Especially for those that think Nathan's ugly -- do you want to saddle them with that? The feelings his appearance conveys are more important -- but don't depend on the appearance to spell it out.

No, no, no, I really don't overdescribe! I know better than that! It's just always weird to me when someone in my writers group names an actor that I just can't imagine fitting the scraps of description I've included. I think all I've said about Jack is that he has chestnut hair and light brown eyes, that he's lean, a bit on the rawboned side, and has hands that would make Teppy a very happy woman indeed. Oh, and he has some sexy scars. Only scattered throughout chapter one and not in those words, because some of them are anachronistic, and my readers would wonder who the heck this Teppy person was.

Hee. Now I want to read a book set in a historical period with fancy-dress and told in Buffista-speak. It will sell exactly 74 copies--to us. But it would be fun! Maybe we can get the writerly types together and write it en committee, like Spiral.

Or perhaps I've had a few too many gingersnaps this evening and the sugar rush has made me giddy.

I made a great point of not describing a female character once upon a time. She was my that-world avatar, and I was looking out from her eyes, so to speak, and I never "saw" her. So aside from the fact she was young and female, I left her appearance to the reader's imagination. Imagine my surprise one evening when I turned on the tv and, in a short-lived summer replacement show set in a completely different historical place and time, there was an actress who just clicked as my character. I'd never pictured her, and here she was. Sort of unsettling.

Hee. Now I want to read a book set in a historical period with fancy-dress and told in Buffista-speak. It will sell exactly 74 copies--to us.

I occasionally amuse myself by imagining character dialogue or introspection in the most modern, slang-ridden terms possible. Or I'll "interview" them and we'll use literary and pop culture references a century or two past their time. Jack's character really clicked for me the day "we" had a nice discussion of Lord of the Rings and how Sam is a saint and a hero, but Jack is nothing like him and would appreciate it if I stopped writing him as such.

I hate it when they do that.

I said, stand over there and say this.

"I'd rather discuss the permutations of swordplay, with an undertone of definite allusion to sex."

But we're not ready for that part yet!

"Who's not ready?"

Stop that! Or...at least have a talk with my husband, would you?

I hated it at the time, but Jack had a point. He's a much better character since I decided to let him have an edge.

"I'd rather discuss the permutations of swordplay, with an undertone of definite allusion to sex."

oh oh oh...might I tag this?

I don't think I really describe my heroine's appearance except short and feisty with hair that she calls a "mop" that she's thinking of cutting. I'd like to claim restraint but actually I got it from Sue Grafton...I've read tons of Milhones and she doesn't say much about what Kinsey looks like.

Description is my bugaboo. How much is enough to keep readers from feeling lost and how much is padding? I keep thinking I'm leaving out too much in my Italian Ren story, but no one's complained yet. Of course, the people who are lost probably stopped reading. Being a historical reinactor has played hob with my ability to understand that most people don't have a mental gallery of what the time period would look like.