I don’t use much physical description in my own stories, simply because reading such descriptions doesn’t turn me on. The same is true for the description in the excerpt Absman just posted; I zoned out a little bit and started skimming down to what struck me as the “good bit” (in this case, the line “my own monster came to life in my shorts”). But even if it’s not satisfying my erotic tastes, I want to commend Absman on what a good piece of writing that passage is, because it’s not just a dump of descriptive details; it’s revealing a ton about the narrator (Pholus), what he’s feeling, and what turns him on.
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After my big epiphany, I now write generally with almost no description, except for what is needed for the narrative.
I’m happy I took the risk and tried exploring. As someone who grew up with “blank canvas” style Heroes in JRPGs, I like the idea of the reader easier inhabiting my characters without skin colour, hair colour, and — within reason — even age, being a stumbling block.
I now consider it one of the few things about my writing that I’m very happy with generally.
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I think about this quite a bit when planning a story.
It seems to me that there’s a common expectation from readers, that characters are described enough to not be faceless and interchangeable, and that this should be done early on rather than making a jarring appearance halfway through a story. However I try to avoid making it too formulaic and change it up in different stories. The ‘breadcrumbs’ approach as mentioned by Derek Williams helps to keep things varied.
For first person narrators, I think the most natural way to provide their description is for them to describe themselves in relation/contrast to one of the other characters. “Unlike my best friend Danny, a typical athletic jock type, I’m much more interested in writing erotic fiction than working out, and it shows.”
Logically, I feel that it should depend on the individual story. If the narrator is someone who notices other people’s appearances then they will be more focused on describing other characters, etc.
Also, it’s hard to increase the diversity of characters in my stories unless I make an effort to describe characters with unusual attributes/features. This is something I feel I need to get better at.
For my games (2nd person narratives) I naturally take more of a ‘blank canvas’ approach.
A little tip I have for 1st person is;
describe the hero describing a change they’ve only just noticed in themselves. This helps ‘the medicine of exposition go down’ because in real life, people typically only notices their own aesthetic when it changes.
“I looked in the mirror at my pale Caucasian face and neat beard. My dark eyes were piercing, as they always are.”
NO ONE, looks at themselves or describes themselves like this.
I don’t look in the mirror and “pause to take in my chubby Irish gingerness, and impish confidant grin”.
I would look in the mirror and “notice I had gone from chubby to fat, from lockdown; It was a little depressing” or
“while brushing my teeth I looked twice at the space between my nose and upper lip; a massive spindly white-grey hair poking out of my neat moustache, why god why!? I’m only 29!!.I spat the tooth paste out and examined my face closer”
etc.
The added benefit is you get to get some character in as well; The ‘change’ the hero notices sneaks in the physical describing of the character, without contrivance, but then you also get to write the character’s reaction to the change, is he upset, stoic, angry, happy, proud, mixed, etc., and what does that say about his personality.
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Clearly you haven’t seen my Grindr profile.
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I think that, as a writer you have to decide what is the correct form for your subject.
No-one is worried about reading literature on a porn fetish site but a good, well structured story with decent basics in description and narrative can help people along quite well. If you get my drift.
As writers we all want to let the readers into our worlds but we also have to let them use their imaginations . That’s the point.
Also, edit what you really don’t need and Show don’t Tell.
Tattcub
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I think porn writers get far too specific with character stats and appearance. It’s almost always done as an information dump, and would be far less obtrusive if it was exposed during the natural course of the story. Additionally, if it isn’t pertinent to the story, then it needn’t be said that Joe is 5’10" or 6’3". I think it’s better to give a general description (tall and muscular) and leave fleshing out many details to the reader’s imagination.
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I don’t need stats, but don’t want it also left to my imagination. If a character has a big cock, I want to know it’s big. I don’t have to read how many inches, but want to hear about how it’s larger than other characters, and how he has to deal with its size. Same with height or muscularity. If a character is tall, I want to hear how he has to look down at other characters or they have to look up; how he’s intimidating or however else his height affects things.
