Physical Characterization

[Staccato]

Hello all,

I was pondering the logistics of a story that I am going to create (with myself not being too familiar with the mechanics of a "good" tickle story) and I came across the dilemma of characterization. I'm having a bit of trouble crafting the visual aspect of my story. More specifically, the image of the characters.

I've noticed that strewn throughout the story section, the descriptions of characters generally seem filled with sexual flair: girls have big tits, nice figures, and are overly-sexualized. Is this necessary for a tickle story to be necessarily "good"?

Do you guys have any tips on how to work on the characterization of a character? Both physical and in terms of personality?

 

[Sablesword]

I'd say that it helps for the characters to be reasonably attractive. Making them super-sexy is an unnecessary indulgence - but it's a very popular unnecessary indulgence, both for the writers and the readers.

My suggestion would be to make your characters on the attractive & sexy side of average, without going full-porn-star, and to give them enough distinguishing features to make them individuals.

A common mistake is what I call "description by dossier" - running down a list of height, weight, age, complexion, hair color and length, waist size, bra size, shoe size, et cetera. You can get away with this if you set it up right, but usually it just screams "bad amateur porn!!!"

A better way (usually) is to weave in bits of physical description as you tell the rest of the story, and to concentrate on those parts that mark the character as an individual (as opposed to a generic type) and/or that show the character's um... character.

Many writers find it useful to write down all the dossier-style details of a character's appearance for their own reference. But they still avoid inflicting this on the poor reader. It's just there so that the writer doesn't describe Sally Lee as having (e.g.) blue eyes in one scene, and brown eyes in another.

To toss off an example:

====
Sally Lee lay on the couch, jeans-clad and barefoot, and sketched. The drawing taking form under her pencil wasn't a cute bunny or tranquil woodland scene - not the sort of drawing she showed her friends. It was something more embarrassing. She frowned at the sketchpad, and sat up to reach for an eraser, stretching to do so. Under her comfortable sweatshirt she had the tits of a porn star, but not the trim body to match. Sally removed the erring line from the tickle-scene taking shape on her pad, and lay back down. With her short legs, short arms, and short hair, the couch left her plenty of room at either end.

The doorbell rang [...]
====

Note that I packed in quite a bit of description, and was arguable clumsy about it here. On the other hand, there's still a lot about Sally's appearance that I haven't revealed. And on the third hand, I've given the reader enough to go on with - given the assumption that parts not mentioned are more-or-less average. If Sally were African-American, or Chinese-American, or a flaming redhead with milk-pale skin, or had a half-dozen piercings in her face, then I should have worked that in, as being a Significant aspect of her appearance.

 

[Staccato]

Thank you again, Sable, for all of your inputs. They're very helpful.

Would it be possible that I sometime send you a rough draft to offer commentary/suggestions about?

 

[ElFewja]

Well, you got a good bit on appearance so I'll try the other part: Personality.

Probably the best way to show personality is to, well, show it. A good way to do that is through action or dialogue.

Dialogue is probably the easier of the two because a character can (though I don't advise it) flat out say what you want them to. Like in real life, how the person says something can communicate just as much if not more than what they actually say. So, as a somewhat bad example, you could have a character ask if another character is ticklish; the second character might look away, rub at the back of their neck and then after a few seconds respond with something like "...not really". In my opinion that would give off the impression that the character is fibbing to some degree but in doing something this way you've established a few things: the character is probably ticklish and also probably hiding this for some reason. Like in film, space can also demonstrate a decent amount about the story. For example the character being asked about being ticklish could also step back a bit, creating a larger gap between them.

Pretty much, though, you should ask yourself how a character would react if they're feeling a specific way. Maybe the person is agitated, so he cuts off someone from talking by slamming a fist against a table, then yells at the other person. If you've got a character that's sort of waiting for something and kind of irritated about it he might be checking a watch or clock constantly, maybe pulling out a cell phone and flipping it open repeatedly, tapping a finger against his wrist or knee, picking at or idly playing with something, stuff like that.

Mostly, just be descriptive about reactions or how the character acts towards specific things. Always show it; don't tell the audience straight out something.

Usually I just throw casual appearance references in during an action or something, like a character flicking a strand of orange hair out of her eyes. Just small things like that.

*Sorry that this is a bit rushed and not organized the best.