ALICENT + Hands Close-up

Writing tips # 6 - The Body

Hey, hi everyone! I'm back again with yet another segment of Writing tips. Today I'm going to chat about something many struggle to describe. The body. Below will be several categories containing words synonymous with descriptors used when explaining someone's body. Hopefully, now y'all won't end up struggling for an hour like I have trying to figure out a socially correct way to explain that this particular character is obese :D

Thin

Angular, bony, emaciated, dainty, ethereal, frail, gangly, lanky, lean, malnourished, narrow, petite, puny, rawboned, scrawny, skeletal, skin-and-bone, skinny, slender, slight, slim, stick, twiggy, underweight.

Heavy

Beefy, big-boned, bloated, brawny, broad, bulging, bulky, burly, chubby, chunky, dense, elephantine, full-bodied, gargantuan, heavy-set, husky, lumpy, massive, obese, oversized, paunchy, plump, plumpish, portly, potbellied, pudgy, robust, rotund, round, shapeless, solid, stocky, stout, thick, wide.

Short

Compact, dwarfed, dwarfish, little, low, miniature, pint-sized, runty, squat, stunted, stubby, stumpy, tiny, undersized, wee.

Tall

Alpine, beanstalk, gangly, giant, lanky, lofty, skyscraping, stick, stretched, towering.

Weak

Decrepit, delicate, effeminate, emaciated, feeble, flaccid, fragile, frail, puny, sickly.

Strong

Beefy, brawny, burly, firm, herculean, huge, hulky, husky, muscular, powerful, ripped, robust, rugged, shredded, solid, stalwart, stout, strapping, tough, well-built.

Fit

Athletic, hardy, healthy, hearty, shapely, robust, toned, trim.

As always I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day and let your days be blessed as the best! <3

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON Season 2 Teaser Trailer

When I stepped into the fire, my own people thought I was mad. But when the fire burnt out, I was unhurt: the Mother of Dragons. Do you understand? I’m no ordinary woman. My dreams come true.

DAENERYS TARGARYEN IN GAME OF THRONES: SEASON TWO (2012)

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON | 1x01

Some of My Favorite Ways to Describe a Character Who’s Sick

pressing their forehead into something cool or comfortable (this could be an array of things. the table, the floor, someones leather jacket, their water bottle, the countertop)

warm to the touch, or heat radiating from them (could be noticed if someone’s gauging their temperature with their hands, hugging them, or just generally touching them)

leaning into people’s touch, or just spontaneously leaning on them (like pressing into their hand when someone’s checking their temp, or just, like, literally walking up and laying their head on them from fatigue. bonus points if the character is usually feral and the other is scared to engage™︎)

falling asleep all over the place (at the dinner table, on their homework, in the car, in the bathroom — just being so exhausted from doing literally nothing)

being overly emotional (crying over things that don’t usually bother them, like their siblings arguing, or their homework, or literally just nothing)

stumbling/careening/staggering into things (the wall, furniture, other people. there is no coordination in feverish brains. running into chairs, hitting the door, falling over the couch, anything and everything)

slurring their words (could be from fatigue or pain. connecting words that shouldn’t be connected, murdering all of their conversations with the excessive use of ‘mm’ and ‘nn’ in place of words) (this is my favorite thing ever)

being overly touchy (basically like a sick kid — just hold them, please. do that thing where you brush their hair back out of their face, or rub circles on their back, or snuggle them. they won’t care. bonus points if this is also the feral character and they refuse to believe it afterwards)

being extremely resistant to touch (flinching away when they usually don’t so someone can’t feel the fever, not letting themselves be touched because they’re so tired they just know they’ll be putty in their hands if they do)

growing aggressive or being extremely rude (it’s a defense mechanism — they feel vulnerable and are afraid of being manipulated or deceived while they’re ill)

whimpering/whining/groaning (this was in my “characters in pain” post but it’s so good that i’m putting it here too. this shite is gold, especially if it’s just an involuntary reaction to their symptoms)

having nightmares caused by a fever and/or delirium (crying and murmuring in their sleep, or being awake but completely out of it and convinced they’re somewhere else)

making themselves as small as possible (curling up into a ball everywhere they lay, hunching over slightly when standing, wrapping their arms around themselves)

TW for vomiting below cut !!

sleeping in the bathroom floor because they keep getting sick over and over (bonus if someone finds them all weak and pitiful. bonus bonus if they find them there in the morning only to learn they’ve been there all night)

using their hands/other body parts to clamp over their mouth so nothing can come out (like pulling their knees up to their chest and using that, or like, their arm, y’know) (~maccreadysbaby who has emetophobia suddenly gets very awkward about this post~) (~yes i have a phobia of puke and still write this happening to my characters, shut up~) (~it’s about the hurt/comfort okay~)

sympathy pukers (people who aren’t the sick ones but get nauseous/vomit when they see someone else throw up) (~aka me~) (~okay I’m done now~)

dry heaving (it’s gross, but good for making your characters absolutely freaking miserable)

rolling/churning/spinning/cramping/ lurching and all those awesome words that describe what stomachs do when sick (i hate these words with a deep, fiery passion. but they’re good for writing or whatever)

ELIZA DUSHKU as Gina City by the Sea (2002) dir. Michael Caton-Jones

There were more dragons than ever before as well, and several of the she-dragons were regularly producing clutches of eggs. Not all of these eggs hatched, but many did, and it became customary for the fathers and mothers of newborn princelings to place a dragon’s egg in their cradles, following a tradition that Princess Rhaena had begun many years before; the children so blessed invariably bonded with the hatchlings to become dragonriders. –Fire and Blood

EMMA D’ARCY as RHAENYRA TARGARYEN HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (2022) — Season One

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 1x10 — The Black Queen (2022)

Cillian Murphy in The Delinquent Season (2018)