The sexual attractiveness of a protagonist

Yāoguài · Jul 6, 2012

I've read quite a few urban fantasy novels where the author seemed to slow the camera on a female protagonist's body parts. The description lingers on the washboarditude of a woman's abs or the shapeliness of her boobs.

At first when I saw that kind of prose passage, I thought the descriptions were odd. They seemed to objectify the protagonist, as if the reader were checking her out rather than identifying with her.

But later I thought, maybe it's fantasy. Wish fulfillment. Maybe some readers enjoy spending a few hours identifying with a woman who is powerful, capable, witty, and has abs of steel.

What do you think?

I'm asking in general because I'm curious, and in specific because I've got two novels in search of a publisher where the main character never once self-assesses her hotness, and there is no mention of the size, shape, tightness, or proportionality of her body parts.

Have I gone too far in the non-objectifying? By removing any discussion of hotness, have I divested my story of a character's realistic, internal self-assessment? Both the "DAMN I look good in this dress" moments and the "I wish my boobs were more symmetrical" moments are part of many women's lives. Is it a necessary part of a three-dimensional protagonist?

thothguard51 · Jul 6, 2012

No character should go to any great lengths to describe their own physical features, hot or otherwise.

Physical descriptions should be left to other characters to observe, or the omni narrator to give.

As to describing any character, have we never observed and thought about what makes another person hot? The shape of a woman's calves, the upper swell of a breast, the hour glass figure, or the way her hair falls across her shoulders? Sure we have, so why shouldn't characters be commented about? Especially in fantasy...

Or so is my humble opinion...

Kerosene · Jul 6, 2012

I always found this odd too.

What I do: Is describe the characters "modestly". I wouldn't go into detail (other than sexual scenes where it counts) and I would have the other characters compliment them (when it's needed). Lay the ground work with the initial details, then pack it in with the other characters, actions and what might happen.

I always found myself forgetting about breast on woman. Hmm...

I would say vagueness is best, unless there's a point in making the point. If a woman's a warrior, and to say the MC is attracted to abs, then mention them when it's important(like in a sex/attraction scene). But otherwise, you can just say "she was muscular, but still feminine" and move on. And don't go on for pages about it. Describe for a short paragraph, character reaction, reaction and move on.

DragonWing · Jul 6, 2012

Yāoguài;7414249 said:
What do you think?

I'm asking in general because I'm curious, and in specific because I've got two novels in search of a publisher where the main character never once self-assesses her hotness, and there is no mention of the size, shape, tightness, or proportionality of her body parts.

Have I gone too far in the non-objectifying? By removing any discussion of hotness, have I divested my story of a character's realistic, internal self-assessment? Both the "DAMN I look good in this dress" moments and the "I wish my boobs were more symmetrical" moments are part of many women's lives. Is it a necessary part of a three-dimensional protagonist?

Well, ask yourself, do you know *anyone* who *never* self-assesses?

I'm fat. I know I'm fat. When I shave in the morning, the mirror reminds me I'm fat, and I take note of it. And I think characters (main or not) that are involved in a lifestyle or in a vocation that calls for physical fitness are going to assess themselves at least once in a while.

BUT...

Does that assessment really do anything for the story? My MC's love interest self assesses, but part of it is a response to sexual abuse she suffered in the past. So noting it plays a role in identifying the character.

I think a character could undergo an adventure without that self-assessment happening even once. And I think a whole adventure could take place without ever mentioning such a self-assessment, even if it did happen.

So no, I don't think it's necessary. Depending on your story, it might be a bit pendulum-swung-too-far to have not one instance of it. But that doesn't mean it's a requirement.

katci13 · Jul 6, 2012

My opinion on the matter has always been: mention if it it matters. I describe hair and eye and sometimes skin color. I don't say anything else unless another character is commenting on their looks or they are commenting on their own looks if it's relevant in some way.

