I want to describe a female character as 'curvier than average' But I know some people might go off at even that much. Even something like 'blessed' or 'healthy' doesn't feel right. I initially landed on Voluptuous (seems to be the least offensive of the few that exist) but I'm not dead set on using that. It sucks that the vocabulary for describing curvatious women is so limited. Sucks even more that the few words that do exist are either frowned upon or less than classy. For reference, the character in question has an average 'build' but she also stands at roughly 8 feet tall, so by normal standards everything seems huge.
You could try to find some other singular, possibly obscure adjective like 'zaftig' or you could just describe her as plump with additional details and description. From The Great Gatsby:
Somebody will be offended no matter what you write. In the old days offending people was merely an occupational hazard of a writer. Look at Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. These days many believe their only option is to write whatever the smarter-than-thou crowd deems correct. That's not creative writing in my opinion, it's writing whatever the teacher tells you to.
That's fairly true, I asked on reddit if Voluptuous was sexualization and got many paragraph levels of responses, none of them quite scathing as expected though. I may find an alternative phrasing or scrap it entirely, since she already has a stand out feature of being 8 feet tall. Describing her build seems pointless after that.
How important is this character or other characters' perception of her? I think a little more description than being eight feet tall will help, but how much depends on the story.
Voluptuous is a fine, descriptive word. For what it is worth, I was never insulted when it was used to describe me.
She's a mechanical (well BIO mechanical, think like Cell from DragonBallZ) being who named herself Fraulein because she didn't want people to judge her based on her scale or strength. (for starters, her upper limit is yeeting a half of a skyscraper structure several hundred feet) She didn't choose her appearance, and she knows an Algorithm did, and is actually somewhat bitter about that. She values organic life and knows how frail everything is, especially to her. I'd say she does care about her appearance (she's one of the few Valkyries that tries to dress presentably the rest just kinda dress super casual in their normal clothes) but what other people see in her physical shape doesn't bother her too much. As long as people don't have you know, actual terror in their eyes, she's satisfied.
I also think just 'Curvy' would work, you wouldn't describe someone with an average body type as curvy, the descriptor itself suggests moreso than average and has less sexual undertones than voluptuous, if that's your aim.
Before the OP's question there are two other questions: - why does the OP want to describe the character's body shape? e.g. is it related to the other post about fanservice? - does the biomechanical Valkyrie have a character arc yet? I'd suggest the problem to worry about isn't that there will be some backlash of feminists and wokes "going off" at the writer, but that the character's description might be tedious. Curvy. Biomechanical. Valkyrie. Amnesiac. Eight-foot-tall. Powerful robotic soldier. Developed by Otaku. To fight the elder gods. Agent of God. Calls people nicknames. Her own nickname is 'Ms Boing-Boing'. She befriends the hero for reasons unknown. An algorithm chose her appearance. "Curvy" is an extraneous detail in a long list of other extraneous details. It would be possible to continue adding to this list forever without producing the slightest interest value. She could be given flamingo wings. Iridescent purple skin. Eyebrows that meet in the middle. Prehensile toes. Elbows with knives on... ...and there still wouldn't be anything to her. And in case I'm thought to have unfairly discounted these things:- - she is bitter that an algorithm chose her appearance - she values organic life - she cares about her appearance That's everyone isn't it? Things like this can appear internal to the character when they are really external, so I find it useful to start with how characters' choices drive the plot and how their voices distinguish them. My knowledge of feminist literary theory doesn't extend much further than "The Madwoman in the Attic" but the female character not having a character arc I think would invite more righteous indignation than the OP's choice of words for describing the size of her breasts. And what if on top of that she reduces to being an Amazonian deus-ex-machina, who solves all the male main character's problems for him? What if her amnesia is a callous way of preventing her strength and martial prowess from having any value outside of their usefulness to a man? Not that that approach to characterization appeals to 'male gaze' chauvinists either If it did, the human race would die out Half of it would be stuck staring at an internet page with only three words on it, unable to take their eyes away "A beautiful woman" Part of the nature of stories is that they are the stories of characters. The extraneous details are actively rejected by the reader's bullshit filter - they are outside the character and unreal. The character's self, their inner world, is what is real and what readers seek out to relate to. And they do it ferociously and impatiently. It is hard to write characters, and we will often need advice to give them convincing inner worlds. Whether "curvy" is a sufficiently polite euphemism for "jugalicious" isn't likely to feature in that process for most writers. Because in a way, the sine qua non to even think about writing characters is a full working vocabulary. If the OP succeeds in creating a character, her interest value to the reader will be outside of and more powerful than "curvy" or any other single word. Once we have the reader's trust we can make them imagine things that aren't even on the page. ========== The Great Gatsby passage quoted above by @Bruce Johnson I think was excellently chosen - and it works better the more of it there is This is Myrtle Wilson, who has a character arc (but no biomechanical combat abilities) - https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gatsby/character/myrtle-wilson/ Although the initial description of her is physical, and from the pov of a 1st-p narrator (Nick), it's put in this tone to contrast with Nick's descriptions of Daisy earlier on - which have been in terms of mannerisms:- Which I guess is to contrast the Tom-Myrtle affair with the Daisy-Gatsby one. And the upshot for the OP then would be that Myrtle Wilson's external body is only mentioned to develop other characters' internal worlds.
