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I'd been reading through comments on a few stories, and noticed a few of the commenters requested more detailed descriptions of what people were wearing. Most of the time, I only describe what someone is wearing, if it feels like it's important to the story. Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should be more descriptive about things like that. Does anyone have any thoughts about how much detail should go into describing what someone is wearing, how much detail would be needed, and when more details would be helpful in telling a story? This isn't something I really thought about before, so I'm feeling a bit lost.
Comments
I think
for some people, the clothing is very important, for various reasons but to be honest, descriptions of how people are dressed, repeatedly, from the skin outwards very often, i find quite tedious, the same goes for describing every element of cosmetic use. Maybe its something to do with where you are on the 'trans spectrum', I don't know but mansplaining everything about the protagonists dress is something of a turn off when i'm reading.
There are times when some description of clothing is required but unless its essential to the plot, it doesn't need to be in minute detail. So you will see descriptions of clothing in my writing but its mostly of the 'red dress', 'blue coat' mention to give the reader some feel for what i, as the writer, imagine the scene/character to look like. You don't need to know the denier of the hose, the style of dress, the colour of the knickers, the brand of shoe - unless its pertinent to the plot or used as a generic description. So one of my characters might 'put on her red Dockers (a style of workboot championed by the Dr Marten brand, Dockers is used to generically describe the style rather than the brand) which added a bit of an edge to the sun dress she'd picked for todays excursion.'
Often there is no need to mention clothing /appearance at all, we can all imagine a military uniform, ball gown, swimming costume, sports gear so the need to describe it is pretty much zero, perhaps just adding a detail which could read something like 'the insignia on the neck of her blouse suggested she was a member of the Gestapo' or 'everyone wore the regulation blue swimsuits'.
Unless there is something special about the clothing, thats all you need so 'everyone wore the regulation blue swimsuits' could become 'everyone wore the regulation blue swimsuits, the low neckline, thong back and high cut legs leaving nothing to the imagination'. I would perhaps use the latter for first mention of the swimsuits, but only if it was pertinent to the plot.
There you go, my two penn'ath on the subject,
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Agreed...
I personally, as a reader, can imagine a lot with less description of clothing sometimes. As a reader of BC content (and other sites) when the author gets into the weeds with describing a garment down to a number 7 YKK zipper they've lost me and I either skim ahead to content that seems to matter or shelve the work altogether because it doesn't appeal to me or they've lost my interest. There are literally millions of "shopping" sequences in stories that are generally no different than the last two hundred I skipped over. BUT - to each their own and it's likely to appeal to some percentage of readers.
As a writer I agree that in the context of what I'm presenting I have to figure out enough description for the reader to see what I'm talking about - but generally clothing isn't the focus, it's an enhancer (possibly) to what I'm painting w/ words in a scene or to frame the character. Some of the examples given - spot on and perfectly stated.
It's a challenge...
XOXOXO
Rachel M. Moore...
Shopping
Generally, shopping should be about the character's reactions to the situation, not so much about the actual clothes.
There's also a male/female thing here: men are assumed to dislike shopping in the way that women do it. Anecdotally a man will know what he wants before he ever leaves the house, goes to the one shop he knows sells that, buys it and then heads either home or to a bar. For most women 'shopping' is a whole day of interesting experiences, often interrupted by tea and cakes.
Penny
Can't really say much more than what has already been said.
In short, and as agreement to the other two commentators, if it's pertinent to the plot or scene, then add just enough description to support it. Otherwise, keep it simple and let the readers imagination fill it what they want. Sure, they will probably come up with something a little different from what you've envisioned in your mind, but it's totally not going to make any difference to what's going on in the tale.
- Leona
Different Strokes
It's suggested that seventy percent of readers are mainly dragged into the story by plot. Twenty-five percent are mostly interested in characters. About five percent are intrigued by setting.
Don't tell Michener to rewrite "Hawaii." He's sold millions of copies of that book that heavily relies on setting.
Clothing is an essential part of certain stories. I just had the high honor of editing Emma Tate's two stories: "Duet" and "Aria." She skillfully uses a heavy amount of clothing detail to solidify characterization and to advance the plot.
As a rule of thumb I believe setting (including clothing description) becomes less valid the further you get in the story.
If you're good at describing clothing you shouldn't move that advantage out of your toolbox.