I'm always distracted and annoyed by authors who go on and on for too long about such. Just say a few quick details and move on. I've put down books before because the author went on too long about it. Sometimes in the middle of an exciting fight scene...so pointless. Who stops in the middle of being choked to death to notice some guys ginormous arms or some chick's long muscular legs?

thothguard51 · Jul 6, 2012

I might add, after a character is described, its their characteristics that matter more than not.

Still, think of why we have a certain image of Conan or Red Sonja. Or if you are a Burroughs fan, Dejah Thoris or even the Moon Maid. Its because the authors gave enough detail in their descriptions for us to hold onto those images.

But I agree, I really don't like a character dwelling on their own looks as much as I like to see how other characters see them. And generally in short descriptions where needed, without stopping the scene...

Yāoguài · Jul 6, 2012

Flat stomachs.

A few pages into Jennifer Estep's Spider's Bite: "I got to my feet and stretched my arms over my head, moving the screw into a better position in my hand. The long-sleeved, white T-shirt I wore rode up over my matching pajama pants, exposing my flat stomach. The tall orderly licked his lips, his eyes locked on my crotch."

Kelly Gay's Charlie Madigan examines herself after an injury: "A few ugly bruises colored my left rib cage and collarbone, and there was a faint yellow bruise on my jaw. Otherwise, I looked my normal self: tall, lanky, and fit. My hand rubbed my flat stomach. It still amazed me that I’d grown a child in that small space—and that my boobs had skyrocketed from a 36B to a 40C. Will, my ex, had loved every second of that. The memory made me smile."

It looks to me like these authors found appropriate, good-storytelling ways to tell us the characters had flat stomachs. I'm curious as to why the storyteller would think it an important part of a reader's mental image.

I remember other flat stomachs in UF. I only had these two bookmarked because I read them after I noticed the trend.

Arcadia Divine · Jul 6, 2012

thothguard51 said:
I might add, after a character is described, its their characteristics that matter more than not.

Still, think of why we have a certain image of Conan or Red Sonja. Or if you are a Burroughs fan, Dejah Thoris or even the Moon Maid. Its because the authors gave enough detail in their descriptions for us to hold onto those images.

But I agree, I really don't like a character dwelling on their own looks as much as I like to see how other characters see them. And generally in short descriptions where needed, without stopping the scene...

I agree and I also want to add that the way the character describes his/her self matters most. If it stops the flow don't do it. it's fine if it slows the flow down, but as long as it's not too slow or the slowing is within reason. An example would be if that character cares quite a bit about their looks or if it's part of their personality. If that's the case, don't overdo it.

Silver-Midnight · Jul 7, 2012

thothguard51 said:
.But I agree, I really don't like a character dwelling on their own looks as much as I like to see how other characters see them. And generally in short descriptions where needed, without stopping the scene...

Yeah. I agree with this. I think a few descriptions are fine, provided it doesn't stop the scene or is a bunch of over description. I think a few details are fine personally but that's just me.

hillaryjacques · Jul 7, 2012

Yāoguài;7414673 said:
It still amazed me that I’d grown a child in that small space—and that my boobs had skyrocketed from a 36B to a 40C. Will, my ex, had loved every second of that. The memory made me smile."

This cracks me up since the number is the circumference of the ribcage, not the size of the breasts. And, as any really mean lingerie lady (I think most of them are mean) will tell you, the size of a 36B and a 38C breast are the same.

I find it very distracting when a character focuses overly much on the shape or texture of a body part in a context that doesn't lend itself to it. "I wiped the knife on my firm, slender thigh" is distracting. "I removed the hospital gown and was relieved to see the familiar thin, muscular build, all signs of the malicious spell gone" is better.

I once had a beta reader tell me she couldn't identify with a character because I hadn't described her well enough, which made me wonder why anyone would identify with breast and waist size rather than the thoughts the character had. We all read differently, I guess. It's, quite frankly, not something I dwell on. A few notable characteristics, whether body shape, hair, gestures, or dress, should be enough to sketch a picture of the character.

