: Re: How does one go about describing someone doing Naruto like hand symbols? Like how do I describe if someone is doing symbols with their hands like this? I want to describe specific hand formation

@Sent2472441

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I don't know what "Naruto-like hand symbols" are, but from the context of the question, I am going to assume they are some kind of complex hand gestures used to cast spells (or something similar). So let us proceed from there.

Firs thing you need to ask yourself is: do you need to describe each particular gesture combination? Do the specific movements further your plot? You could, for instance, establish that spells are cast by means of complex hand waving, and proceed from there. This need not be boring: each set could be "like a dance", or "like a karate master going through a series of katas", etc. The important thing is, instead of talking of specific "spells", you establish the whole form.

Having established the form, you want more specifics? You can give the symbols names. Like katas or asanas or pas have names. Again, having established the form, the reader doesn't need to know specifically which hand goes where at what time - give a general image, and the reader will fill in the blanks.

You want to establish that some symbols are complicated, require precision, etc.? You can talk about training. You can mention an incorrectly positioned finger causing the spell to go wrong (or do nothing at all). You can mention a character being "unable to bend his arm into that angle", or hurting themselves through bad technique, or just being physically tired afterwards. Again, let the reader fill in the blanks, create their own image in their minds.

Seeing a well-executed sequence of movements on screen is awesome - it's like a dance, it has aesthetics, it has impact. Reading about a series of movements is boring: it's a dry list of hands going from one position to another. It takes far longer to read about a movement than to do it, so everything feels in "slow motion". And worst of all, most readers are not proficient in dance or martial arts, so it would be far too easy for them to lose track of what's going on. When a reader loses track of what's going on, they become bored. And that's the one thing you want to avoid at all costs.

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