Nondescript Description

"Nova's bust and hips swelled as impressively as Liska's..."

From: "Star Dancer"

(www.chakatsden.com/chakat/SD-index.html)

Some people in the fandom are confused about what a physical description is. They enter role playing games with no visual information except a color, and five paragraphs worth of useless background story. This becomes problematic in the realm of commissions, where they ask for a picture of their character, providing the same non-description, and this is the only information they provide:

"Tchaikovsky is more or less your standard werewolf, though he prefers his wolf form to his human form. Years of persecution and being hunted down, etc, seeing his friends killed, has kind of gone to his head. He has a grudge against most people and is/was on a crusade to change everyone into a werewolf. Generally, he's goes back and forth from being grumpy and sarcastic to being nonchalant and... sarcastic. He curses and drinks a lot, smokes on occasion." Some people just don't try very hard when it comes to describing things. The descriptions end up being flat, vague, or otherwise sloppy. Sometimes, like in the quote at the top of this page, the writer refers a reader to the description of another character to figure out the description of a character, which becomes worse if the description of said character (five chapters ago) was flat.

Examples:

"In general shape and appearance the Asimov's corridors did not significantly differ from those of Sigma 17 but there were a great many more of them and they were considerably more crowded."

(From Star Dancer, again)

...And since the corridors in Sigma 17 are, to my knowledge, not described, that doesn't tell me very much.

In "The Colony" by V. Ducain (www.furry.org.au/chakat/Stories/TheColony-index.html), the characters wake up to find out they are Chakats...before they find out where the hell they are. How can you get embarrassed when you're in the middle of a vacuum? Writer, first establish the environment (such as the presence of characters), then the character interaction.

Also, there's this:

''"Once lunch was over, they continued their wandering, eventually making their way to the Boardwalk where they indulged in the usual Boardwalk games. On a whim, David turned in all the tickets he had earned and purchased a stuffed cat for Sitsi and a stuffed wolf for Oceansong, which earned him a lick-kiss from both." ''

From "Recovery" by Adrian Nunenkamp (www.chakatsden.com/chakat/Stories/Recovery01.htm)

Need a flat surface to race those little wind back cars upon? Try this narrative.

The worst thing any furry writer can do is describe any character as a "fur" without giving any other description of what exactly "fur" means. Yeah, yeah. I know what the concept means intellectually. A furry is a talking animal. But what the hell kind of animal are you describing when you use it as a noun? Example:

"Slowly, agonizingly slowly, David crept towards the trunks of one of the many trees. The forest was thick, so dense in places you couldn’t see through the trees, except in the odd places. Once in position, he snaked an arm around the tree and grabbed the nearest fur with a weapon by the throat, and pulled him around the tree. With practiced ease, he drove the tips of his fingers into the solar plexus of the fur, depriving him of air and stunning him momentarily. Slipping his hand between their body and the weapon, he turned the weapon to fire into their knee, then freeing his hand from their throat, tore the weapon from their grasp and fired one shot into their chest." -"Recovery" by Adrian Nunenkamp, again.

And what exactly did this "fur" look like? Was it a dog? A cat? A wolf? A peacock? A weasel? A lizard? This writing doesn't even work for fandom fiction.

"A skunktaur in hys female mode stood outside, and Frederike invited hym in."

-"Fredericke Weismann" (www.chakatsden.com/chakat//Stories/FrederikeWeismann-1.html)

First of all, sexual preference is not a description of what a character looks like. A hermaphrodite in female mode looks exactly like a hermaphrodite in male mode. What makes it even more confusing is the masculine sounding "hys," which makes this whole sentence a non-descript description.

''"Hy was in hys male mode this time, but otherwise looked as usual. "If you don’t mind, I’d like to start and finish early today. I have to switch gender and pick up my mate at the airport."''

-Same as above quotation

Wow. The doctor changed from one non-description to another. What a total mind f***!

"They had a wonderful evening. Kane’s colleagues were nice people, and they chatted until eleven o’clock..." -Same

Why don't you say "fine" instead of nice? I mean, hair is fine, right? And it's just as meaningful. "How's your hair?" "Fine!"

"Goldstripe held Patricia’s hand, and Tiponi rang the doorbell. A tod opened the door, and his eyes opened wide at the sight of the two officers."

-Ibid.

Lazy. Especially since the kid's father should at least get a description.

We soon find ourselves in front of a relatively ordinary door, the only difference to the others in its row being Myka's name on the door.

From: -Shadows and Light: By StarShadow

''"The person to his right, a traditionally colored tiger-pattern chakat, said, "Sorry about that. Is your leg okay?"''

-Taurger's Tale (www.furry.org.au/chakat/Stories/Taurger.htm)

And whose tradition are we supposed to refer to here?

In the same story:

''"That’s not a bad idea, but you might want a second one to frame the head of your path," said a second chakat, coming up from behind the redhead. This one looked more familiar. "You’re, uh..." Taurger said, trying to remember the name of the second chakat.''

"It was a quiet but hot morning that day, and she was reading a magazine while sipping on some cold beverage." "Fredericke Weismann" (www.chakatsden.com/chakat//Stories/FrederikeWeismann-1.html)

This should go into one of those collections of bad sentences. Cold beverage? That could be anything. I excused the flat descriptions of characters like "a foxtaur tot entered the room" and the like, but the writer could have at least had the decency to tell us what she's drinking. Tea? Coke? Ice milk? There's no point in being non-descript here, except laziness.

"They changed into their uniforms, and Tiponi showed them around. They were introduced to Backfish, who turned out to be a nice man in his late fifties. "

...Speaking of lazy.

''"Goldstripe held Patricia’s hand, and Tiponi rang the doorbell. A tod opened the door, and his eyes opened wide at the sight of the two officers." ''

More laziness. Especially since the kid's father should at least get a description.

''The door opened onto a great room, one much larger than the main lounge onboard the Folly and packed to overflowing with furs. ''

Wow. Talk about a double whammy. First it references a scene description from another story to describe the interior of the room, one that isn't even provided there, then it increases the vagueness tenfold by using the generic descriptor "furs" to describe its occupants. Therefore, going by the non-description in this sentence, the room is between the size of a broom closet and Yankee stadium, and is full of creatures that could be anything between cockroaches to elephants.

I don't care how long you lecture me about this, but a male mode hermaphrodite is visually identical to a female mode hermaphrodite. The only difference is where they're aroused, and that's irrelevant because they could get aroused by something else next cycle.

“They’ve got Ester Mark 3’s, and after what happened to the Mark 2’s …” said a skunktaur in female mode. ''Hys counterpart was also a skunktaur, but in male mode. “First, they’re only offering three and we need four; second, we don’t know if a larger field would have made any difference; and third, we can’t afford what they’re asking for them. Never mind replacing the AFU….”'' -Tales of the Folly – The Curse by Allen Fesler And later, this "male mode skunktaur" has a conversation with another character. Just think of what it would be like if there were two "male modes" in the same room. How would you tell them apart? Answer: You couldn't.