Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39886
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39886
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The crucial question, which will help you figure out how to write this, is: **why is this detail important**. And that question has two angles:

1. Why is it important _to your story_?
2. Why is it important _to your viewpoint character_, at the specific point you want to get the information across?

These two questions _can_ have the same answer (e.g. "the friend is sick and tired of people hitting on her and commenting on her breasts" might be both a story point, _and_ something that's on your POV character's mind). But they also might have different answers (e.g. it'll be important because some other character is going to tease her for it later on; but that means you need to lay the ground for it now, when everything's fine).

I'm assuming you've got (1), why it's important to your story, well-covered -- or you probably wouldn't be asking.  
Whereas (2) can definitely be tricky -- because, yeah, there aren't many ways to tactfully reflect upon somebody else's breasts.

There a still a myriad of ways to solve this, though! Here are a few -- and, since the ultimate solution will be weaving this into your scene in your POV's voice, which one works well depends a lot on what you've already got and want!

- **To heck with tact.** Your POV character, or their friend, might be the cheerfully blunt sort -- and make joking reference to the character's breast size. This depends on the character voice being right for that sort of brashness. But, this can definitely work. And there's no shortage of people who really do use humor and bluntness, and prefer that over just not being able to talk about their bodies, about how they feel and are perceived, etc.
- **Being tactful is precisely why it's important.** Your POV's experience of being with this friend, definitely involves politely ignoring her breasts. And your POV would maybe never say this out loud, but they're definitely _thinking_ about how not to be rude, not staring, keeping an eye out for creeps or just rude people...
- **Let someone else bring it up.** Literally anybody in the scene, or even _mentioned_ in the scene, can have a quick-but-informative reaction. Maybe somebody catcalls her on the street, which she calmly ignores. Maybe she talks about a best friend as being "somebody I can go buy bras with." Maybe she has a funny story about how she has two dating profiles -- one with a picture showing her face, another where you can see she's got big breasts. It doesn't have to be the POV character calling attention to it -- _anybody_ can, as long as the POV character is a witness.
- **Straightforward physical description.** You can definitely just say "She has big breasts", like "She has big eyes"; the trick is not to make that detail feel like lewd or sexual interest. Avoid sexually-loaded phrases, like "well-endowed." Having big breasts shouldn't be an "oh my god" thing; shouldn't be a shock; shouldn't be sexy (unless, of course, one of those _is_ what you're shooting for). If _you_ can disassociate breasts from being purely sexual, you can notice physical detail or description that isn't sexual -- stay away from comparisons to "humonguous ripe cantaloupes," and look more for stuff like how a large-breasted woman is comfortable sitting at a table, or whether she prefers T-shirts over finding well-tailored fits. 

There are certainly more options than this, but these should give you a sense of some of the possibilities, and how to approach the issue in general.

Original score: 11