: Re: How to describe a female character's figure without comedy? Do you know a good way to describe a female character's figure? I'm writing a fairly serious story, but the only way I know how to

@Welton431

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Physical measurements seldom make any difference to the plot, and (IMO) it is an amateur mistake to imagine any character, male or female, with too specific a set of measurements.

Breast size, hip size, waist size, shoe size, are all far too specific, and if you think about it, this is the telling of facts, not showing the consequences of those facts, which is what you really want to do.

In rare circumstances, it might make a difference to the plot if somebody is extremely tall or short or obese, or an amputee or physically disabled or deformed, in which case such characteristics must be described. But whether a woman is small breasted, average, or large breasted would require a lot of contrivance to make this significant to the plot. Often, the normality or abnormality of height ratios may be useful clues, a few inches shorter, or taller, or if people are the same height, or if friends have interchangeable clothing (or not).

Show, don't tell. Show the consequences of beauty, not the clinical description of it. Here is a story, not yours, but one I made up here as an illustration:

Angela. For Billy, a name tinged with awe, the perfect name for the most perfectly proportioned woman he had ever seen. Every curve, from brow to ankle, an exact match to his dream desire. Her every expression felt like it tugged at another string in his heart. Every time he saw her, it punched the mute button on his thoughts, any words to say flew from his mind and he could only watch her, rapt and speechless. How could every man in the bar not feel the same?Sooner or later they would, he thought, and if he didn't find his tongue soon, he'd regret his cowardice for the rest of his life.It took him a week to work up the courage to say hello. But he wasn't new to this game.It just takes practice, son, practice, and keep it witty. If you ain't handsome, you best be funny.He practiced. At night instead of watching the games, at work instead of working, with his eyes closed so he could see her face, burned into his memory as if it had been there all his life. And thirty hours of rehearsal paid off. She laughed at his jokes. She knew his name. She touched his shoulder, and Billy was in love.

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