Maldeus · Jul 7, 2012

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not for nothing one of the Four Chinese Classics. It's seriously up there with the Odyssey in terms of pre-Renaissance literary awesomeness. But one thing that it and other books like it do that really irritates me is fail to describe like 95% of their characters at all. Some characters, like Liu Bei and Zhang Fei, are easy to remember because they get a lot of description right up front. Others, like Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, are easy to remember because they turn up in video games a lot and have distinctive appearances in those. But most of the minor characters could really, really benefit from some physical description. Like, Liu Bei's one civic officer who's really important at the beginning but then no one cares about anymore once Zhuge Liang shows up. He's like Sun something, I can't even remember his name.

Takeaway from all this being that measurements are probably not important, but if people have a hard time picturing your characters, that is most definitely going to be an issue. Not necessarily for everyone, but for enough people that you should keep it in mind.

astrodragon · Jul 7, 2012

If you want to fit in more details about how the character looks, feed them in naturally.
All women I've ever met obssess (at times) over their looks or the way they look in something. So have them do that, then you can have someone else tell them their (whatever) looks fine, or contrasts it with their own, not as good, appearance.
Or you can slip a woman into a hairdresser or salon and have it just come up as part of the conversation.

Men are more difficult - they dont obssess in the same way - however you can make use of the way men preen and try and make themselves look more attractive when they are trying to appeal to a woman. Something like 'sucking his surplus belly in" for example...

Personally I like something that tells me roughly what the main characters look like so I can visualise them rather that them be too generic.

But there is also the question of context - is it important, for example, what colour one of the main characters eyes are? It could be, in a fantasy story. If its important, slip it in somewhere.

Yāoguài · Jul 7, 2012

Maldeus said:
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms ... most of the minor characters could really, really benefit from some physical description. Like, Liu Bei's one civic officer who's really important at the beginning but then no one cares about anymore once Zhuge Liang shows up. He's like Sun something, I can't even remember his name.

Sūn Gān (孙乾, sometimes written "Sun Jian") made an impression on me. The Tiger of the East is in his thirty-eighth year. He wears silver armor and his red headdress is so famous that all he needs to do is give it to some other dude and the guy becomes a decoy. Sūn Gān rides a horse with a scalloped mane and weeps for the chaos that has befallen his kingdom. His brains were bashed out by a hail of arrows and stone projectiles. I think he died before Zhuge Liang entered the story.

Maldeus · Jul 7, 2012

Sun Jian's a different guy. This guy worked for Liu Bei, which Sun Jian most definitely did not. I might even be getting his family name wrong.

Yāoguài · Jul 7, 2012

Thank you so much for bringing this up, Maldeus. I just went and opened a box of books I haven't read since college, my classical Chinese texts -- written in simplified Chinese characters, and modernized grammar. I loved this stuff so much, more than the Greek classics. I have The Water Margin in my hand right now, and I'm feeling so nostalgic about Lǐ Kuí, the character known as The Black Whirlwind, the brawling meathead who tears off all his clothes before battle and goes naked into the fray with an axe in each hand -- a hero who cannibalizes his enemies' corpses. Hot damn, I'm gonna have a good time rereading some of this.

Maldeus · Jul 7, 2012

Sun Qian was the guy I was thinking of.

Pinkclaw · Jul 7, 2012

I think only important information should go in description and is better for other characters to noticed. Something I don't like is the character to stop in the mirror and start to see how hot it looks. I hardly care about the shape of character boobs but is a character have a tail or wings I want to know, nothing worst than find out 200 pages later than one character you were imagining like a human man is more like a humanoid lizard.

BigWords · Jul 7, 2012

I love describing my characters - the amount of burn scars covering their body, the lazy eyes, the too-long noses...

I am, of course, evil, and torturing people with such descriptions is amusing for me.

