Forum: Author Hangout

So what do you use as research material?

On-line clothing retailers.

reminds me of the days of jerking off in the outhouse to pictures of the latest Sears Roebuck Catalogue lingerie section (those are days I hope to NEVER relive!)

Not only does your writing has a special appeal to female readers

I wish that were true. There isn't much content on SOL that isn't written for men :(

AJ

I received positive feedback from two supposedly female readers

Two is a long way short of what's necessary to make any kind of statistical inference but at least it's encouraging.

I wasn't keen on your story at first - I found the opening rather depressing - but the latest chapter has kicked it into a new orbit. Keep up the good work!

AJ

but occasionally it adds to the impression of a scene and furthers the readers understanding of the story and/or its characters.

Which is why I had the second sentence about it. Most of the time what they eat and what they wear is irrelevant, and there's no need to mention it, unless there's a specific need for the story purposes.

I think ambience and scenery can be a worthy subject too.

There are times, but very few, where it's important to the story, but most of the time it's just unneeded filling like the many thousand word room descriptions in the Victorian novels.

Setting the scene for a romantic evening it's important for some extra work on the ambience of the scene, but a total waste of time for most scenes. They become, and are, boring.

how often it's an advantage to the story or how often it isn't.

Which is where I make the point about it being kept for where it's relevant to the story, i.e. an advantage to the story.

The problem is where it does nothing for the story itself except slow down the reading and pad the word count.

I disagree. I enjoy reading those sorts of things, because it helps me visualize what's going on. Stories shorn from time and place for lack of those descriptions end up feeling stale and drab to me.

I agree with this, up to a point. If you're good with descriptions—not every author is—then a poet's flair for language and description can greatly add to a scene, but in the end, all it does is add ambiance for a short time before it's discarded by the reader, thus it's not worth investing much time over, as reader's rarely remember the details. It's worth mentioning, but not belaboring—unless you're repeating the essential details so they will remember them later when it's important for the story.

In many stories the clothing doesn't need to be detailed, because it only detracts from the story. However, there are times when the details are important, but they aren't many.

Exactly.

Like bust or dick sizes, "less is more" applies to clothing descriptions. Sometimes it matters, like when my characters of any age attempt, just like the 14-year-olds they were once, to look down her dress.

When the characters wore anything at all, lingerie featured prominently in Stockings, but aside from a couple of colors and a bit of lace, it was left undescribed.

bb

like when my characters of any age attempt, just like the 14-year-olds they were once, to look down her dress.

Exactly why my 14 year old female lead was wearing a yellow sundress to the baseball game...and when she was jumping up and down so hard after the game winning homer that she had a wardrobe malfunction.

In much the same way that in movies, you see food and clothing even when it doesn't "contribute to the story"—it adds verisimilitude to the scene.

There are significant differences between a solely written media and a visual media. However, when you check the screenplays for most movies and plays they do not detail every item of dress or food in the scene, but usually leave that up to whoever is doing it to select what to put there. Even in period pieces they usually describe it as formal clothes or casual etc., and leave it up to the director or producer to select what they have. In written works you do the same thing, and leave it up to the reader to choose what they have most of the time.

Part of this is consistency. If you describe the clothes and meals sometimes when they aren't important then you should be describing every meal and outfit or the readers get confused as to what's going on. Waste too much time and words on irrelevant minor points and the readers stop reading. Keep the details of clothes and meals to important times and they know to pay attention to what's there, because it's relevant for some reason which will be shown soon. The most relevant case is when what you describe isn't normal dress etc.

However, when you check the screenplays for most movies and plays they do not detail every item of dress or food in the scene, but usually leave that up to whoever is doing it to select what to put there.

The course junkies at my writers' group say that any extraneous detail included in a screenplay is likely to be ignored by a director. So set a scene in a restaurant but don't mention what the characters are wearing or eating unless it's germane

eg "That's a nice dress you're wearing, Michael."

"Thank you, but actually I'm a woman this week. Please call me Michaela."

AJ

There are significant differences between a solely written media and a visual media. However, when you check the screenplays for most movies and plays they do not detail every item of dress or food in the scene, but usually leave that up to whoever is doing it to select what to put there. Even in period pieces they usually describe it as formal clothes or casual etc., and leave it up to the director or producer to select what they have. In written works you do the same thing, and leave it up to the reader to choose what they have most of the time.

This is consistent with how most readers read. Whatever you list as a character's description, readers will overlay your description with their own. If you need part of their description for the plot, you've GOT to repeat it several times, to burn it into the reader's memory.

That's because author descriptions, while often beautifully written, are largely meaningless to readers, and immaterial to their overall enjoyment of the story.

It's a handy way into the story for both readers and author, however descriptions really aren't anything more than that. Once you've laid it out, forget it and move on, since few will remember the details anyway.

As for descriptions of clothing and food, I disagree with the idea that you should only include details that further the story. Food/clothing can add to characterization, or simply just setting. In much the same way that in movies, you see food and clothing even when it doesn't "contribute to the story"—it adds verisimilitude to the scene.

It varies. In a story about families, where food is the central element around which the family operates, then yes, food is essential. But, if the food one eats has no direct relevance to the story, it is often merely a distraction, and like detailing the shoes someone bought while shopping, is more related to gun porn—targetting only those viewers who have your own obsessions—rather than trying to attract the most readers.

The books that do this (and analogously watchers with movies, etc) are in my experience nothing more than anodyne pablum. I want to read stories that are interesting, not something engineered to capture every possible demographic.

There's a HUGE difference between writing 'gun' or 'shopping' porn, and 'writing to attract the most readers'. I'm not suggesting abandoning descriptions entirely, I'm saying, in most cases, it's directed at a target audience who AREN'T the actual people reading the story.

How often have you read a story (think "Sex in the City") and thought "Who the hell acts like this?". "What's their preoccupation with overpriced shoes? Get over yourself lady!"

For someone immersed in that particular scene, it's 'setting the scene', for everyone else, it's pure nonsense and completely immaterial to the overall story.

Be as florid as you want in your descriptions, but be economical. Consider them like an accent in that they really don't amount to more than fluff, and are quickly forgotten, so you don't wax on about the details indefinitely. Just say it, get it over with, and then move on to the central story.

The more you rant about how 'beautiful' something is, the more others will think 'I just don't get it. She seems plain as dirt to me!'

There wouldn't be a story longer than a few pages if only things advancing the plot would be written.

Character descriptions advance the plot. So too does establishing the scene. What doesn't advance the plot, is detailing ever minor observations, ranting on and on about things of little avail. That's why I draw the parallels to 'shoe porn'. For someone with a shoe or foot fetish, it's out-and-out porn, but for everyone else, it's just nonsense that means nothing to them at all.