On the other hand. . .l agree with Maddy that most BC stories drive their stories off cliffs with extraneous clothing descriptions.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
English language
The problem I can see is that the English language between USA and uk is vastly different on naming certain things. To be honest I wonder if there is committees of people doing that on purpose.
Description of certain aspects of clothes from one area to another may be what people are really asking. For example maddy says “and they put on a jumper”. And nothing else after. I have no idea at all what she means. Is it a coat? A dress? Does it go over anything? Some descriptive of what it is would be really helpful.
For example I could say she put on a hoody and went outside. Or I could say she pulled on a faded red hoody with no zipper in place of a coat and went outside.
It is a sweatshirt type sweater with a hood that can have a pocket or not. Lighter than an actual sweater but heavier than a normal t shirt. Somewhat warm, bulky, absorbs sweat but keeps the chill off. Some have zippers most do not.
Common garment as we don’t generally have light summer jackets.
Light Summer Jackets
I forgot all about those. Companies would pass them out at trade shows. Really nothing jacket except as a walking advertisment. Company logo or name on the left breast and their name covering the whole back. We would wear it instead of folding it over our arm until we returned to the car. Then we took it off to never think of it again. Different life, different time, different world so dang long ago.
Hugs Tels
Barb
Ever wonder where all the memories go when we are recycled?
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Re: Light summer jackets
As described, people I know call them windbreakers, as you point out they nominally provide no actual warmth. There are lined versions, these seem to get called exercise, fitness, or sports/team jackets.
Jumpers are the ones that most confuse me. In Maddy's stories I've decided it is some kind of sweater, a pullover or button/zip-up style.
Of course, in the US we have the ever popular denim or jean jacket. If the UK has a different name for them I haven't seen it.
Vest is another source of confusion. We have all sorts of vests in the US, but they are all a sleeveless garment that goes over a shirt or blouse. From a suit vest to a denim vest (often a jean jacket with no sleeves for a variety of reasons) or quilted/down-filled vest to keep the core body warm. In the UK a vest appears to be something like a camisole or chemise, a lady's undergarment.
These are all items where a bit more explaination would assist the two countries (allegedly) common language readers. I mean, I don't know what image occurs to the average UK reader if I were to describe a large man wearing "a patch-embellished vest over his bare chest," but a literal interpretation could be "interesting". ;-)
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Jumper
In the Uk a 'jumper' is a knitted garment, usually with long sleeves, that covers the upper torso. It will usually have other garments as layers underneath it: often a 'vest' (singlet to USians) and/or a shirt.
Alternatively in rural parts a 'jumper' is a sheep :)
Penny
Jumper
Jumper is a (U.S.) sweater, unless it's a shetland. I'm not clear on the difference between jumpers and shetlands, though.
Honestly
I don't recall any item of contemporary apparel in the US being called a singlet, not in the central US anyway. My only limited exposure to that term is in reference to historical clothing - Rome, Greece, etc.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Names for things
If parts of the US use different words to other parts, what hope is there that anyone can understand English from elsewhere?
Perhaps I overthought my example. What is apparently called a 'vest' over there is a 'waistcoat' over here (to clarify: in the UK).
Isn't the English langauge wonderful?
Double edged Question
For some the attire is top of the list in story telling. You are a young child, you have heard and read about snow, sleds, snow skiing, snowmen, playing in snow drifts, snowball fights, the beauty of falling snow. The real life is you live in one of the equator belts and never saw snow much lest felt it. Some of the readers have only lived their lives vicariously through the stories they read. The feel of a satin or silk slip, the caress of a silk dress, the brush of the hem of a skirt when walking..., So many things females growing up with and the males never experienced. Even if they never put on a nightgown, the reader can live it through the story if describe sensually. It's a TG True Romance Tale relished by some.
On the opposite side are some writers who go to the extreme with paragraph after paragraph describing every article of clothing the actress is accessorizing with for the first time in her new life. Reality check it is pornography in a written sense for both writer and readers. I find nothing wrong with that any more than romance stories with a romp in the bedroom or everywhere else. Playboy and Hustler made a fortune selling the idea. Honestly National Geographic had more racy pics of naked native women. Sigh, those were the days one could look all they wanted in the school library in the interest of education of course.
