1. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Men, please don't write women this way

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Lea`Brooks, Jan 1, 2017.

    FB_IMG_1483235162383.jpg
     
  2. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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  3. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    I shouldn't laugh, but I'm laughing. Tittering hilariously, you might say. :superlaugh:
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2017
  4. 20oz

    20oz Active Member

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    Her breasts heaved as she smelled a delectable aroma wafting from the kitchen. Her nipples hardened at the mere thought of gouging down her breakfast.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2017
  5. X. Sheonn

    X. Sheonn Member

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    Lol, tits.
     
  6. PilotMobius

    PilotMobius Active Member

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    "She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downward."

    I'd be fine with more of this. These puns are the breast!
    kill me
     
  7. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    But it's working for George RR Martin...
     
  8. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    He's keeping abreast of the latest trends.
     
  9. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    He's got his headlights on and he's wearing party hats.
     
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  10. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    Well shit. Looks like my WIP needs some major editing.
     
  11. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    How avant garde!
     
  12. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    Even God has a penchant for purple prose when it comes to his women characters...

    “There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled” (Ezekiel 23: 20, 21).

    “Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies” (Song of Songs 4: 5).
     
  13. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Somehow my illustrated children's Bible omitted those verses.
     
  14. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    Not purple at all, and not prose. Both of those passages are poetry, and Songs is classic poetry at that.

    Remember, too, that the problem with the initial passage is that it either implies that the POV character, the woman, is thinking about her boobs in the way a guy, in a very unworthy moment, would think of them, or else it assigns such thoughts to a (theoretically) disinvolved narrator, who also shouldn't be indulging in such foolishness. In the case of the Ezekiel quotation, however, the Lord God is very much present and involved, and is directly describing and addressing his people Israel, who are personified as an adulterous wife. In the Song of Songs, a lover, also very present and involved, is praising his beloved. It's erotic poetry, and it's meant to be.

    I love what the woman says about her lover in the same book:

    My lover is radiant and ruddy,
    outstanding among ten thousand.
    His head is purest gold;
    his hair is wavy
    and black as a raven.
    His eyes are like doves
    by the water streams,
    washed in milk,
    mounted like jewels.
    His cheeks are like beds of spice,
    yielding perfume.
    His lips are like lilies*
    dripping with myrrh.
    His arms are rods of gold
    set with chrysolite.
    His body is polished ivory
    decorated with sapphires.
    His legs are pillars of marble
    set on bases of pure gold.
    His appearance is like Lebanon,
    choice as its cedars.
    His mouth is sweetness itself;
    he is altogether lovely.
    This is my lover, this is my friend,
    O daughters of Jerusalem.
    (Song of Songs 5:10-16)

    If the lover were the POV character and the narrative described how the man was stretching his "polished ivory body," that would be the same kind of problem from the other side. But he's not the POV character, and it ain't.
    ____________________________
    *Lilies in this case most likely being the red Oriental kind, and not the white ones you see at Easter.
     
  15. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    So, when writing female characters, I shouldn't shout "TITS!!!" as loud as possible? Damn. I'll have to reduce it to two exclamation points instead of three.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2017
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  16. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I picture you typing away, the words on the monitor reading something like:

    while shouting

    TITS!!!

    as loudly as possible.
     
  17. Rosacrvx

    Rosacrvx Contributor Contributor

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    LOL!
     
  18. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    It's the sort of shout that feels like the text is both bold and underlined as well.
     
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  19. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    https://broadblogs.com/2010/11/29/women-learn-the-breast-fetish-too/

    In these two pieces of research we find hetero women more aroused by nude pictures of women than men, and spending more time looking at nude women’s bodies than men’s.


    Maybe this kind of writing isn't as unnatural as people think!
     
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  20. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I don't think we should change the phrase to: If breasts could kill. :supergrin:

    Also who writes like that. Even I am no stranger to randier things, but that is just absurd.
    Sounds like some weird monologue on a dollar bin direct to dvd movie.

    I think to my own way, with less focus on Corlixia's boobs.
    (Granted there is a brief point when she finds a bunch of soldiers staring at them with erect nipples during PT. Mind you it does not focus on her boobs.)
     
  21. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    The soldiers were staring with erect nipples? Wow, soldiers in that world see out of their manly chests?
    (Hee-hee).

    I'm thinking that if the example paragraph were to avoid Omniscient Breasts Syndrome, it'd run something like this (with credit to a full-bosomed friend who's just undergone a double mastectomy):

    The sun's rays beamed through the slats of the blinds. Cassandra awoke to find herself lying on her stomach--- again. Ouch, her breasts hurt, and the sheets had left marks on her bare skin. How long would it take her, she wondered, to make sure she always slept on her back? And now she had to get up and sling the girls into that instrument of torture known as a bra. The straps cut her shoulders and the cups were too small, but who had time to get a proper fitting? Maybe she could go braless. But that'd be painful, too. Dammit, it was times like this she envied the small-breasted girls with their 34 triple-A figures. Sometimes---
    . . . On the other hand, there was the look that kindled in Josh's eyes last weekend when she walked into the restaurant wearing her favorite low-cut red dress. Hell, yeah, she had the assets and was glad she did. She got up, dressed, and with a light step strutted down the stairs.
    Of course, this assumes that the size and nature of Cassandra's "assets" are material to her characterization and/or to the plot. It's the sheer irrelevance of descriptions like the one @Lea`Brooks quotes that slot them into the category of "omniscient breasts."
     
  22. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    *applauds*
     
  23. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    The poor plight of the heterosexual male writer. Probably a nerd to begin with, unpopular, has to stay in and write instead of partying and socializing, yet can't put his sexual frustrations on the page without being called problematic. I'm horny enough to end my story with a giant orgy in celebration, yet smart enough to know better!
     
  24. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Aw sh*t. That's basically how I write.
     
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  25. Krispee

    Krispee Contributor Contributor

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    I know you aren`t supposed to but I pretty much laughed at every post here, especially the first one; which, if I had been drinking at the time, would have resulted in a lot of coffee or water (or whatever I`d been drinking) sprayed everywhere, including the screen.
    I can`t imagine anyone actually writing that in all seriousness. Not in a novel, right?
    Surely not. o_O
     

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