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Writing an aesthetically perfect woman

I am aware that the title of my thread could evoke responses like 'there is no such thing', and I will counter that beyond a certain level of attractiveness, aesthetic perfection as can be perceived by a human is achieved. Don't zoom in on an individual opinion, just look at it from the majority point of view.

Now, that aside, I do have a character that for all intents and purposes can be considered aesthetically perfect. There is a reason to this. Her beauty has influenced her life in ways that have scarred her. I won't go into them, but I do want to underline that her beauty is a relevant piece of my story.

The problem is: how do I write a woman like this without falling into stereotypes and incessant adjectives?
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
This is kind of an impossible question, sorry. I guess people could give various answers, but any answer they give you is still going to be their version of what is aesthetically pleasing. I know you said you didn't want those kind of answers though.

So I'll offer up a suggestion that doesn't get into all that.

What I'd do is find literature in which certain women were viewed as being beautiful beyond measure. Almost all of them are discussed in poetic ways. Helen of Troy for instance had a "face that launched a thousand ships." That's about the most awesome way to describe someone. People literally went to war for this woman's beauty. Using superfluous adjectives or describing her physical features will never compare to that.

That's the best I can give you. Read classics, poetry, etc. See how they did it. Almost any advice about how to write a perfect being, man, woman, or anything else, is always going to be subjective.
 
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A couple of things spring immediately to mind. First is a thriller I once read (I think it was just entitled Beauty) wherein a guy invents a sort of perfect fake skin that enables plastic surgery to basically create any face you like, and he and his girlfriend remake her face to be "the most beautiful ever". The thing that I really remember about this is that they gave her a mole, because the imperfection is the thing that elevated the otherwise too-perfect beauty. Humanity is important.

The other is that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Standards of aesthetic beauty are a societal construction, as can be witnessed in the way what is considered beautiful has changed over the course of history, and across cultural divides. (For some extreme examples: Chinese foot binding; the sloping shoulders of Renaissance art; the artifices of corsetry and panniers/bustles.) It's not important that your character be objectively beautiful to ever reader, only that she is the epitome of beauty to the characters who observe her, and in that time and place. (I will note that when making your standards of beauty for your society, consider the things that will influence them: what is abundant, what is scarce, what only the rich can achieve. Often the manifestations of wealth are considered beautiful - in times when hard work and little food is common, plump curves and white skin are sexy; in modern times when fast food dominates and people are time-poor, fitness and tan.)
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Yeah, I think Phil is pretty much spot on with this. Don't describe the woman. Describe how she affects those around her. How does she make a person feel when she looks a them etc.

To me, this is like asking someone to describe the perfect day, the perfect sunset, the perfect life.

If you think about it, her features and their description don't matter. It's how they affect her and those around her that matters.

For example, when a guy first meets a girl, do you really need to describe her perfect, or perceived perfect, features to let the reader know she's attractive? Or can you just say they guy turned white and began stammering while trying to ask her to dance?

Repeat this pattern enough times and the reader will understand that she's very high on the attraction scale.
 

buyjupiter

Maester
Also consider for a physical description: lack of symmetry. Most classic beauties have some feature (a droop to one eye, an upward quirk of the mouth more to one side than another, a slightly off center nose, etc) that makes them less than perfectly symmetrical.

Those people that do have more perfectly symmetrical faces? They don't look quite right...think the woman who makes herself up to look like Barbie dolls.

What looks right on a doll, doesn't look right on a person...
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I would avoid describing her actual features much at all. After all, every reader will have a different idea in their head of what perfect beauty is. I think it would be enough to just say that she's incredibly beautiful or have other characters remark that she is beautiful and let the readers imagine what that would look like for themselves.
 

Reilith

Sage
I had an idea. If you can bend your story a little (I don't know how you imagined it) it could be that there was a curse cast on the girl which made her look beautiful to anyone's eye. As in, each person sees the thing that their mind perceives as the most beautiful, and build up from there. No doubt it would affect her life in many ways, probably bringing sadness to her, from all the unwanted attention, but it can go even deeper where she is not sure who is the real her, the one that she sees in the mirror or the one that each person sees her as. That way it can tackle the issue of not belonging, or even a sort of body/personality distorter.
If you put it in that way you have enough space to portray each person's view on perfection and beauty and still not categorize what is generally beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
If this is not possible for you, or doesn't fit, I agree with the others, keep it simple at describing body features - just state the people's reaction when they see her. I'd personally find it hard to write, as I have to have at least a clear view on my characters' basic looks.
 
