Character Descriptions?

[edithdick]

Similar topic, how do you all feel about using clever character names that describe some aspects of the character?

I’ve been watching Succession, one of the main characters is named Kendall, and based on how he is written, I am fairly certain that it is a play on Barbie’s companion the Ken Doll. In other words, he looks like a perfectly good male except without genitals. (I’m not saying Kendall has no genitalia, just metaphorically he has no balls)

[Executionus]

Similar topic, how do you all feel about using clever character names that describe some aspects of the character?

I've done this a bunch, especially with last names. Virgin from the Thirst Games was named Mary Pucelle, named after the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc (Pucelle was the pseudo-surname Joan used which meant "the virginly maid"). Bully from that story was named Ivanna, after Ivan Drago. Sophie Vos from Sophie Digitally Naked in School had the surname Vos which means fox. This was done because she's sly, and also because much of her story resembled Kitsune fox spirit lore (using a clever-yet-flimsy disguise in public with a flair for the dramatic, the disguise known for its excessive decoration). Jessica Joel from Passion of Jessica Christ has a surname which means "God is the Lord".

I've also done names that only made sense to me and nobody else. Alexandra Glinka from Alexandra vs Santa Claus was named as a variation of the word Gilded, or covered in gold. I just tweaked it to sound more Russian. The Lingle family in Playville (the free-the-body nudity-loving hippie parents and their shy son) were named as a hybrid of "little" and "dangle" because of their weird obsession with getting their small son naked to make him less introverted. Maa'Gryph the Leprechaun was named as a variation of Mad Gryphon, which was the name of a leprechaun character I used elsewhere a long long time ago. I probably have more that I don't remember offhand.

Also for my April Fools story, the characters were named Rick and Ashley, which was foreshadowing the ending being a Rick Roll.

[Namb]

One of the criticisms of my works is the lack of physical descriptions of my characters. At best you get gender and age.

To me the character is a repository for thoughts and speech and emotions and sometimes: action.

Most of my stories are about how my characters feel as they do something or have something done to them.

[edithdick]

One of the criticisms of my works is the lack of physical descriptions of my characters. At best you get gender and age.

To me the character is a repository for thoughts and speech and emotions and sometimes: action.

Most of my stories are about how my characters feel as they do something or have something done to them.

If your characters are well rounded in other way, so that the reader can have a sense of who the character is, then they will fill in the physical description based on their life experience. Especially if you can rely heavily on stereotypes, that makes it easier for the reader to base your character on someone they may know or know of in their real life.

Only use what it necessary to advance the story. If the fact that your character has red hair and freckles is important in the story, then say it. If not, don't. If your character is shy about having A-Cup breasts, then add that. Otherwise, we will assume she is average.

Personally, I find it distracting to overload the story with strangely specific physical attributes that don't otherwise play a part in the story. More than likely, I will forget them anyway, so you might as well let me use my imagination.

[randomlygenerated]

Hey, everyone --

I thought I'd start a discussion thread to avoid having my story bumped too many times at the cost of other new posts. And the big question is:

What are your thoughts on character descriptions?

Preferences, opinions, just general thoughts, etc. When reading and/or when writing, as sometimes it feels different from each perspective.

To get the ball rolling, I'll give my answer -- I tend to lean towards that middle ground. To me, a 'petite blonde girl' or a 'scrawny pale guy' more or less gives me a mental blur that my imagination can run with until other details are tossed in as they become relevant. Too much information tends to turn me off from a new story, especially when it's delivered with no finesse. 'Nora was 5'7 with shoulder length brunette hair, slender with a bit of tone, fair skin, blue eyes, 34C, a nice round ass that didn't fit her frame quite as well as her breasts, wearing dark blue jeans, a white tank top, etc. etc. etc.' Maybe a bit exaggerated, but you know what I mean. I'll still read it, of course, as I'm not a total snob, but it's more that it's distracting even if such details might be important. Obviously this forum isn't for novel writing and not everyone wants to circle around details, but my personal favorites are when descriptions are peppered in over the course of the first 1-2 parts instead of a huge info dump in the first sentence.

