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One of my pet peeves is authors, usually fantasy authors, who give a character enormously long luxurious hair and then never mention it when it would matter. They linger over descriptions of the protagonist they wish they could be, but when they put her (always her) in a situation where her hair would have to interact with something, somehow nothing happens. The laws of physics are suspended! They're wanking, these authors; they haven't done the simplest research.
People who haven't had buttlength hair may not know this stuff. (Authors who make shit up have no excuse not to ask around about it.)
There's a good reason you don't see many long-haired athletes. Consider an aikido roll. Imagine standing up with your knee or foot on your own braid. At least in a roll it's the hair-bearer's OWN knee; in a pin, often it's the other guy's knee. Exercise for the reader: list female protagonists with "a braid as thick as her wrist" who do hand-to-hand combat a lot.
My hair takes most of a day to dry. Blonde hair (beloved of fantasy authors) has the slenderest strands of any human hair type. According to one medical site I found in ten seconds on google, blondes also have the most numerous follicles. THIS HAIR TAKES A WHILE TO DRY. Put it in a ponytail, and my hair may not dry until my next shower. This is worth knowing if an author wants to describe the effects of a nice breeze half an hour after that dunking in the river.
Let's not talk in detail about jobs such as scooping the litterbox or cleaning up what the cat left on the carpet. I'll just say that a headband, ponytail, or braid does not keep a gal from having to wash the ends of her hair. What keeps that from happening is the habitual, nearly-unconscious shoulder and neck movements that keep the hair behind her back. If the character has these habitual movements ingrained, Mr. Right is not going to catch his first sight of her with her hair caressing her breasts.
How about that old squeeze-through-the-narrow-window-in-a-stone-castle trick? If the loose hair is not in her eyes, it's in between the shoulders or hips and the stone. It's gonna hurt. Somehow, though, what stings afterward is a knee. Go figure. (I won't ask why they all seem to go headfirst. You'd think after sequel number two or three one of these chicks would learn.)
I love this one: the heroine of a romance novel whose hair is drying while "spread out around her head in a fan on the pillow". Just how far away from the headboard is this pillow? Two and a half feet? Maybe our heroine is only three feet tall.
And how come the wind never blows hair into the owner's face? Do proper long-tressed maidens or mage students have built-in headwinds?
Okay, I'll stop now...
People who haven't had buttlength hair may not know this stuff. (Authors who make shit up have no excuse not to ask around about it.)
There's a good reason you don't see many long-haired athletes. Consider an aikido roll. Imagine standing up with your knee or foot on your own braid. At least in a roll it's the hair-bearer's OWN knee; in a pin, often it's the other guy's knee. Exercise for the reader: list female protagonists with "a braid as thick as her wrist" who do hand-to-hand combat a lot.
My hair takes most of a day to dry. Blonde hair (beloved of fantasy authors) has the slenderest strands of any human hair type. According to one medical site I found in ten seconds on google, blondes also have the most numerous follicles. THIS HAIR TAKES A WHILE TO DRY. Put it in a ponytail, and my hair may not dry until my next shower. This is worth knowing if an author wants to describe the effects of a nice breeze half an hour after that dunking in the river.
Let's not talk in detail about jobs such as scooping the litterbox or cleaning up what the cat left on the carpet. I'll just say that a headband, ponytail, or braid does not keep a gal from having to wash the ends of her hair. What keeps that from happening is the habitual, nearly-unconscious shoulder and neck movements that keep the hair behind her back. If the character has these habitual movements ingrained, Mr. Right is not going to catch his first sight of her with her hair caressing her breasts.
How about that old squeeze-through-the-narrow-window-in-a-stone-castle trick? If the loose hair is not in her eyes, it's in between the shoulders or hips and the stone. It's gonna hurt. Somehow, though, what stings afterward is a knee. Go figure. (I won't ask why they all seem to go headfirst. You'd think after sequel number two or three one of these chicks would learn.)
I love this one: the heroine of a romance novel whose hair is drying while "spread out around her head in a fan on the pillow". Just how far away from the headboard is this pillow? Two and a half feet? Maybe our heroine is only three feet tall.
And how come the wind never blows hair into the owner's face? Do proper long-tressed maidens or mage students have built-in headwinds?
Okay, I'll stop now...
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I once dated a gal with waist-length hair who slept in a waterbed. She had this whole protocol for sitting up...
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*begins to make a smart-ass comment, decides better of it, wanders off*
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Seriously though. A waterbed offers incredible possibilities for getting your hair wedged between your body and the bed, 'cause the dang bed is @#$ing everywhere.
