Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

AJ, this is close to the thread on character descriptions in Author Hangout.

As a reader, I more often notice when descriptions get in the way of me enjoying the story. I suspect what crosses that line is different for each reader. For me, I often find that too-detailed descriptions of physical actions get in my way, e.g., "I slid my right hand up her arm while reaching across with my left hand and twisting to..."

Descriptions are like salt. None is too bland, the right amount enhances the story's flavor, but too much ruins it.

In most cases I find that clothing descriptions (among many other types of descriptions) are superfluous and hinder instead of support the reader's imagination. Instead of clothing descriptions it would often be better to describe what the clothing is trying to project to the other characters in the scene with just a hint of the actual clothing. Words like 'hideous', 'beautiful', 'ragged', 'ill-fitting', 'conservative', 'sexy', etc. often tell all that is needed to know without gong into detailed descriptions. Detailed descriptions might have a use in erotic scenes to emphasize the erotic side of the scene but that is most likely combined with movement of the character.

AJ, I sometimes watch two back-to-back shows on TV. They both are about staging a home to sell it. One is British, one American. Color choices for walls and upholstery choices for furniture are widely different between what is preferred in America and in the UK. To keep your audience from that OMG moment when they picture the clothing, I'd suggest you only describe it in enough detail to suggest how she is dressed (formally, casually, work clothes, etc.). Allow your audience to fill in the details. This is one case where "tell, don't show" should be the rule.

I think it depends on the nature of the story.

If the story is a period historical fiction, far-future science fiction, high fantasy or something else where what the characters weary might be significantly different than what the readers are familiar with from every day life, that merits a bit more descriptiveness.

For a CB/Superhero story, the super suits of the main characters merit more descriptiveness than their "civies".

I'm worried about how well colour schemes travel. I've read quite a lot of stories on SOL where clothing descriptions have left me thinking 'Ye Gods, the author's colour-blind' or 'Thank God for sunglasses'. Actually, a few dead-tree novels have left me thinking that too.

Describing clothes' styles is less problematic than colors.

First of all color names are usually not helpful. Everybody imagines a quite different shade for "yellow", "red", "blue" or "green". Using more descriptive names like "Bottlegreen" "Forestgreen", "Russian Green" doesn't help either, people still use them for quite different shades of green.
Just take Forestgreen: what type of forest? Conifers? Which conifers? Larch, spruce, pine, fir? Hundreds of different shades of green and every reader will imagine a different shade.
You'll get quite heated discussions if you shows people some colors between blue and green and ask them which is still blue and which is already green. Same for red/blue (purple/violet). Some designers use fancy names for quite ordinary colors.

There are quite some professional color spaces like RGB, RAL, Pantone, CIEXYZ and CIELab. However nobody will know how the color looks like if you use one of these color values.

The human eye is the problem with all colors. While you can measure the (reflected) light over the full spectrum of visibility, the human eye has three maxima within this range and these maxima are not identical for all people, they even change for the same person with increasing age!
Therefore the physically identical wavelength-mix is perceived different by different people.

Add to this that the reflected light from a colored surface depends on the intensity and wavelengths of the light shining on the surface. Therefore the color of a cloth may be brown under light-bulb light, olive in daylight and green under fluorescent light.

HM.

What do you readers think? Are you happy to imagine your own colour schemes for the antagonist's clothes, or would you prefer the author to specify them?

If you are not comfortable stating exact colours (which change season to season and year to year anyway) My preference is to describe the clothing colours (and type if you like) in terms of their purpose, effect, etc.

Her dress enhanced every fantasy that kept him up all night.

The colour brought out the avarice in her eyes.

The dress revealed nothing yet exposed every lusty desire of those who gazed upon her.

Fashion is all about the label, style is all about the woman.

My buddies wife gets mad every time he describes her hair as seaweed. He is color blind and unable to see shades of red.

Doesn't bother me unless it's a info dump meant to showcase the author's supreme command of the subject.

If you just say "her green dress blended well with the leaves as she ran for cover" that lets the reader deal with any details. We don't need to know any the shade, cut, designer, manufacturer, retail price, etc.

I think you've just invented clothes porn (cf gun porn etc),

He didn't invent anything. What do you think the fashion industry is all about? Clothes porn goes way back. Might even be older than porn porn. :)

Are you going to follow England v Germany this afternoon or do you despise organised religion?

2-0 but nobody knows who won, the Saints or the Sinners. Everything in life depends on perspective.

All info-dumps are descriptions, but not all descriptions are info-dumps.

You can describe someone's outfit in general terms, in a way that doesn't come off as an information deluge meant to showcases the research you did on the fashions of the time.

2-0 but nobody knows who won, the Saints or the Sinners. Everything in life depends on perspective.

