Erotica 101: Characters (DOG EAR)
Erotica 101: Characters (DOG EAR)
ynthia Woodelston Pratt stepped out of her front door, the sun shimmering along the sassy golden locks of her long blonde hair which hung halfway down her back. She had solient green eyes and a cute button nose, and lips shaded to pastel pink by a generous swipe of lipstick, She was comfortably clothed in a pink polo top. Her delightful bottom was sheathed in tight cut-off jeans, faded, their bottom edges across her thighs frayed into white fluff. On her feet, very casual light brown Doc Martins. She was an American girl, just out for a day’s shopping at Target or Foot Locker or even the Gap, and then maybe an afternoon movie.
She waved to her friend, Bluebird McGale Scrimshaw, a plucky brunette with sky blue eyes and hair that brushed the shoulders of her white golf shirt…
You can see what I’m getting at. And I’m not exaggerating. A lot of erotica starts off with character description.
Windy character description.
Erotic or otherwise, character description is an overdone effort by most authors. Look, you might have this perfect image of your heroine, but really, you don’t get any points if your readers imagine the same thing you do. I’ve read one author’s point that description is the act of pulling toggles in the reader’s brain, with the goal being to pull the minimum number to get the point across. Let the reader fill in the rest. Unless its critical, they only need a loose idea of what your characters look like, and even less about their clothing.
You know; like this…
Cynthia traipsed down the front steps, her casual clothing a match for the casual day planned. Brushing her golden hair from her cheery green eyes, she tossed a wave to her best friend Bluebird, a fun-loving brunette who always got Cynthia into the most remarkable sexual escapades…
If you need any further proof, let me mention that my more artistic readers have sent in drawings to my alternative site of the main character of one of my more successful series.
And she’s different in each picture.
And that’s fine.
They all love their own version of her.