Mr Flibble · Jul 7, 2012

I think it depends on who is describin ng

For instance, a chaste POV character may not describe anyone in terms of hotness at all

A FMC may describe male characters with varying degrees of 'he's cute', or barely glance at them, or only notice certain things or whatever, depending on her personality (or a MMC do the same for women - or ofc same sex if they swing that way). My admittedly f'd up MC always checks out how a woman moves before he does anything else. But then he's an opportunist and shameless flirt. If I was writing from the POV of one the other characters, he'd barely notice that anyone but his LI is female....

As long as the description fits in with the person describing, and what they would notice or not, I think you're fine.

Raventongue · Jul 7, 2012

I don't read a lot of UF anymore, but enough to see this kind of stuff. I'm not sure where it's coming from but I've always been under the impression it's recent-ish.

When there's more than, let's say, three things about the character at once, it has a very erotica-ish feel to me. You know how they seem to always take a paragraph to describe the girl before making her into the appetizer of the day? Height, weight, age, build, sometimes hair colour, etc, it's almost identical. They'll even pull the same types of tricks like injuring a character all over in order to do a piece-by-piece view of their body. But as far as I know most UF authors aren't former erotica writers. Hmm.

And when I see a flat stomach described, I automatically think the author is a man. Even though both your examples are penned by women. Odd.

Yāoguài;7414673 said:
Flat stomachs.

A few pages into Jennifer Estep's Spider's Bite: "I got to my feet and stretched my arms over my head, moving the screw into a better position in my hand. The long-sleeved, white T-shirt I wore rode up over my matching pajama pants, exposing my flat stomach. The tall orderly licked his lips, his eyes locked on my crotch."

Kelly Gay's Charlie Madigan examines herself after an injury: "A few ugly bruises colored my left rib cage and collarbone, and there was a faint yellow bruise on my jaw. Otherwise, I looked my normal self: tall, lanky, and fit. My hand rubbed my flat stomach. It still amazed me that I’d grown a child in that small space—and that my boobs had skyrocketed from a 36B to a 40C. Will, my ex, had loved every second of that. The memory made me smile."

To be honest, these are also two examples of what I'd consider to be outrageously bad prose. Invisibility of the author out the window. But if I thought all UF were outrageously bad I wouldn't be in here, and when it's done in erotica it never seems to have the same invisibility-destroying effect it has for me in UF.

rwm4768 · Jul 7, 2012

I don't see the point of protagonists referring to their looks so much. As far as I'm concerned, I'm reading UF for interesting creatures and stories, not hot protagonists.

Maldeus · Jul 8, 2012

So I confess I don't really pay attention to this sort of thing. Does this really happen in UF particularly? I wonder why on Earth that would be?

bearilou · Jul 8, 2012

Interesting discussion.

I'm in the camp of why is it so important to stress the hotness of the MC and why is it so important for the MC to stress the items of hotness on their own body. The two First POV examples given above are particularly irksome to me.

I mean, I get the POV eye lingering on particular body parts of hotness on someone else (I mean, we all do it to a greater or lesser extent) and if that body part belongs to the MC as described by the other character, it's all good. Or if the MC is describing another character. I guess it's the First person perspective, noting their flat stomach or their shapely thighs and hips...how is it really that far removed from noting their own striking blue eyes or their own fiery red hair?

That said, still an interesting thread for me because a character in one WiP I'm trying to get off the ground is a plus size woman (based off of the totally gorgeous model Ashely Graham <-- cleavage warning) and I will soon need to be thinking on how to get across the aspects that she's not a size 2 (or even a size 12) and that she's still smoking sexy hot without her own perspective noting her ample cleavage or her full hips.

BigWords · Jul 8, 2012

Having read all the comments, and gone snooping around blog posts about this... I think I'm doing it wrong. I have certain people in mind when I "cast" my stories, and they are never who people would consider as being awesomely attractive - hell, one of my characters is based on Margaret Rutherford...

Raventongue · Jul 8, 2012

I love it when the protagonist isn't above average attractiveness, or even when they're ugly. *shrug*

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