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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42336
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42336
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

### Use events in your story to provide excuses for describing their look:

> Naide stretched her neck. Her powerful shoulders were still aching from the long flight. In truth, she could handle twice the distance, but the cold gusts of the morning air, caressing her long graceful neck, had managed to stiffen the muscles in her back. Now she had to pay the price of her early flight.

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### Add customary actions in your world that would require a description of their look:

> Naide looked at herself in the polished silver mirror. She wished she could be as beautiful as Deisha, who glided with her slender neck adorned of copper rings, and her wings spreading like white clouds. Both were but in the prime of their youth, with round faces crowned by a long stream of dark tresses, and plump red lips which had yet to learn to kiss. She placed the golden ring on her finger and looked at it. It was a normal ring, which her mother wore on her pinkie, yet, as thin as she was, it fit just her thumb of all her five fingers.

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### Add comparisons that refer to our world, without overdoing so:

example:

> The two byrdies did not waited long. With a terrible shriek, Naide hurled herself at Deisha. It was a battle of ancient warriors, a knuckle fight of boxers from times past. It was a dance, with their slender legs moving together, and their clenched fists darting across the dust.

example:

> Naide jumped at Deisha with hands that could have been claws, but were thin and delicate like those of a harp-player, too gentle to do any harm.

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### Add dialogue remarks, but use them sparingly:

> «Naide!» Screamed Deisha «It is you, isn't it? I would recognize that walk of your amidst a crowd. No one else balances between the legs as if they had no wings like you do. I still don't get it how you manage not to trip on your feet.»

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### Add scenes where it is necessary to have that particular detail of the body shape

example:

> Deisha was lying on the ground. Half of her left wings had been torn by the gro-lion, leaving but two feet of mauled and bleeding feathers still attached to her shoulder-blades. She would never be able to fly again. Others in her condition had entirely given up what remained of their wings, and lived a life of shame, walking with their backs straight, and their necks curved forward.

example:

> Naide gently lifted Deisha from the dirt. The woman was not a giant, barely six feet tall, with a large chest, and yet Naide felt her legs shaking under Deisha's weight.

example:

> «My knee is hurting, and my elbow is bruised.» said Deisha after the fall.

example:

> At the exam Naide was asked how many bones are there in the neck. Six, she knew that. Six vertebras, and thirty more from the shoulders down. She knew it just as well as she knew that she had five fingers on each hand.

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### Finally, **just don't**. Let your readers imagine what suits them best. Afterall, it is your story, but it is their imagination.

Original score: 1