Episode Details

In consuming a ridiculous amount of romance fiction, I (Kasie) have come across my share of absurd body part descriptions. So I thought we haven’t ever really talked about how to talk about body parts on this show. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk:

Basic biology versus nuanced inference

When, where and how to flex that vocabulary

Body parts as vehicles for metaphor (i.e. broken heart)

What to leave to imagination and what to make explicit.

But first, if you haven’t yet registered for the upcoming Women in Publishing event what are you waiting for? This is your chance to bewith dozens of book publishing professionals, authors, writers, designers, publishers, editors, you name it and they’ll be there. Here’s a link to register.

From the website: 

The Women in Publishing Summit exists to empower, support, and elevate women and nonbinary individuals across the entire publishing industry—from idea to bookshelf and beyond.

We provide education, resources, and a dynamic, inclusive community that fosters equity, access, and success for everyone involved in the creation, production, launch, and marketing of books.

Whether you’re a writer, editor, designer, marketer, publisher, or service provider, we’re here to help you thrive and make a greater impact through books—all while collaborating with one another.

Okay, so that’s said and I recommend attending. Alexa does a GREAT job with events.

Let’s talk body parts. I found some other writers who have written about body parts here are some links:

• How to write better character physical descriptions from The Writing Cooperative
• Masterlist of physical descriptions from MasterClass
• Body Build Cheat Sheet for Writers from Kathy Steinemann

Because physical description is the first time we use body parts in our work. We want to give the reader a sense of who this person is. We can default to drivers license stats: eye color, hair color, height and weight. 

And some people say start early – like as soon as the character is introduced, give the reader a sense of who they are by describing their appearance. But it shouldn’t be an info dump. A couple of well-selected details can give you a good sense of the space a person occupies.

Frankenstein’s monster: A massive figure filled my bedroom doorway. He had to angle his shoulders and stoop his head just to fit through… Black, uneven stitches zigzagged across mottled skin…

So should you use similes? Like this and as that? Should you include endearing details like a sprinkle of freckles across the nose and cheeks or a crooked sort of smile that looked mischievous?

Here’s 15 great character descriptions by famous authors.

The risk of not enough detail is that every character looks the same or the person is just kind of faceless or character-less. But the risk of too much detail is that your reader is trying hard to imagine just the person you had in mind instead of letting the character work out his specifics himself.

Read more on the blog