Heather, do you remember me asking you about the liquid red cocktail dress you wore to the Fireman's Charity Fund two months back? Talk about starting a fire in the civic center! You were poured into that dress. I admit four inch spiked heels in a tight skirt is sexy but without a side slit a lot of wiggle is called for with each step. An offer of a kiss to anyone who purchased your charity cake? No doubt the man who paid two hundred dollars for an upside down pineapple cake thought he was getting a deal? The sticker was still on the bottom of the cake pan. Eight dollars at Walmart? You have no shame?
Hugs Heather, now about me borrowing the dress?
Barb
Life is good only if one can borrow all the dresses she wants.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Depends on what the reader is looking for
I vote for only as much detail as contributes to the plot.
From some of the comments and stories I've read I've concluded that, for some readers, the point of a story is to provide the reader (and maybe the writer) with an enticing fantasy of being a woman or being a girl, and the actual story as such is secondary. And for that, the more details of what being the fantasy girl/woman is like, the better, even if it distracts from the story. I'm thinking of the long detailed descriptions of exactly how the protagonist is feminized, or how the protagonist gets herself tarted up to be unbearably beautiful or amazingly hot! hot! hot!, (which I generally skim through or skip over to get to what happens next.)
The thing is, I already live as a woman. I have come to terms with the fact that I will at best be "not ugly," and never grace the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue -- actually, I'm not sexually interested in men at all, so I'm happy that I'm too old and plain to get much attention from men. I have mostly developed a presentation that I'm happy with and doesn't require more work than I'm prepared to put into it. The reality is of course never as beautiful or fascinating as the
realityfantasy, but the reality has one big attraction: it is real.So when I read stories, I'm more interested in how people in different situations manage their lives and what it feels like to be them. I'm interested in the details -- clothing, make-up, etc. -- only to the extent that it affects what it feels like to be the character or what she experiences. You can put the unnecessary details in if you want, but I'll skip over them.
[edited to fix obvious wrong word -- see strike-out and underline]
I don't think there is right
I don't think there is right or wrong in describing the clothing. It depends on the reader. Just as Barbie says, some readers have never worn female clothes. They are heavily fetishized. No one really wants to hear how a pair of trousers (pants) feel.
I suspect at least 90% of the readers of TV/CD stories identify as male. Possibly not the same for trans stories. This site is probably the exception with how well no-sex stories are recieved. Many of the trans women that write for this site will probably live and dress as the gender they identify with 24/7. Like most women the clothes they wear hold little to no fascination for them. They are an ordinary everyday sensation.
This is very different for guys that enjoy wearing or would love to wear women's clothes.
For someone who wears a dress and knickers (panties) every day. "She put on her panties, blue dress and boots then left her house" is enough.
Someone who fetishizes clothes they would much rather read. "She slipped the black, silk, lace fringed panties up her legs, she felt the stiff lace caressed her smooth legs as she gradually pulled them up tight. The lace felt delicious on her buttocks as they settled between her cheeks. Then came a blue chiffon dress which floated like a cloud around her as it settled sensuously around her body. She felt the skirt lightly tickle her legs as she moved. Lastly came her black stiletto boots. They looked so feminine with their pointed toe and 4 inch heels. As she stood she felt her bottom tighten as they changed her posture. Her hips now swayed as she walked. The feminine click of the heels as she left her house screamed "sexy woman" to her."
I forgot her bra, I know.
On some sites, I have been asked to go into more detail on clothing and sex scenes. Not on her. I think that reflects the different readership.
Leeanna
Sometimes it's just clothes...
Re: getting turned on by wearing feminine clothing.
About 20 years or so ago, long before it even occurred to me that I might be even near the transgender umbrella, let alone under it, I bought some nylon panties, expecting wearing them to be sexually stimulating. To my puzzlement, it wasn't. Instead, it just felt comfortable, more so than wearning cotton men's briefs. (And they didn't get soggy when I sweated, the way the men's briefs did.)
The same has been true for whatever "feminine" clothing I took to wearing. I mostly just felt more comfortable (and more willing to look at myself in the mirror) when wearing them. So for me, clothing is more about what I look like wearing it than any sensual thrill. Descriptions of high heels (especially the impossibly tall ones), ultra-short skirts, skirts and dresses that are more bondage wear than clothing, etc., actually turn me off, and if a story concentrates on them, I usually stop reading it altogether.
I quess it depends on the story.
