Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

Hopefully this is okay to post this here. I could use a little help.

I'm trying to describe a suit of armor for my female fantasy character. Can you tell me if it reads well, or is too descriptive, or even if you are able to simplify it to sound more fluid. Thank you.

The defensive suit of bones is an undergarment of enchanted leather which shimmers purple, tight like latex against Xena’s body. Margaritaceous white steel is shaped into bone segments decorating and protecting her at the same time. A skeletal ribcage wraps around her chest with interlocking knuckle bones across her waist anchoring finger bones that hang like cryptic daggers down her skirt. A monster skull begins at her abdomen with the jawbone ending just past her knees.

Two skulls cover her shoulders. Centipede like skeletons run down the length of her arm, their legs connecting under for flexibility then end in bone fingered gauntlets. The nacre shimmer of her head matches her boots. The head a horned shell with magnetized face and oversized fangs appear to have swallowed her head. Her schynbalds start at the lower thigh, descending to a skull at the knee, matching her shoulders, and finishes with teeth around the soles of her sabatons.

The ensemble is accompanied by a pearl tower shield, matching skull in the center with a three knuckled bone sword and five fingered hand guard.

First of all, I would get rid of the word Margaritaceous. Any word that the average reader has to google to find out what it means is an immediate turn-off for the reader. I've had readers tell me that they would stop reading a book/story immediately if the writer were to use words like that because it makes them feel like the writer is "trying to show off how much smarter they are than you" with their vocabulary.

Second, the description definitely needs to be shortened. I went to a writing class once where the authors taught, "Never have a description for any person, place, or thing that is longer than 2 sentences. And, ONLY, use two sentences if the description is REALLY CRITICAL to the story. More descriptions really don't need more than one sentence." Leave anything more than a sentence to the reader's imagination.

So, for example. if you really need two sentences. you can do something like this:

"Her body was wrapped snugly in tight leather armor adorned with shimmering white metal shaped to look like the bones of an upside-down skeleton, complete with a monstrous skull stretching down her legs. The armor gave the illusion of being covered in skeletal remains from head to foot, complimenting the pearl shield and bone sword that completed the macabre display."

Honestly, this could be shortened too.

One thing to understand is: As writers, we have beautiful detailed images of everything in our minds. You have a detailed idea of how someone, something, someplace, looks, and you want to share that with the reader.

However:
(A) The reader is not going to be able to hold all of those images in their mind at once. Long complex descriptions overwhelm them and they are likely to just remember one trait and skim over all the rest.
(B) The reader doesn't want to see the same image as you. They want to use their own imagination and see characters and things the way they want to picture them. Unless the details are CRITICAL to the story, keep descriptions at high levels and let the reader come up with the details inside their own heads.

Hope some of this helps.

Yes it helps a lot.

To get the info in my mind I detailed the description of three suits to keep as a reference through the story but I didn't feel like my reference sheet transferred well, which is why I am here, and your simplification was very helpful.

Oh yeah, Margaritaceous and Nacre were purposefully inserted, My shallows trilogy has a lot of references or easter eggs, and those words were placed to make fun of Steven Erickson (Malazan). He often uses uncommon names of colors like Verdigris and Ochre. So I agree completely with your statement.

Thank you James.