Z: Zygomatic arch

Has anyone complimented your zygomatic arches?

They're your cheekbones. And they're further back than you'd think -- when you put your fingers on the upper part of your cheek, most of that bone there is actually the lower part of the eye socket (the zygomatic bone.) The arch connects that bone to the temporal bone, which is a patch of your skull just above your ear.

Cheekbones are one of several qualities of the face that contribute to that thing called "beauty"... so a few thoughts about characters, beauty, and describing your characters' zygomatic arches.

Writers want their characters to be attractive to readers and at first thought, physical appearance is part of that. Whether you simply say your character is good-looking or go into great detail about eyes, lips, and cheekbones, your aim is to hold the reader's interest. Does beauty always hold the reader's interest, though?

Most people are not at one extreme or the other -- not beautiful, not ugly. They're ordinary. On the cute side, maybe, or on the unattractive side. Describing someone who can't be rubber-stamped as pretty or ugly can take more words, actually, to go over the ups and downs of their appearance. And while I think it's a good idea to not have all your characters be drop-dead gorgeous, you also don't want to bog down your story in long descriptions.

Excepting those genres where it's expected, of course.

So maybe you just sketch your characters and hit the highlights. The nice smile. The hair. The calloused hands. The weak chin or the hairy warts, if you're going for a less attractive package. Those are quick and you can mention them more than once so they stick in the reader's mind. Maybe you assume the rest of the character is ordinary, or maybe you assume the rest is ripped muscles and generous bosoms -- again, genre comes into play.

There's an interesting argument put forward by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics (it was my U entry) with regards to characters with distinctive, detailed appearances vs. a non-specific appearance. You really should read the book, but here's the gist of it: a non-specific appearance encourages the reader to place themselves in the character's shoes.

McCloud's talking specifically about comics, a more directly visual media than fiction... but it's a valid point, and I suspect it carries over. How closely I identify with a fiction character has very little to do with their appearance -- in fact, the only physical detail that would draw me in would be obesity. But that's a different post.

Writers want their characters to be attractive to the readers. Is physical appearance important?

What do you think?

Y: Yoga

I do yoga. I've been doing yoga three times a week for several years now.

I started doing yoga because I was sick and tired of my awful balance (I was the sort who could just be standing there and I'd lose my balance,) my lack of flexibility, and my general wimpy-ness. Why not go to a gym? I don't like them. I don't want a TV babbling at me, I don't want strangers around me while I'm exercising (or friends, for that matter,) and I'm not paying money for the "opportunity" to break a sweat.

Where Down Dog Is Man's Best Friend

Enter the free video podcast Yogamazing, hosted by Chaz Rough. I did have to buy a yoga mat, and I did also buy a yoga brick but I don't need it anymore. Total $$ invested: 20, maybe? I don't have to leave the house. I don't have to "answer" to a trainer or compete, however subconsciously, with the student next to me.

Gained: balance, flexibility, muscles... stamina, focus, confidence, and a truce with my fat body for the first time in my life. Lost: two pant sizes, though not any actual pounds. Whatever. I've made peace with the fat and that's worth far more than trying to fit into somebody's height/weight chart.

(Amusingly, once the truce was established the pounds did begin to slink away slowly. Again, whatever. I'm still fat and I will not violate the truce. There are studies about the role of cortisol (a hormone produced when you're under stress, maybe because you're haranguing yourself for being fat) in retaining fat.)

First time I tried Down Dog, I thought I was going to die. Now, it's almost a resting pose. Used to be that Hero's Pose felt a lot like my feet were going to snap off at the instep. Boat Pose? Are you kidding?  Not anymore...

Namaste, Chaz. From the bottom of my heart.

If you're catching up with A to Z posts, swing by my W post and ask a question.

X: Signature for the illiterate

Legally, a simple X can still be the signature of a person that cannot write their name. It needs to be witnessed, since such a thing is so easy to forge, but it's still legit. Some places substitute an inked fingerprint, which is quite reasonable too.

Illiteracy is the default state in my fantasy story -- not surprising, I'm sure. Peasants have more important and time-consuming survival skills to teach their children than reading and writing. Most of them would sign with an X if they needed to sign something.

Unexpectedly, this also came up in my science fiction when a truce needed to be signed. The universe I built -- the Jovian Frontier -- is so hooked up, wireless and otherwise computer-driven that I suddenly realized that it had been 150,000 words and nobody had even typed anything, never mind held a pen and written something on a piece of paper.

(a piece of what? the stuff you blow your nose on?)

So I was wrapping up the end of the second book and suddenly I looked over at Maggie and asked, Can you sign your name? 

She said she'd practice for it, since this treaty was important. But it made me think about hand-writing and how it's slowly but steadily fading from the world. Would it ever become so unusual that one would need to practice one's signature for a special event?

What would that special event be?

If computers become good enough to take dictation and read text to us, will reading fall by the wayside too?

Perish the thought...

W: What do YOU want to know?

Moody Writing opened the floor to questions for Q day with the option of not getting any questions and taking a day off... well, W is the last letter I need an entry for and I'm getting burned out, so I am going to do the same.

Pick my brains. Go ahead. I dare you.

I will answer questions, or engage suggested topics, on Tuesday, May 1 -- which would normally be a blog posting day for me, but after a whole April of posting I'm a bit short on topics.

Or I will take the day off, if nobody comments on this.

Thank you to everyone who's commented so far. If you've got a question, post it!

I can do more than one answer session if I need to.