Hi, I'm having some difficulty describing the size of something without referring to modern day real world objects. If I want to say something is the size of a football, or a cinder block, but no such things exist in my ficticious world, what would be a suitable size comparison? My only alternative would be to give dimensions in inches, but I'd hate to resort to over explaining something, and making the description clumsy and boring. Thanks for any help offered.
You're probably going to have to describe sizes as football sized because how else is the reader going to understand how big the thing is. But then again if its a ball sized object you could say its as big as your head
You can describe it in relation to things such as rocks, shoes, feet... anything that does exist in the world really. That's how many of our measuring systems came into place. Something as large as a football would be about the size of one's head, roughly. Though, if heads don't exist either, I guess that wouldn't work either. haha. J.A.K. O.U.T.
It's the size of one of those things that's about this big (holds hands some distance apart). Wait a minute! Pigs! It's the size of a young pig! Or, if it's smaller than that, you could say it's the size of half a pig. Or as big as a pig the size of a mouse. If it's really enormous, you could say it's the size of a pig that's as big as an elephant. Any way you look at it, it's the size of a pig. This probably solves your problem. But on the other hand, maybe not.
Compare it to things that ARE common in that environment. If it relates to something also found in your readers' experiences, so much the better. It's about the size of an apple. It is as long as my arm and as wide as a barmaid's hips. It was half a head taller than Big George.
In the olden days people used the length of the palm or the forearm to measure sizes. Other than that you can use the sizes of fruit or everyday items. The size of a football is the size of a melon (the long ones, not the round ones).
dont forget the size of a cow's head! If its big unless you never saw a pig or a cow than use rocks, arm length..etc
Excellent. Actually, my spouse did suggest something quite similar, a pony's head. I'm trying to describe a Dwarf two handed war hammer, I've already dealt with the handle, or shaft, but was stuck on the hammer head itself. Thank you everyone for wonderful, helpful suggestions. You guys rock.