With good character development and an interesting plot line, not a lot needs to be said about clothing. My most well received story (Dumb Bet) had very little description of the clothing that Fran was wearing. Only the first dressing had any detail and that was still minimal. After that the action and interaction took the main stage. 30 comments and not one mention of what Fran wore or my lack of describing it.
As others have mentioned the fixation on the details of what's being worn is a bit off putting. All we really need to know is that it wasn't men's or boy's clothing and maybe that it looked good on them.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Quality of the description matters too
I once referred to a “balloon neckline” but was corrected kindly, and the phrase became my own shorthand for reckless description. Detailed writing merits careful editing!
I read a story once where
I read a story once where almost every item of clothing was "opera length" It got on my nerves.
Leeanna
A question about steamshovels
A friend showed me around Berlin some years back. He pointed out that most of the building facades were very plain. He told me that there was a period in which "people went around removing all the ornamentation from buildings." I don't know how or even if it really happened... at that moment I pictured saboteurs armed with hammers, rappelling down the facades of buildings, hacking off anything with curls.
It probably wasn't as violent as that... it was a change of aesthetic, to the idea that form follows function.
Something like that happened in literature as well. Now we laugh at Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "dark and stormy night" and turn up our noses at purple prose, overwritten, florid texts. Everything is stripped down. The French writer Simenon supposedly did a pass of rewrite on each of his books in which he "crossed out all the adjectives."
I don't buy it. It's almost as though we're supposed to write stories about stick people in an empty landscape.
I'm sure that I'm not particularly good at description, but I'm working on it. When a person's outfit is important to the story, I do an internet image search to find just the right outfit, and I save the image so I can refer to it. Same with locations.
Now I'm trying to start each scene by describing the room and the people in it so that before they even start talking, you know the general vibe.
As far as what-are-they-wearing comments, I haven't seen those. Some comments, though, remind me of a bit from one of Beverly Cleary's Ramona books.
Ramona's in kindergarten, and the teacher reads the children a story about a steamshovel at work on a construction site. Of course the steamshovel is anthropomorphized: he has a smiling face and a name -- "Tuffy" or something similar. The book follows Tuffy through his workday and ends when the workers go home. At that point Tuffy basically closes his eyes and sleeps until morning.
Great so far. The kids were fascinated. Until Ramona, after some thought, put up her hand and asked, "What did Tuffy do when he had to go to the bathroom?"
All the children suddenly realized that the story had an essential defect: by not describing this part of Tuffy's day, the audience had been cheated of a vital fact.
Of course the teacher couldn't come up with a plausible response, so the children were quite dissatisfied by the story in the end.
There's a moral in there somewhere... but at least Ramona didn't ask what kind of pants Tuffy was wearing, or how he managed to put them on.
- iolanthe (I'm wearing pajamas, by the way)
Missing the moment
Oh, Ramona’s teacher should be ashamed. Such an opportunity missed. Just imagine:
“That’s such an excellent question, Ramona! Steam shovels have needs, just like you and me! But — poor creatures! — They can’t go to the bathroom without help. It takes at least three strong men to help Tuffey let loose, and an entire crew to mop up afterward, ’cuz Tuffey is so big and strong! The smell is so overwhelming that everyone needs to wear special protective gear manufactured for just that purpose by the 3M Company of St. Paul, Minnesota . . . .
Emma
Late to the Party
Hey there.
I'm a bit late but I wanted to chime in with my experience.
I've skimmed some of the comments and agree that it's good to describe clothes when they're part of the plot. An outfit or article of clothing might even be just significant to the current scene, but if it is, I think it should be described.
I've also found it good to describe clothes when they're distinctive. They can help develop a character's personality. For example, I always wonder about someone's sanity when they're wearing shorts and a T-shirt outside on a freezing cold day.
Whenever I introduce a character, I ask myself what's the first thing or things that I notice about them. It might be their hair and eye color. It might be that they're all dressed in black. They might be wearing a suit when everyone else is dressed in casual outfits. I never describe every visible article clothing worn by each and every character. That could get tedious to write, if not read. But whenever I meet someone in real life, I generally notice clothes as well as physical features.
These are my rules of thumb. I hope they help.
- Terry
Oh wow!
I don't think I received this many responses to a blog post ever! I really appreciate all the feedback. Ya's really gave me a lot to think about. Thank you! :)