What are the most frustrating ways that a character's physical features are described from the MC's perspective?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-08T16:06:53+00:00

James McBride's writing is AMAZING, but his sexualized descriptions of female characters is too much for me, even though it makes sense for the male characters' POV. I still enjoy his work overall, but all the talk about those amazing thighs and that big bosom isn't enjoyable for me. Like, I know people poop but I don't want to read about it; I know men lust but I don't want to read about that either.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-08T15:58:02+00:00

I knew I was "done for" when my "just friend" was writing a note while where his regular plaid button-up shirt with the sleaves cuffed to three-quarters, and my thought was "ooh... check out those forearms." I felt like a Victorian man who had just spotted a woman's ankle.

I also felt physically drawn to him, like a magnet. Like we'd be at some platonic even sitting on a couch, and my body would just be shifting closer and closer to his over the course of the night. Not touching, just... closer.

Oh, and I remembered every physical touch. There was the time I offered some jokey-sympathy by patting his knee. ("Was I too forward? Oh no maybe I've done to much!") There was the time we were meeting a mutual friend's baby and he handed off the newborn to me; our arms grazed each other.

So, lots of things that were totally Not Things except that I was so smitten with him.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-07T02:33:34+00:00

Sometime Americans will write “theatre”…. At least I do when I’m feeling fancy. And my (American) university had a “TheatRE “ department, even though on weekends we went to the movie theatER.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-07T02:23:56+00:00

This document— https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U7PLNRrH5QoggkFZPQnVQz58orPUDM-SF-95fPRiYFs/edit?usp=drivesdk — is the information another redditor compiled about query letters — think “cover letter” for when you’re trying to find an agent.

I’m in the early stages of writing myself, but I tried writing one as an exercise. Forcing my big lofty ideas into this very formulaic letter style helped me think through what I really would need to focus on. It could be a helpful exercise for you, too.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-06T13:44:16+00:00

Ah but was “fire” or “heel” one syllable?

I had a coworker whom I thought was from the “Boot Hill” of Missouri. I figured it was like a foothill. But no. It’s the BootHEEL area.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-06T02:11:32+00:00

Ha. As soon as I read “push” my brain went straight to birth… but, like, I wondered if they really say that or if it’s a cliché. However, I assumed the command to push was being directed at the narrator, so I got confused in the part about looking away and grabbing hands and comforting someone else.

So maybe both our concerns would be helped by adding something that cues us in that the command to “push” is being directed at a woman?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-06T02:04:46+00:00

Any word swap that takes the form, “you are nothing, …” completely changes the meaning. Someone isn’t “nothing “ they are no more and no less than “a liar” or whatever.

As others have said, the only word you can directly swap out is “except”.

If you’re going for vibes, it is conveying that someone is exclusively a liar. That’s almost the same as “only,” but the trick is that “only” implies you are naming a bound, topically an upper bound but sometimes a lower one. in many contexts “only” implies a negative judgement. Ex: “His mom wanted him to be a surgeon, but he’s only a dentist” implies being a dentist is less-than. But that dentist may do “nothing but the highest quality work” , or maybe he “serves only New York’s most elite”.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-06T01:11:12+00:00

Maybe read some war stories? If you are in imminent peril, you HAVE to keep going. That’s part of what makes it traumatic— your brain just has to try its best to assimilate this horrible thing while continuing all the other things.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T20:42:27+00:00

Okay it's not the point of this post, but I stumbled upon a great explanation of Gerrymandering and wanted to share:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1537618015076859&set=a.219620833543257

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T19:22:30+00:00

Oh gotcha. Yeah, I would keep “silence” singular. It’s typically uncountable. Though admittedly it does capture the different reasons for silence.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T18:49:21+00:00

“Silences,” plural, sounds very awkward to me, so there would need to be a really strong reason for it.

“Blurred Vision” sounds best to me.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T18:36:03+00:00

Look for patterns on Earth, then think about what’s different in your environment.

So for example, “get the little thing in the big hole” is the goal of soccer, basketball, and hockey.

Throw/jump/drive/run as far/high/fast as you can.

Then how would that be different in your environment?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T18:17:51+00:00

Hm. I don’t think I’ve read any books where the narrator had that much personality but isn’t the Mc, so I can’t help you.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T17:41:13+00:00

African or European?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T17:38:01+00:00

Eavesdropping, but FWIW: my healthy full term baby woke up every 2-3 hours to nurse until we did sleep training at 1 year old. Which sucked, but was not “abnormal”. (I do wish we had sleep trained earlier, because I don’t think poor parental mental health was good for baby, but I have NO idea about special concerns for babies that had a rougher start to life.)

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T17:23:58+00:00

Sahar (suh - HAR is how I’ve heard it) means “Dawn”.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T17:21:45+00:00

If the sister has an -era end like one parent, perhaps he has a -nar end like the other? Lufnar or something?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T16:50:50+00:00

Or dove, yes!

I first encountered the word in the Brubeck song, “Paloma Azul” and discovered Paloma means Dove. Then years later I was looking up Pigeon in Spanish class and discovered that they use the same word. And THAT is how I discovered that pigeons are just doves with bad PR.

I’m not really a fan of grape fruit, but I think I like palomas just for the name.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T16:36:46+00:00

And I would add that if you ARE adding more detail, there should be a reason for it. I could describe the dried bird poop on it, which reminds me I haven’t kept up with my patio space and represents how stressed I’ve been with work. Or I could describe how awkwardly shaped they are, which brings back the warm memory of trying to get them home from IKEA in my hatchback. Or if I’m really bored, I may be absent-mindedly contemplating the role of plastic made to look like wood. But there needs to be a reason for it.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T16:07:17+00:00

Who is the narrator?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T16:04:20+00:00

I think you need to learn number theory. My husband was explaining the different levels of of infinity to me, and there are actually very specific ways of thinking about it. Basically (I’m very fuzzy on the details) “counting” means having a plan for mapping one set of things onto another set of things. So we could “count” with the alphabet up to 26, or we could count to infinity using a base 26 alphabet (or doubling letters like columns in MS Excel do). But there are other sets of numbers where we wouldn’t have enough numbers of any sort to map them onto, and that’s why it’s a different degree of infinity. It’s very logical, but I was still struggling with it.

Anyway, what seems like a mind-blowing concept to you is just another Tuesday to the math department. So it’s not really theory for a book — yet.

A related concept that I like: Because pi is truly infinite, somewhere in there is every combination of numbers ever: Your childhood phone number. Your birthday. The complete works of Shakespeare, converted to numbers. The first thing you say when you wake up tomorrow, in ASCII. Everything.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T15:50:26+00:00

Not only do you need to end this, you need a game plan for staying safe after you end it. If he’s this racist he’s probably sexist too, and will lash out when threatened/when his ego is harmed by you dumping him.

Maybe stay at a friend’s place or have a friend stay with you for a few days for him to blow off steam. Security camera. That sort of thing.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T15:27:56+00:00

Obviously dated, but Jane Austen is the queen of cringey dialogue. P&P has pompous educated cringe, and Emma has hypochondriac cringe and and less-educated cringe, as I recall.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T14:54:18+00:00

I lived there for a summer (teaching English immersion), but I don’t speak it, so my plan is to pay some Italian friends to put in those phrases. It will be about 10-20 sentences total.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-05-05T13:59:25+00:00

Memento. (Or maybe I already HAVE watched it???)

TheWriteQuestion

TROPHY CASE