#it's wild trying to apply this to ffxiv characters

[nihilnovisubsole]

I wish you would write a fic where… you live out your fashion know-how to its fullest. I always enjoy the sections of outfit-descriptions in your fics, they're so well-worded (professional) and easily understandable

well, the good news for both of us is that i enjoy doing them, and i don't intend to stop, so i'm sure they'll be in whatever i write next!

describing character appearance is actually tricky for me, because i want to be as thorough as possible, but i'm wary of taking too long to do it. there's a lot of discourse in The Writing World (whatever that is) about what counts as "superfluous" description, especially with food, places, or clothes. some readers find a story dry if you don't give them every detail, with subjective descriptors like "arresting eyes" or "a gentle cascade of hair." some readers feel that anything more detailed than a police report is an offensive roadblock between them and what happens next.

i don't like either extreme, but i lean more toward the second camp, which makes me a spoilsport when it comes to genres like romance. i read a book in high school that could easily have been one-third of its length if the author hadn't spent two pages describing every scene before the plot could advance. (i also feel self-conscious that if i'm too loving when i describe a male character, it'll betray my attraction to him and undermine the story's seriousness. moving on! we don't have time to unpack that!)

so since i have these two competing goals, i like to challenge myself to make those fashion parts as streamlined as i can. how concise can i get? can i find a "one shot, one kill" word that invokes a really specific garment? how much can i shave off and still nail the mental image? it kind of leads me out into the weeds with technical terms sometimes, but whatever, people can look them up. can't break my stride! gotta keep going!!