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I have a tendency to write a lot of aesthetically perfect men and when I do, I really just describe what I view as beautiful but with just enough detail that the reader can add in their own interpretation as well. Seeing how beauty is so subjective, there really is no way to describe her in a way that everyone will see her as beautiful but I think it's okay to describe a few of her attributes and just flat out say that she is flawless or perfectly beautiful. Try not to go into too much detail about how she looks because, again, beauty is subjective and what one would find beautiful another may not but give a small description of her and what you yourself see as beautiful (hair color, eye color, etc.) and let the reader fill in the rest with their idea of perfect beauty.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
I disagree with Mythopoet. One of the things that turned me off about Twilight was Bella's endless description of Edward as "beautiful" and "perfect" and "dazzling", without really going into detail of what made him attractive aside from his color-changing eyes and sparkly skin. We don't know what shape his nose was, or his lips and jawline, or anything else.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I disagree with Mythopoet. One of the things that turned me off about Twilight was Bella's endless description of Edward as "beautiful" and "perfect" and "dazzling", without really going into detail of what made him attractive aside from his color-changing eyes and sparkly skin. We don't know what shape his nose was, or his lips and jawline, or anything else.

Would it really have helped to know the shape of his nose or jawline? Say the author had said he had a lantern jaw. Anyone who dislikes lantern jaws, like me, would instantly be put off, instead of being able to imagine Edward for themselves. But I think comparison to Twilight doesn't really work anyway. The only reason Edward is so perfect is because he's wish fulfillment for the reader and most people agree that Meyers' writing is pretty terrible and that people who enjoy the story enjoy the story in spite of it. Whereas the OP is talking about a characteristic that is actually meaningful in the story and we should assume that the OP can write it better than Meyers.
 
Hi,

I tend to agree with a few of the others. Trying to describe her beauty is likely to lead you into a mess. Everyone has a different standard of what beauty is and so whatever you write will appeal to some and not others. To give an example there are or were many who regarded both the Queen and Margaret Thatcher as great beauties on the world stage.

You're better describing how her beauty affects others - and the Helen of Troy example was a good one, but I'd also look at the mythic stories of Aphrodite. What do men do to woo her? Willthey buy her flowers? Kill for her? Die for her? And this approach fits well with what you're trying to write about her I think - how does this reaction to her fairness affect her?

If you have to go and describe her beauty I'd tend to go for metaphor and poetry.

Cheers, Greg.
 

Tom

Istar
Personally, I find aesthetic perfection slightly unnerving. Removing flaws strips away the humanity of a face and sends it plummeting straight into Uncanny Valley for me. I'm fascinated by imperfect and atypical beauty. A truly unusual and striking face is more appealing to me than "ideal" beauty.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
I think it can work as long as the Uncanny Valley is the effect the author is going for. I've used that technique in one of my stories about the Fae; they're beautiful in the eyes of the human protagonist, but the overall effect is unnerving to her, not attractive.
 

Waz

Scribe
I agree with those who said the key is not in the description of the woman, but in the description of how it affects those who see her.

In Perelandra, C.S. Lewis' protagonist meets a new Eve, and he feels nearly compelled to worship her. With information like that and a few key (but not overly detailed) descriptions of her, the reader can handle the rest.

Having only basic details like skin tone and hair color, instead of police-artist-level descriptions, is important for a second reason: giving a male protagonist's perspective. Guys can wax poetic, but in general, descriptions of people, colors, etc. tend to be minimalistic. I recently finished a book by a female author with a male protagonist. I feel she did very well with the character for the most part, but her own voice came through in a few areas, and it often was due to things like naming an old perfume by brand name or giving a specific shade or red rather than just "red." If the book were written in third-person, such details would have been fine, but they clashed with the character's first-person perspective.
 
I once read a book that spent two pages discussing how best to describe the FMC's beauty, proposing and rejecting various approaches. It eventually just described how hideous her glasses were, and how they'd make anyone else look ugly, but she was so beautiful she made them look okay.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
I agree with the suggestion that this lady's appearance change in each observer's eye to match their own preferred vision of beauty. Like, she might appear a full-figured redheaded European to one viewer, a slender African lady to another, a pear-shaped Asian to yet another, and so forth.
 
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