We know exactly who won.

The phrase "may the best team win" is a hope, not a certainty. If the outcome was guaranteed then there would be no point playing the game.

Then again, football long ago stopped being a sport, so who cares?

It's a religion

So you agree it's no longer a sport.

One of the earliest stories I remember reading, about Robin Hood, specified the color they wore as "Lincoln green." I understood that made their clothes some shade of green. I learned later it meant the shade of green used in local dyes in the town of Lincoln, but still not very descriptive.

One of the earliest stories I remember reading, about Robin Hood, specified the color they wore as "Lincoln green." I understood that made their clothes some shade of green. I learned later it meant the shade of green used in local dyes in the town of Lincoln, but still not very descriptive.

Hmm, early like written more than hundreds of years ago?
Then Lincoln green was very descriptive, every reader back then knew which shade of green it was. The recipe was a trade secret of the dyers guild in Lincoln, you couldn't get this green elsewhere.
Lincoln green

With the discovery of aniline dyes (since 1856), the use of natural dyes declined rapidly. Because the majority of natural dyes are derived from plant sources: roots, berries, bark, leaves, wood, fungi and lichens, this caused severe problems for their producers.
This wasn't the first time in history, the woad growers would have lost their income when indigo from India threatened to replace the inferior woad blue (which too was indigo). They were saved by laws and false claims by the authorities (the devil's dye would cause the fabric to rot, ...).

HM.

This wool is no longer used,

the German word for those wool is "Reißwolle" literally meaning 'teared wool' and it's still in use.
The link above is to a German Wikipedia page containing a classification of Reißwolle, one of the classes is "Shoddy".

HM.

This wool is no longer used

Hmm, the Wikipedia entry "Wool" contains this paragraph:

In the United States, three classifications of wool are named in the Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939. Wool is "the fiber from the fleece of the sheep or lamb or hair of the Angora or Cashmere goat (and may include the so-called specialty fibers from the hair of the camel, alpaca, llama, and vicuna) which has never been reclaimed from any woven or felted wool product". "Virgin wool" and "new wool" are also used to refer to such never used wool. There are two categories of recycled wool (also called reclaimed or shoddy wool). "Reprocessed wool" identifies "wool which has been woven or felted into a wool product and subsequently reduced to a fibrous state without having been used by the ultimate consumer". "Reused wool" refers to such wool that has been used by the ultimate consumer.

It seems the highest US wool class doesn't allow to use shoddy wool, but allows the use of wool from dead sheep, which too is forbidden in Germany's "Schurwolle" definition.

HM.

Lincoln green

The US $5 bill has Abraham Lincoln's portrait. It is green, like most US currency, so it may be Lincoln green.

The US $5 bill has Abraham Lincoln's portrait. It is green, like most US currency, so it may be Lincoln green.

The color of US currency (the same on all denominations) is officially known as dollar green.

The color of US currency (the same on all denominations) is officially known as dollar green.

What was it known as before it was used for currency?
:)

What was it known as before it was used for currency?

My understanding is that they did not choose a dye/ink that was already in use for other things, it was developed specifically for US currency.

Maybe I should have put a smiley on the post (done)

Then Lincoln green was very descriptive, every reader back then knew which shade of green it was.

I may be old, but not THAT old. I never lived during the same time as the fictional Robin Hood did, and am curious how you would know what people alive at the time knew about the color green. The first time I read a Robin Hood story was during the 20th century, and, at the earliest, was written in the late 19th century.

curious how you would know what people alive at the time knew about the color green

Until the discovery of aniline dyes there was no green dyestuff.

Lincoln green is the colour of dyed woollen cloth formerly originating in Lincoln, England, a major cloth town during the high Middle Ages. The dyers of Lincoln, known for colouring wool with woad (Isatis tinctoria) to give it a strong blue shade, created the eponymous Lincoln green by overdyeing this blue wool with yellow weld (Reseda luteola) or dyers' broom, Genista tinctoria. Other colours like "Coventry blue" and "Kendal green" were linked to the dyers of different English towns.

Lincoln green was well known and famous back then:

"When they were clothed in Lyncolne grene they kest away their gray", according to A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, ca. 1510,

BTW,

Coventry blue was a blue cloth woven and dyed with woad in Coventry. The permanence of the colour led to the phrase "as true as Coventry blue" or "true blue"

All dyers used the same natural dyestuffs, the recipe details made the difference in hue, brightness, permanence and were very close held trade secrets.

If today someone would try to use natural dyes instead of synthetic dyes commercially, he would get in trouble because of the amount of chemicals needed for the process.
The exception is indigo, the amount of chemicals used is about the same as for the more permanent synthetic vat dyes.

