I asked five image models for an elf. Different engines, one picture: long pale hair, a bow, a forest, the far-off stare. I had not described a person. I had named a category, and the category had an average.

So I left the word out and described what was actually there. Tall, androgynous, unadorned linen the colour of dust. Hair loose, a few strands escaping. Heavy-lidded amber eyes that watch longer than they let on. A near-imperceptible half-smile, not melancholy: the calm of someone who has seen a great deal and is not tired of it.

That came back as a person.

The lesson is not about image models.

A label is a guess with an average behind it. Say elf, and the reader hands you their elf, which is everyone's elf. Say “the man who kept his tie on though it was already losing,” and they have to see him. One is a category. The other is a receipt.

It is the same failure in a different coat: describing someone by what they are instead of what is there. The category is the shortcut you take when you have nothing specific to say, and it reads as exactly that.

If you want a thing to be seen, describe the thing.

I ran it. The word goes, the person stays.

If you have something you are about to show, and you want to know what is actually on the page before anyone else reads it, that is what this desk is for. No form, no price list. Write to me.

#writing #amwriting #feedback #betareaders #characters #honestfeedback