I agree with half of the post, but the other half not so much. I think this is the second time @evild4ve has mentioned character traits NOT being character traits. Being bitter that a MACHINE designed you, and not being birthed naturally (and thus, zero 'nature' involved in your appearance) when you have natural inclinations to protecting organic life, in spite of being inorganic, is a defining character trait. Does it impact her arc? A little bit, but I don't think every detail outright 'needs' to be important to the plot. So long as it forwards the plot, or the character, it's relevant. Similar to how a Rabbit lady only eating meat because a vegetable dish was why her mom died from food poisoning from said dish. Having to overcome her fear of vegetables is a minute detail, not important to the plot, but it still shapes her personality. It adds a little bit of charm to said character, and some reader might actually relate to the character from this. Should point out that the 8 foot tall Valkyrie is a (somewhat, she's still important to the plot overall) minor character, a different Valkyrie is the one with amnesia who survives the thralls of time. There are a few expositional scenes that show more of how the amnesiac Valkyrie interacted with these other ones. The most stoic of the Valkyrie group ends up being developed/shaped by her experiences with those with personality, recovering her memories of the other Valkyries (including Fraulein) help her develop her human nature. As she finds more and more memories, she unlocks more of her human nature. The other Valkyrie do return after a few red herrings imply that they were 'lost to time' and get some development then. That's why I'm working hard to endear these characters to the reader before they all go away. So that when they do return, the readers can be surprised. The other Valkyries eventually do fill out the rest of the 'party' for the latter half of the story.
"Pleasantly plump," give or take some adverbs, was what I was going to suggest before I read that Gatsby example. Damn.
I've often heard "full" used as slightly-more polite euphemism for buxom. "Tall and full" could certainly work for an 8-foot-tall (!?) woman with wide hips and large breasts.
You're giving in to the mob. If you look at a phrase and think it might be inappropriate based on your own standards then fix it. If you look at a phrase and cut it because a variety of people might be offended, you're not writing from the heart. Why write from inside a box someone else put you in?
I was already kind of on the fence with the word to begin with. (which prompted me to ask about it in two different ways) I may use some other way to describe her curviness without using the word. There's a short bit of 'radio chatter' while the four Valkyries are fighting off the horde. I'll prolly use that to give the reader some insight on the characters. You know, do a bit of showing instead of telling. Probably won't seem as sexualized if it's the characters themselves bringing it up. I actually thought about using "Full Bodied" you know, like how wineries use the phrase to refer to different types/flavors of wine. Apparently they're inspired by different types of women. (at least according to some wine trivia in a game about something else entirely lol dunno if it's true or not)
I would suggest it's extraneous because the machine is outside the character and has placed her into the passive voice. I would suggest the character only starts to form at a point where the OP can describe a choice she makes which drives the story's plot, but which is inconvenient to the writer. Or alternatively a point where the character has a unique way of speaking distinguishing her from both the author and the other characters. But if the OP can find their inner Valkyrie: that's the feat of performance art that readers are looking for. Nobody cares how many elbows she has or whether she's the daughter of High King Nogbad and has a frozen demon embryo implanted in her nostril. Mannequin characters who lack an independent self and are just places for extraneous details to be tacked onto are sometimes a way for writers to distract readers from a traumatised, authorial inner world. I didn't make a choice when I should have done, I am ashamed, BUT LOOK AT MY THIRTY FOOT TALL ELBOW-WITCH!!! My voice is ignored by others around me when I speak. I am ashamed, BUT LOOK AT THIS WORLD WHERE DEMONS HID ALL THE BIROS!!! The OP doesn't answer as to the creative reason for needing to describe the character's breasts, which I think is a shame. I wonder if there might be another approach of de-sexualising her or making her geometric (cuboidolicious?) to make this nurturing instinct for organic life more interesting. Just on that, it seems like it might be subtractive: depriving a female character of normal/organic access to motherhood so that she can better decorate a male fantasy?
