith's description of the caterer, you realize that Aud, who is the watcher, really likes muscles.

In Julia Spencer-Fleming's description of Clare, you realize that Russ, who is the watcher, resents the upper class and is unsentimental.

You can also use comparisons as Alex Beecroft does to foreshadow personality to the reader: her character Peter is sleek as cream, and he will turn out to be aristocratic and arrogant.

Kushner hints at Alec's unsavory side when she compares his eyes to dark green water under the bridge. Romance writers can use description to hint at the heroine's degree of repressed sensuality: Look back at how Nalini Singh conveys it with Sascha's hairstyle.

With exception of those writing romance, I hope you'll remember one of my favorite sayings when it comes to description: Less is more! But either way, best of luck to you.

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains the 2000-word article HT Describe Hair from my blog plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

Do you not own a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free Kindle app to read Kindle books on your reader of choice, and it is very easy to install. You click the link for the app you want and it practically installs itself. Believe me, if I could do it, anyone can. With the free app, you can read Kindle books on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Here is the link to all the Kindle reading apps available: all FREE Kindle reading apps located here.

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post. (You're more than welcome to save these how-to articles to your computer for your own private reference.)
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

HT Great Descriptions of Eye Color

2010-01-05T14:34:00.013-07:00

Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I love descriptions of eye color. Here are some of my favorites, organized alphabetically by title of the fiction in which they appear. I'll add more as I run across them. I didn't cite ebook page numbers because they vary depending upon what you're using to view the ebook.

Always by Nicola Griffith:
p.34 "She felt my gaze and looked up. Grey-blue eyes, soft as dove feathers."

Bastards and Pretty Boys by K. Z. Snow
(ebook - not sure of page number)
"I noticed the intricate facets of his irises, like a luminous ivory and jade mosaic; the sweep and thickness of his jet-black lashes ..."

Blue Fire by Z. A. Maxfield:
(ebook - not sure of page numbers)
"… blue of his eyes … a clean and glacial blue that they tended to reflect any color around them and in different light looked like different eyes entirely."

And "…your eyes are so pure and clear a blue they remind me of ice chips."

In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming:
p.3 "Her eyes were the only exceptional thing about her, true hazel, like granite seen under green water."

p.161 "His eyes were Fourth-of-July blue, high and bright with the snap of a flag in the wind."

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey:
p.17 "My eyes … were that color the poets call bistre, a deep and lustrous darkness, like a forest pool under the shade of ancient oaks."

Lovers and Other Strangers by Josh Lanyon:
(ebook - not sure of page number)
"His eyes were a shade of brown-black that Finn had never managed to determine; he remembered reading in one of the books that his grandfather had illustrated about a pirate with 'sparkling black cherry eyes,' and he'd always thought that perfectly described Con's eyes – although the wicked laughing eyes were at odds with a face as elegantly and distantly beautiful as the saint in a Renaissance painting."

The Privilege of the Sword (p.101) by Ellen Kushner:
p.101 "His eyes were unusual: blue, almost violet, like the heart of a candleflame."

The Protector by N. L. Gassert:
p.152 "Mason blinked and focused on ... [Soren's] eyes looking up at him. Under golden lashes the green was a brilliant halo around the dilated pupils. That wasn't fear looking up at him. It was arousal."

Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh:
p.4 "She had the night-sky eyes of a cardinal Psy – an endless field of black scattered with pinpricks of cold white fire."

Willow Bend by Ally Blue:
p.16 "Eyes so pale blue they were almost white, fringed with lashes like black lace." Thanks to Tam for this quote!

The Yearly Scientifiction Colloquium (p.16) by Eric Del Carlo in Like Clockwork: Steampunk Erotica, edited by J. Blackmore.
(ebook - not sure of page number)
"… eyes of exquisite blue flecked with mineral sparkles."

Note: There is more! Because the website traffic is so high on these "how to write" articles, I have expanded two of them from the roughly 2,000 words per article that you see on the website/blog to 15,000 words each. I am offering them as 0.99-cent Kindle documents on Amazon, if you are interested. Here are the links if you would like to have a look and download a free sample.

How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3,651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1,731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9, 618 words in the book are all-new material.)

How to Write Descriptions of Hair and Skin
(Just so you know, this 14,900 word book contains the 2,000-word article HT Describe Hair plus the 600-word Hair Color list from my website. The other 12,300 words in the book are all-new material.)

Do you not own a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free Kindle app to read Kindle books on your reader of choice, and it is very easy to install. You click the link for the app you want and it practically installs itself. Believe me, if I could do it, anyone can. With the free app, you can read Kindle books on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Here is the link to all the Kindle reading apps available: all FREE Kindle reading apps located here.

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.

Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!

Writer Perspective - Eye Color

2009-05-06T08:40:00.015-06:00

I'm fascinated by eye color and I always notice, and usually remember, eye color. I started thinking about eye color once again the other day when my husband started talking about the upcoming new Star Trek movie, which we're all greatly anticipating. Anyway, he mentioned that the "new" Captain Kirk, played by Chris Pine, has bright blue eyes – just like the old Captain Kirk played by William Shatner.

But I remembered Shatner having light brown eyes or possibly hazel eyes, and furthermore I remembered that no one in the original cast except for DeForest Kelley (Doctor McCoy) had blue eyes. Anyway, that sent us both to the internet to look it up: it turns out Shatner has brown eyes.

People are fascinated by eye color, judging by all the celebrity-sites out there that carefully catalog the eye color of the rich and famous (celebrity heights are of great interest, too). This is even though the trend in some fiction (literary, mystery, science-fiction) is to avoid giving much detail of a character's physical description. Even in those genres, eye-color is a small indulgence that most writers permit themselves.

Fortunately, our m/m genre is most closely related to the overall romance genre where physical description is not just encouraged, it's mandatory. So we writers can go all out with our fancy descriptions. As I understand it, the most common eye color to the least common is as follows: brown, blue, hazel, gray, green, and violet. Of course, we might get the urge to dress up the basic color with some fancier words.

The weirdest word for an eye-color that I remember reading recently? Ochre. The word jolted me right out of the story when I read it. I think the author was going for a tawny-brown. But I remember ochre from my childhood art classes as being a real unattractive shade of grayish-tan that oozed out of the paint-tube like mud or slime. I'd associate ochre less with eyes and more with the uniforms and mud of, say, the trench warfare in the First World War.

Eye color descriptions can be hard to do and stay away from the usual clichés such as china-blue, sky-blue, storm-gray, nut-brown, and so forth. If you're curious about how to describe eye color, see my 0.99-cent Kindle document on Amazon: How to Write Descriptions of Eyes and Faces
(Just so you know, this 15,000-word book contains the 3,651-word Eye Color list from my website plus the 1,731-word article How to Describe Eyes, also from my website. The other 9, 618 words in the book are all-new material.)

Copyright © Obsidian Bookshelf. I don't allow my content to be copied and reposted in full. You may use an excerpt (a few sentences) with a return link, but not the entire post.
Links:

My fiction list at Goodreads.com..
My upcoming fiction.
My published fiction.
My how-to-write articles.
As always, thank you for reading!