Often in stories that don’t do the stat dump, it’s mentioned somewhere maybe that the character is tall or has a big dick, and then never mentioned again ever. In a story with just one character that might be ok, as then I only have to have one mental model/image at the forefront. If there’s two or three characters, then I have to juggle more. If there’s a full cast, I’m tired and don’t want to invent what everyone looks like and then remember it.
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All excellent points. Load us up with descriptive prose, but not a listing of their stats. When I see a guy I sure don’t try to figure out how tall he is in feet and inches. I’ll just remark to myself that he is tall or short. And if he’s in between, then it doesn’t even cross my mind. Likewise for dicks, they’re either two handfuls, too small, or just right. Of course, everything is in the eye of the beholder, but you get my drift.
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I agree - physical description always needs to be sprinkled in gradually, and then only enough to give the reader enough context to allow their own imagination to flourish. You can also do this in subtle ways, like in name selection. John vs. Jamal vs. Jose vs. Jimmy all evoke different races/ages, just in one word.
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“John vs. Jamal vs. Jose vs. Jimmy” - reminds me of one of my bugbears of having multiple characters with very similar names or all starting a with the same letter. If they’ve all been introduced in a brief infodump then I’m almost certain to get them mixed up.
These are also the stories where the author seems likely to confuse the names of their characters!
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I had meant to express that an author can chose ONE of those names for use by their character, and then the reader makes inferences based on qualities we associate with those names.
You can do the same with alternatives of one name, for instance (Andrew / Andy / Drew), for instance.
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I’m debating staring a thread about choosing names, which I think is the best part of creating characters.
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For me, finding the right name means finding the character. More I think it’s easier for the reader to remember if the name is distinctive, or alliterate, or symbolic. But that’s how I end up with characters like Pokey Dakota…
(*Pokey Dakota is from my upcoming novel, PHOLUS REBORN)
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I like playing with the characters concept of self through their name. Picture “Al”. Now picture “Alex”. They’re very different people. And though the middle aged man walking along the beach might be Al, after he finds the magic rock on the beach, he makes a great Alex.
I understood your point. It simply reminded me of my separate point.
Sometimes I name my characters at random, other times it is a way to describe them. In my Big Changes in Riverside-adaption the main character goes from Richard to Rick to Dick.
Names are a different story.
I’m weird with names. I almost obsessively either leave them out, or shorten them.
I second all the advice here from @DerekWilliams, it’s such a great idea to both sprinkle descriptions throughout, and to try to make your descriptions do double duty when they come up (moving the plot, giving more info on the character or world).
I’d add that I find one really powerful way to accomplish this is couching physical descriptions in how they make another character FEEL.
Saying a character lifted up their shirt and displayed six pack abs is kinda boring. But framing the moment in another character’s mind (either first or third person) can help quite a bit. How does it make them feel?? Compare
Justin lifted up his shirt to mop his brow with the hem of it. Sweat glistened on his six pack abs. The abs were really hot and well defined.
vs
Justin lifted up his shirt to mop his brow with the hem of it. Greg tried immediately to avert his gaze so he wouldn’t be caught staring, but the image had been seared into his mind. A mere glimpse of the way that the sweat had glistened on Justin’s six pack abs had totally filled his mind. He couldn’t help but imagine himself licking that sweat off with his tongue, tasting the salty musk of the sweat as his tongue reached deep into the crevasses of his friend’s abs… he couldn’t think about anything else. This was wrong, he thought. I’m straight. I shouldn’t be having these thoughts, let alone about my best friend.
or
Justin lifted up his shirt to mop his brow with the hem of it. I was indignant at how nonchalantly Justin could just show off like that, not caring who might see the rivulets of sweat running down his abs and into the forbidden depths of his shorts below. He wasn’t embarrassed to be showing off the dusting of stomach hair that thickened into a wild snarl as it merged with his pubic hair below. I hated him for his confidence while also wishing that I could posses it for myself. I can’t even reach for an item on a tall shelf without first checking that my shirt is fully tucked in.
You get the idea-- lots of room to play here.
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