I need help with description

J

Johnnydrama25

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Oct 7, 2020
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Hey guys was wondering if you could help me with some descriptions I'm trying to describe the armors of my protagonists and to be frank I am at loss for words as to how describe them. They are just so alien looking its hard for me. I will post an image on how they look and maybe you can guys can help me get the descriptions
jakverse-grand marshall idea 2-removebg-preview.jpg
 
Since you've got an image to work from, you need to pick out the things that matter, and that you want to tell the reader about. The things the immediately strike me are:
Mostly shades of brown
Glossy
Loosely humanoid
Asymmetrical
Spiky bits
The head/shoulders makes me think of the triceratops
 
Biskit said:
Since you've got an image to work from, you need to pick out the things that matter, and that you want to tell the reader about. The things the immediately strike me are:
Mostly shades of brown
Glossy
Loosely humanoid
Asymmetrical
Spiky bits
The head/shoulders makes me think of the triceratops
Click to expand...
so break it down and pick the important parts?
 
It wouldn't hurt to preface your description with something like: "He stared, spellbound by an image to utterly alien that he could scarcely describe it."
Then, in his own words, describe it. Or you could go the Jo way, and just paste your image onto the cover. Hey, works for me. Good luck.
 
I would be more interested in the purpose it serves and how the character feels about it, rather than having a perfect visual.
 
You're writing yourself into a corner by creating such detailed visuals - if you want to go that way, create a graphic novel or computer game instead.

Writing a novel is as much about what happens inside the character's head - their thoughts and feelings. That's the one thing a novel can do that no other medium can, and why writing exists. You also need to accept that what the writer imagines is never going to be what the reader imagines.
 
Johnnydrama25 said:
so break it down and pick the important parts?
Click to expand...
Yes, and no...

I don't go in for much in the way of detailed description. I tell the reader the things that matter to the story or the characters involved, or something to act as a handle to hold a significant part of the plot into the reader's head.

The danger of "breaking it down" is that, as @Brian G Turner says, you're writing yourself into a corner, and you can get bogged down in detail which might allow a "technical" description but ends up being boring for the reader. There may be merit in that sort of analysis to pick out what you want to describe, but @CTRandall's comment points in a good direction:

CTRandall said:
The protrusions around the head and shoulders remind me of coral or sea urchins, maybe a kind of sea-creature exoskeleton?
Click to expand...

There you have the basis of a short and evocative description - it's like a coral, or an encrusted crab-shell, or... pick your own sea-creature comparison, or pick some other familiar image to give your reader something to relate to. The point is, you can do that in one sentence, make a solid impression on the reader and move on.
 
It's an impressive design, Johnnydrama25, well done!

I think from a storytelling perspective it's more important who is in the armor, why they are there, and what they do with the armor (maybe even the terror it instils in others), than to have a minutely detailed description of what it looks like, although...
...would it be true that in hard SF/military SF, the description of the armor might be more important than in other types of lighter SF? I don't read those harder sub-genres of SF, but if Johnnydrama25 is writing, say, military SF, could he need a detailed description of the suit?

If I was writing an artsy description of this look, I would say it resembled a cathedral metamorphosed into a man/woman/soldier.

Anyway, good luck, and it is an impressive-looking suit or armor! CC
 
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How would it look to your protagonists (assuming you're not describing it from an author's narration PoV)? Is this a new kind of armour or are they familiar with it so it's not alien-looking to them? Is your protagonist human? That would be a start, because the figure is still human-shaped, even with all that armour. What exists in this world that looks like that armour? I like the sea creature suggestion, but do such creatures exist in your world and are they important to the story? I also agree with the comments about keeping the description short and letting the reader fill in the blanks with their own imagination. Or letting the story/book cover do some of the work like Jo suggests!
 
If it's important, you'll be giving details in more than one passage. You'll be building a picture, not painting it in one swipe.

For example, in The Expanse (the books, not the show), Corey describes the heavy battle armor worn by Bobby multiple times, even across books. Even if I could draw, I doubt I'd have all the details, and I'm sure it's not what the authors were picturing when they wrote those passages.

To put it another way, I think it's always a mistake to try to describe an existing image in words. A picture is in many ways a poor substitute for words. It just sits there. With words (that is, with our imagination) we can zoom in and zoom out, see the thing in different lighting and from different angles. Heck, we can even wear the dang thing.

Then know that the reader, no matter what you do, is going to envision it differently. I remember the first time I saw one of Tolkien's drawings of Bilbo. It wasn't what I had pictured, yet my mental image served me just fine through multiple books.

So, to put it yet another way, describe what the story needs, not what the picture needs.
 
I would probably describe it as armor fully encasing the body, primarily red (?) in color with highlights in silver and gold. There are embellished protrusions jutting out from the wrists, shoulders, neck, and head.

Note: From the picture, I thought it was a dark red, but others have noted it as brown.
 
I must admit I looked at the picture and I got the same immediate impression of a sea urchin or similar. However, your description of it should be appropriate to the context, that is, do you want it to be frightening? Or do you want it to be mysterious? Or maybe comical? You're the writer, you choose what you want the reader to get from it, which will depend on how the surrounding characters in that scene view it, as @sknox said, describe what the story needs.
 
Hi, @Johnnydrama25 ! For your Jaknights in general, I would remove the noble ornaments such as capes, hoods, well, assuming they can fly (at least the armored divisions of my saga do) it would be impractical, and it is even a decision that the boys made: you have to knowing that they would love a cape, it's so chic, isn't it? But they understand that it is useless if they come across a mecha, a tank, or a fighter; even a common infantryman can tear them apart with a missile; in fact the boys in those armored units come from the nobility and the common infantry hate them. "Smells like fag...ts" is the most common insult with which they show their contempt toward guys for being so gorgeous and rich. Except when they see them go into battle.

I would advise you to pay more attention to human details than technical ones; in fact I have never described what those armor looks like in my story. But, for example, they are heavy or outdated and not all of them have that cool automatic assembly that you see in Stargate, so to save time, or because they are exhausted, the boys sleep inside them most of the time or, during the Sielred, they suffer with high temperatures and the loss of muscle mass and dehydration is frequent. Likewise, I think your Jaknights could get by on Riddick's planet, but you don't need a black hole gauntlet to kill them - you basically just need a longer summer. :D
 
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