Growth Description Question

[IJrge]

I have a writer's question.
What are the best ways people have found to describe size without resorting to measurements?

I've been writing for a while (rarely post), and lately it's been bugging me how to describe something compellingly without giving measurements.

My reasons for trying to avoid them:
Measurements are mechanical to use. Not everyone can visualize them. For instance circumference can be hard to visualize, if you haven't specifically seen something near that measurement. Measurement doesn't translate to people who use other measurement systems, like metric and imperial. Finally, it's a mechanical presentation, so it might not capture ultimately the feel you want for your readers.

The other methods that I'm most familiar with are:
1. Metaphor
2. Comparison
3. Contrast or effecting the surroundings

Do people have any new ones or examples of methods that were compelling?

[an0n12]

More or less I'd say the three you listed are good ways to do it. Give the reader enough information for them to paint a mental portrait and to get the point across.

[toby182]

I dig in comparison to everyday objects around us, supported by how the person feels while growing. All tight, skin stretching and still expanding...

[an0n12]

Both great ways to do it as well, something like "I could feel my back thickening, causing arms to lift higher from the ground, and threatening to rip my shirt open. My ass growing so fast I could feel myself raising out of my chair and my underwear digging into my crack." compared to "My chest grew 2 inches and my I must of gained 20 lbs to my butt, which is hot".

[FuzzyKB]

Originally Posted by IJrge

I have a writer's question.
What are the best ways people have found to describe size without resorting to measurements?

I've been writing for a while (rarely post), and lately it's been bugging me how to describe something compellingly without giving measurements.

My reasons for trying to avoid them:
Measurements are mechanical to use. Not everyone can visualize them. For instance circumference can be hard to visualize, if you haven't specifically seen something near that measurement. Measurement doesn't translate to people who use other measurement systems, like metric and imperial. Finally, it's a mechanical presentation, so it might not capture ultimately the feel you want for your readers.

The other methods that I'm most familiar with are:
1. Metaphor
2. Comparison
3. Contrast or effecting the surroundings

Do people have any new ones or examples of methods that were compelling?

- - - - - -


Instead of worrying about measurements at all try going from a different angle and that is visual experiences.

Start with reality, what experiences could you give a person undergoing a transformation. What sensations would that person feel or experience and what would his reactions be to those transformations?

I agree that posting statistics can be a problem but they are fine if used very sparingly. You may want to have your person about to experience the transformation do or experience something that would give some ideas, buying clothing, weighing on a pay scale as a novelty, trying to use a common telephone booth, (even though they are an endangered species) lying in a bathtub, and experiences get you to the starting place.

As your character grows what would he feel, what would his experiences be and what would happen in his mind. You have a million ways to go here! Is he going to have his experience knowingly and willingly? Is he an unwilling victim? Is he erotically turned on by what is happening> Is he frightened? Is he embarrassed?

Remember that fear can change in mid experience or vice-versa.

What would it feel like in reality if you gained 100 pounds of muscle?

Fast transformation? Slow Transformation? Both can be equally erotic.

Let's for the moment talk muscle growth: Sensations of changes in clothing fit as thighs/quads started to grow. Sensations of how pants would get tighter in some places and maybe grow loose in others. Shirts that cease to fit right or cease to fit at all, appetite increases to supply nutrition to fuel the growth.

Genital Growth again could be done not via measurements but instead when a cock ring that was used for years suddenly did not fit any more or how the sensations changed when jacking-off, or how it became harder to zip up a pair of jeans, guy into vacuum pumping finds himself soft unable to fit into a cylinder he didn't fill in the past when hard.

I am an extremely hairy person so I can give you reality on body hair: Increase in the rate of facial hair growth, having to shave larger and larger areas on beard growth, higher on cheeks etc., getting crotch hair caught in a zipper, body hair caught in the snap of jeans or a western shirt, itching when sweating particularly when on non breathable vinyl such as a vehicle seat on a hot day,barber complaining about hair growth on back of neck and difficulty in shaving it as it connects to back hair, and then there are some hygiene issues if one is extremely hairy as well.

Then you can take the same things and work them from the eyes of an observer. The observer initiated the transformation but the fellow being transformed is terrified or whatever emotion is appropriate. The person is growing to the point that the observer is frightened etc.. The observer then describes the transformation from how his eyes see it.

Let's say that the person undergoing the transformation is an 18 year old starting at 5'5" and about 125 pounds. AS he grows he can freak out wondering what others are going to say or how they are going to react to the "new him" . Maybe with this transformation is an awakening of sexuality he never would have imagined.

In writing the beauty of it all is that the only thing you need to do is to make your reader believe what your imagination generates.

I came from a medical family so for me I think of this differently. I take the medical and physical reality good and bad and incorporate that.

Now the next thing is you can write it as a narrative or as dialog between characters and this again changes your latitude completely with regards as to how you get across the size change.

Personally to me that is the most fun.

[Mdlftr]

I think the sensory descriptions of the change: taste, smell, pressure, can be very erotic when describing a change.

For example, you can suddenly "smell your pits" as you raise your arms to do a lat pulldown.

You feel the pressure of your tris brushing against the sides of your pecs as you pull your arms back to your sides.

You can taste your own salty sweat running down your face and into your mouth as you swipe your forearm across your forehand. Of course, your slick forehead bumps up against the pressure of your swelling bicep, which is warm, hard and smooth up against the side of your face, and your forearm hair, which is coarse and bushy, brushes your skin.

Just a few suggestions. Good luck and good writing!

Mdlftr

[schwermarko]

Another tack for trying to describe finished size or current state of the transformee is to express the change in form, movement, and proportion that occurs at larger sizes. If you watch powerlifters and body builders, (live or on film) you should be able to catch people in several phases of development.

As an example, the bicep on a small man is essentially cylindrical with a round cross section. It may have a small knot that rides up and down, the slight visible indication fo the bicep. A pro SHW bodybuiler's upper arm is essentially a thick disk, the growing bicep on one side and tricep on the other make the cross section oblong, and bulging almost as wide as it is long, the slab of meat is then free to flop and bounce when relaxed and then snap rigidly into place when flexed.

The forearm seems impossible to fully relax as any position of the hand puts at least a few of the muscles under tension, it's cross section stays round, but the shape of the forearm begins to resemble a ham, at his stage of development the hand itself is noticeably thickened, and the fingers have swollen into sausages with no space between them. I have had people describe the experience (when at peak weights 350-400 lb powerlifters) of picking up a soda can and having their pinky at the bottom of the can and their index finger at the top, and having no space in between any of their fingers.

Another way to describe circumference without numbers is when someone else handles the clothes of the transformee, It is something to see what a normal sized person looks like wrapped up in one of my hoodies, with it wraped around them 3 times, or 2-3 women sharing one as a stadum blanket.