Body Size

[Paul Whybrow]

In creating a character we could mention various aspects of their appearance, including their weight. We previously discussed how ways of describing characters in a thread started by @Robert M Derry, but I don’t think we’ve concentrated on body size.

This came to mind recently, when designing the covers for my audiobooks. ACX insists on a square format, whereas the covers for eBooks and POD on Kindle are portrait. The easiest way to make the change was for me to drop the Kindle design into IrfanView and alter the dimensions. Four of my Cornish Detective covers include human figures and changing the ratio made them look rather chubby!

It made me ponder whether I’d written about obese or slim characters in my crime series. I had, for one detective is skinny, a competitive karate exponent who used to ride horses to Olympic standard. She has problems concealing a pistol in a shoulder holster, so needs to wear a puffer jacket. The art dealer villain of The Dead Need Nobody is morbidly obese, so fat that he has to lean forward to read his weight from the bathroom scales. Self-conscious of his weight, he avoids relationships, channelling his passion into art.

Have any of you created fat or thin characters? It’s a sensitive subject to write about. Best-selling author David Walliams came in for criticism:

David Walliams accused of fatshaming and classism in children's books

Activist and food writer Jack Monroe called out the comedian’s ‘grim’ stories

www.independent.co.uk

Obese characters are said to be unpopular with young readers:

Children shun fictional 'fat Alfie'

Young children reject storybook characters who are overweight, research reveals.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I have a fat, malign character, Sergeant Pigeon, and I will make no apology. He is modelled from the life; a museum attendant where I used to work. I didn't like the way he spoke to a little girl on a school trip, and we...clashed.

What's the point of writing fiction if you can't be the god of your own created universe?

 

[Hannah F]

My protagonist in my present trilogy is smaller than average (in her world) and thinner than average #own voices. One of my soldiers is chunky and strong with it. But I tend to mention height more than body size and let the reader visualise in whatever way they want to. Your portrayal of your two characters sounds fine to me. It all depends on whether it's done with sensitivity, I think, so a bigger than average or smaller than average person wouldn't be shamed by your portrayal.

 

[Barbara]

I only mention body shape if it's seriously relevant to the plot. My current MC was imprisoned and escaped and hence she's scrawny and has a tendency to self harm. Putting on weight is part of her healing journey.

My worry about using weight is that it could easily become cliché. I feel if I mention guys who act like ejits but are muscley I suddenly have a cliché bad thug, or if he's obese I have a slimy bad gangster boss type of guy. I don't like having to write a slim female protagonist because I'm fed up with heroines being beautiful and slim, but Mia needs to be slim because of the story. If I write a muscly male cast member, I end up with a cliché hero love interest. SIGH. So I avoid body weight unless it's relevant to the character or unless I want to use that cliche for effect to misguide the reader, and instead find other characteristics.. Mia will be attracted to a guy because he has happy eyes, because he pulls the chair out for her to sit at the restaurant etc (after all, she seeks kindness). I'm tired of how the media concentrate on body shapes.

 

[Hannah F]

I also don't want to make life too difficult for casting directors when they make the film

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I usually only describe my characters physically in scant detail (because to me it generally doesn't matter what a character looks like). However...

I have a character in my Dragon Slayer series who is explicitly a girl who developed early--she's 13 with the body proportions of a slightly overweight adult. Part of her journey is recognising that she's way more than "Ella the Elephant", and that her true friends don't care what size she is.

And I'm working on a story in which I'm planning on an overweight, out of shape guy as the male lead in a crazy monster-filled urban fantasy, largely as an antidote to all the stories where every single friggin' character is described as thin, tall, muscular and attractive. Really? There aren't any short, plump, or ugly people in your world? I just want to read a story in which a dumpy, not-so-good-looking guy gets to do heroic stuff.