The other extreme, however, is something I've started playing with recently. There's this great story on Literotica about a younger sister seducing her older sister's boyfriend, and I imagined her as a hot young blonde the whole time. Upon rereading it, I realized the writer hadn't described either sister or the guy at ALL. It's kind of an interesting concept, just letting the reader fill in every blank with their own preferences. For those that haven't noticed it, 'The Disguise' only references size due to its necessity to the story, but nothing else. I took it one step further with 'The Game,' as the MC only has an outfit mentioned as the story progresses. No description at all, and not even a name given so far. Mostly since the style and 1st person narrative allow the reader to put themselves in her shoes if they want. This extreme isn't something I plan on doing exclusively, but just a concept that some people might not have considered writing and/or might not have realized they were reading here and there. Most importantly, it's a fun counter to the over-describing I sometimes see here and other places.

But that's just me! Veteran writers and new writers alike, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this specific element of writing/reading ENF stories.

All the best,
Lady Lucia

I would say that I am fairly similar. I think over-describing a character is often a flaw because it kind of cuts the story down. However, I find this is more of an issue with things that are more niche anyway, like having super tiny tits with very long nipples. If I want a girl to be brunette instead of a blonde or whatever, I will just find/replace in a word doc. Or just use the power of imagination to not care, lol.

[Fred Key]

I guess a lot has to do with what you are trying to do in your story, IMO. Is your story a short one-shot? Descriptions are probably less important as you are trying to get your story across with a focus on action, and limiting how many characters you really describe will keep the focus tight. Are you world-building? Descriptions are going to become essential as your character list gets larger and larger, because otherwise you may as well start naming your characters “Man 1”, “Demon Mage 3” or “Sex slave bimbo with huge knockers #7”.

I appreciate it as a reader when people give me room to imagine, but there are times I’m perfectly happy to have a clear image from go. A great example would be Executionus and his use of pictures to illustrate some of his characters, because I love what he did in one case and was less a fan of the other. With his story Trapped in the Shower, the image of the three female protagonists was just perfect—enough to really let me focus on getting to know them as characters and letting their expressions convey their strongest characteristics as well. I didn’t need anything else in terms of description for the rest of the story, at least until we started talking about what was hiding under the clothes. On the other hand, while I appreciated the effort that went into the Thirst Games albums and the sincere effort to give us a look at what was in his head for each of these characters—something I can totally understand doing and respect given the enormous effort that went into those two story sequences—that was a case where I felt like the images made it hard for me to get engaged with the characters. Now to be fair, I suspect that keeping us from seeing those figures as full characters was part of the whole scenario—no names, just avatars like “waitress”, “babysitter”, or “boxer” to work from, and all the focus on how each one’s “role” would drive their approach to the battle. It was a cool mental exercise, but one that I was a lot less personally “bought in” for.

To be clear, this is in no way a critique of either Executionus’ story or approach—you might as well argue that someone liking chocolate over peanut butter is right or wrong. Taste is personal.

My one pet peeve and the hill I will die on, however, is that it is just plain awful writing to make every female character either an enormous back-breaking 42DD or a flat as a board bra stuffing not even an A cup. Not only is it making a pretty big assumption about what people find attractive being uniform, it also is so out of line with reality that it breaks any suspension of disbelief I might be able to raise for a story. If I want to watch impossibly big breasted women and men who are all so huge-dicked than every woman immediately wails “It’s too biiiiiiiiig! Please take it out before it tears me in two!”, I’ll watch bad hentai.

I try to provide enough detail when I write that I feel confident that what a reader imagines is going to ring true with the rest of the story. If anything, I think I spend too much time in dialogue between my characters and not enough time on description.

[TeenFan]

Many of my ENM stories will have more than one guy in them. I don't think most people will care to know if their hair is straight or curly and what
color eyes they have, so I leave out such details unless needed to tell the story. What I will describe is how tall a character is and how big the boy
happens to be. I've noticed that in a lot of stories it's not mentioned if the boy is circumcised or not. If not mentioned then the reader can imagine
it the way they prefer it.

