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cultivating-wildflowers · 2 years ago

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Writers: unless the POV character can actually see an aspect of their appearance (via a mirror or because it's on a part of their body or clothing that they can see by looking down or around), they should not be describing that feature. For example, your character shouldn't be saying that their own skin has gone ashen, or that their eyes are bright, etc. What you can do to convey those things are to describe how they feel (light-headed, giddy) or have another character remark on their appearance. Or, of course, have them look in a mirror.

#I have nothing against mirror descriptions in general #but we all know there's a kind of story where the 'looks in mirror and sums up all details of physical appearance' is basically one of the #*one of the story beats #this message brought to you by a disgruntled me as I sift through contest submissions #because I guess I like boring myself #(I'm mostly being sarcastic and I did find a couple of really good books via this contest last year)#(but this year I'm judging short stories and...yeah short stories require practice)#(just like novels)#(I should know because after almost 15 years of writing novels I only just started to learn how to write short stories in the last couple #*of years)#(and part of that is learning to be succinct and to recognize the differences in structure and pacing)#anyway this is a reader pet peeve of mine #it's definitely something writers (including myself) have to learn and it's not something everyone notices I'm sure #but it really irks me when we get these long-winded descriptions that 1) aren't at all relevant and 2) are impossible from the POV #mine #addendum: I know this does not apply to 100% of POVs but it's most of them

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