I know this because I've an engineering degree in textil chemistry covering dyeing, printing and finishing of textile substrates.

HM.

I have no idea why you think it would be illegal to use them

Because most historically used dyes needed mordants to bind them to the fibre.(bold set by me)

Many natural dyes require the use of substances called mordants to bind the dye to the textile fibres. Mordants (from the Latin verb 'mordere', meaning 'to bite') are metal salts that can form a stable molecular coordination complex with both natural dyes and natural fibres. Historically, the most common mordants were alum (potassium aluminum sulphate - a metal salt of aluminum) and iron (ferrous sulphate). Many other metal salt mordants were also used, but are seldom used now due to modern research evidence of their extreme toxicity either to human health, ecological health, or both. These include salts of metals such as chrome, copper, tin, lead, and others.

Using different mordants with the same dye results in different colour shades e.g. yellow, orange, brown.

You write:

But all using old style fabrics and natural authentic dyes to the era.
They are also often used for those with allergies. My uncle before he died got most of his shirts from a company here in Oregon that only used 100% natural plants, all found in the local area

That's bullshit. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's healthy! Ever tried to eat Amanita phalloides aka death cap?

While historically, dyers possessed sophisticated knowledge of natural sources of true dye compounds, nowadays the internet contains a lot of inaccurate information about sources - predominantly foods - that are not supported by the historic record or by modern science. In natural dyeing, there are 'fast' dye compounds (those that have the necessary molecular structure to form stable chemical bonds with mordants and fibres, and so provide good resistance to fading when washed, exposed to light, or subjected to normal rubbing/abrasion; these are found throughout the historic record), and there are 'fugitive' compounds, which are not true dyes (those that fade and wash out quickly, as they lack the molecular structure to form stable bonds, or any bonds at all, to mordants and fibres). Mordanting can not fix fugitive sources to fibres. Fugitive sources include nearly all berries, red cabbage, beets, spinach, black beans, most flowers (though some important true dyes are flower derived) and many others.

I looked at the link you provided and I guess all their dyes are 'fugitive'. One colour baffled me: black indigo.
Indigo is blue, never black!

HM.

Ivanhoe

A character named Ivan uses a hoe.

This is what a caffeine overdose looks like.

If it isn't relevant to the character or the story, ask yourself if you need to include it.

A couple other reasons to be more descriptive with clothing.

World building: If you are doing a high fantasy or far future science fiction, you need to show the user what people in your world are wearing.

Setting the time period: For period historical fiction, clothing descriptions can be an important part of establishing a proper setting.

or far future science fiction, you need to show the user what people in your world are wearing.

In SF movies they have to show the future clothing.
You should look into old movies and TV series then you'll realize how preposterous they look.

HM.

or far future science fiction, you need to show the user what people in your world are wearing.

In SF movies they have to show the future clothing.

You should look into old movies and TV series then you'll realize how preposterous they look.

In you SF book you need to show clothing, if only to knock your readers out of expecting such preposterous fashions. :)

Colors don't bother me, but recently I read a story here where the female clothing was described with names of what (I suspect) were Parisian fashion houses.

Now, being a guy, that tells me nothing except probably the clothes were expensive.

How many know what a leisure suit is anymore?

The answer to that is to describe what a leisure suit looks like rather than just saying "a leisure suit".

Given the amount of leisure activities you can get up to in a birthday suit, obviously they're partial synonyms ;-)

AJ your 'suit' needs pressing…

:)

No, that bit's supposed to stick out ;-)

Oh yummy, it is that time of year already…?

:)

But then you get to yet another issue. How much of a story should really need to be explained?

Because if I followed a rule like that, I would also have to assume that nobody knows what blue jeans are, Birkenstock boots, a Birkin Bag, and almost anything else from what leg warmers are, to what a baseball cap looks like. Because who knows what fashions will be like in 50 years, and what items have become completely archaic.

My point was specifically about period historical fiction, not about the aging of pieces set in the present day of when they were written.

It's fair to assume that most of your audience will know what things that are still common in the present day look like.

If it's something still around but rare, you might want to consider being more descriptive.

Oh I'll be right here at home.
All you gotta do is pick up the telephone and dial now
6-3-4-5-7-8-9 (that's my number!)
6-3-4-5-7-8-9

Actually, that's something you need to think about if you are doing a period piece.

The process of placing a phone call was very different back in the early telephony days when every call had to be connected by a live operator.

And there's a funny video on line with a pair of millennials trying to figure out how to dial an old rotary dial phone.

And I do try to remember that, and is why I will generally use "call", even though to be completely accurate saying "dial" was much more common to say until the 1980's.

Those millennial kids aren't likely to be reading period historical fiction.

In my experience people who are fans of period historical fiction want the story to have period correct details.