I sometimes mention if a character is cut or un-cut. Sometimes it is important. Several times I have used a Jewish character and that explains why
the boy is cut. This is important in a story where the setting is in Europe. In the US it is very common for the typical guy to be circumcised...so
when a boy has foreskin is should be mentioned because it makes him different than the other American boys.

Now size I always mention. I tend to stay away from SPH type stories. I write my characters to be of average to slightly above average. So far
I have not written a character to be a huge Nine Plus, and that makes sense since most of them are in the 12-15 age group.

Another trait I usually define is athleticism and muscle. When the girls touch the boys is a good time to describe exactly what the girl is touching.

Body type acceptance is not something I've seen much of around here. How many Fat Boys or Pleasantly Plump chicks are written about here?
Hardly any that I've come across. I admit I don't read a lot of ENF stories so there may be some here where "Fat Shaming" is the theme of the story.

[HumbledBareBoy]

Another trait I usually define is athleticism and muscle. When the girls touch the boys is a good time to describe exactly what the girl is touching. Body type acceptance is not something I've seen much of around here. How many Fat Boys or Pleasantly Plump chicks are written about here? Hardly any that I've come across.

Since you asked, I am pretty much God when it comes to the love and admiration of plush/cuddly males... ...I am to chubby-chasing what Sir Mix-A-Lot is to the societal fandom of "big butts" on ladies! Something of a specialist, if you will, simultaneously artiste and engineer, at the vocation of writing such boys into existence: Pleasantly Plump, Cutely Cuddly, Heartily Heavy, Seductively Soft, or whatever you prefer to say, while the "naked" elements can go in either direction:

1. Yes indeed, those chubby boys are very often doomed to be publicly separated from their clothing, bared and exposed, usually with multiple unwanted spectators -- for a deliciously embarrassing scene of a "stripped and spanked" ENM character, either solo or alongside others
2. Unless the boy is slim, athletics, muscular, etc. and under the authority of a fat/plump disciplinarian figure, such as being the son to a "Daddy bear" type of father!

Of course, since I'm such a huge fan of "body-type contrast" I also write other physical types: Thin/skinny, more fit/slender "swimmer" builds, toned/athletic types, built "muscle-hunk" footballers, and other such. More importantly, in an H.B.B. story, it would not be remotely improbable to encounter something like the star quarterback of the varsity H.S. football team going to prom alongside his boyfriend -- who happens to be a very unathletic "chubby nerd" with glasses! Alternately, it could be a giant 6ft+inches "offensive lineman," well over 300lbs with weight to spare, coupled to an "unathletic skinny nerd with glasses" -- where people think it's a miracle the bigger boyfriend hasn't already "broken" the smaller one! Needless to say, the descriptive details and physical specifics end up being very salient to the narrative, with me piling it on in spades!

I admit I don't read a lot of ENF stories so there may be some here where "Fat Shaming" is the theme of the story.

My writing style and personal inclinations, in all honesty, do not readily or frequently lend themselves to me writing much (or any) "fat shaming" content in my stories, though they may very well experience subjective "fat-shame" on an internal, emotional level -- having internalized societal negative messages and stigmas. Ultimately, all boys should (and must) do their time as blushing ENMs for the greater public's viewing pleasure, including the plump and chubby ones, right? .

One ENM-inclusive story with "fat shaming" that I would highly recommend:
https://malespank.net/viewStory.php?id=51464

[Girlspns]

One aspect of descriptions I'm thinking about lately is how it changes perception between points of view, would it be perceived differently between first person narration and third person narration?

Thinking about it, people don't usually describe themselves when they start a story, they don't go:

"So before I tell you about what happened to me at the grocery store, for starters, I'm blonde!"

They don't do that even when it's relevant, they just describe the relevant bit when it becomes relevant, but they sometimes describe others when they first talk about them.

But when there's an omniscient narrator, it makes more sense to describe a character in more detail when they're introduced, because that's just what an omniscient narrator would do.

[edithdick]

Thinking about it, people don't usually describe themselves when they start a story…

It depends on the person. From my experience, if a redhead (ginger for you UK types) tells a story, they tend to mention the fact that them being red headed somehow plays into the story.