: Re: How best to describe multiple alien species in a short amount of time? I am in the beginning stages of writing what might be a space opera. The story starts in a society that consists of

@Smith147

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Describe Only What Matters
Physical descriptions are the shallowest form of character building. They help the reader to visualize the character, but they do not help the reader know the character.
We know someone by understanding their choices, and height, skin color, etc. are not choices.
If you want to give descriptions of your aliens, think about how physical characteristics might interact with culture, and how other characters might engage those cultures.
Example
It might be rude to smile at a prey species, because it emphasizes humanity's predatory nature.
A character who is ignorant, might smile because they don't know this, and another character who is contentious and courteous might correct them.
A third character might deliberately smile after observing this interaction, because they are a jerk.
We have learned something about the choices that all three of these characters make, and therefore have learned something about who they are. The physical description of your alien was necessary for the reader to understand the situation.
Pacing
By integrating your physical descriptions with character building, you spread out the descriptions naturally. Presumably alien culture only impacts some subset of your characters' interactions. Therefore, not every scene will involve descriptions of new aliens.
Occasionally, you might describe more than one alien culture / body type, as you explore the way that these different subgroups interact with each other - your main character might play two aliens off each other based on their understanding of the different social cues. Again, physical descriptions are a necessary part of these interactions, and because they are relevant they are interesting to the reader.

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