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flinging hair
I talk about how my hair is either in a pony tail or in my mouth.
also that if I didn't use large amounts of conditioner that my hair would form a roughly spherical shape around my head.
My hair is currently down to the small of my back.
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And my hair was nowhere the length of yours.
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Was yours long enough to get caught in car doors?
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Nope.
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(fairly small pieces, but still)
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The one that amuses me the most is the time my hair got caught in the canopy of an aerobatic aircraft. There's this bubble canopy that closes over my head. It rattles on its latches a bit. When I flip over and fly upside down for a while, the canopy falls a little, just enough to make a lot of noise as air whooshes past it. O'course, if I didn't make sure to trap my hair between the parachute and my back, my hair also falls, making a little puddle on the "ceiling". Then it gets sucked out through the crack. When I roll back to upright the canopy falls shut again on my hair and I settle an inch or two back into my seat. TUG goes my hair!! The first time this happened my instructor (in the back) laughed and laughed. "You'd better flip over and fix that," he said.
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Now there's a hazard I'd never have thought about before. Wow.
Sheesh, hair can be dangerous!
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It's bad enough having forgotten to put my hair up when I have the car windows down!
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Re: sun roof
hair in mouth
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I loved my long hair. In theory.
When I was a kid, I could sit on it in braids. Of course, it took forever for those braids to happen. Even though I slept in them, it still took forever to brush my hair in the morning and re-braid.
Last year, I chopped off my long hair again. (It came to the middle of my back.) Yeah, I was loving how
And oh my, all the potions I had to use to keep it strong and healthy looking! Even with regular haircuts, I still spend less than when I was buying Sebastian products every damned week. I *heart* Suave. And oh, how nice to be able to color my hair using only one box of color instead of two or three! Dye is damaging my hair? Who cares when I'm going to cut it again in a month?
I do like long hair, but I sure didn't like *having* long hair. These days, when I'm in a hurry but need to look good for work, I just put a little mousse into while it's still wet then brush it out in the parking lot when I get to the office. Don't feel like doing anything with it, but don't want it in my face? Do nothing. When it was long, I had to put it in ponytails or braids.
Long hair is gorgeous, but it's also a responsibility.
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It can even *gasp* add to the story!
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besides my hair is way too fine to look good long.
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My hair is too fine to look good long, too. I keep it long because I don't have to get haircuts or worry about which way it's pointing when it dries.
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Big boobs getting in the way
(I was still impressively huge from nursing Shannon. Something like a 42J or other freakish size.)
Re: Big boobs getting in the way
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True story: many years ago I was dating someone with lovely long (albeit not ankle-length) blonde hair, which I often expressed admiration of. She came back from Xmas vacation considerably shorn, and I expressed my profound distress over this state of affairs... at which point she reached into her suitcase, pulled out the missing hair nicely bundled up with rubber bands, and handed it to me.
Couldn't think of a good response - I had what I'd said I wanted, after all. Now that was a teaching moment :-)
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I love that story! I have actually threatened to do this with (properly-preserved results of) a breast reduction.
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As for your threat, hair is one thing but I for one would be throughly squicked by presentation of formal internal body parts :-)
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Re: butts
(_my_ butt. Not yours.)
Re: butts
Re: butts
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Long-haired Aikido?
Z
P.S.: When called up to do "grabs against closed-eyed nage" on my test (special request), BigKid did take a big handful of braid. %-}
Re: Long-haired Aikido?
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But I've almost never braided it, and I never had issues sleeping on it. *shrug*
I'm growing mine back out. It's just past my shoulders at this point. Not sure how long I'm going to let it get this time.
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Yeah, as much as I adore really, really long hair from an aesthetic point of view, I think you're right. =Also, where fiction is concerned. You'd think authors would realize they've got their own Isadora Duncan issues, with hair rather than a scarf, but the effect would be the same. :-)
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I'm not even that large-breasted and it makes me wince to think of running down stairs with no support!
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I also love how no female protagonist of any genre fiction book I have ever had the pleasure to encounter HAS CRAMPS. Most of 'em don't even BLEED. The female authors, at least, should know better!
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I've noticed that characters rarely go to the bathroom either - unless the bathroom has some specific function to the plot.
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I know some women have it easy. But does *every* female protagonist have to have menses so easy that they can swing a sword without worrying about it? Maybe they're all so undernourished that they don't bleed. That would explain why they have nothing to bury when trekking through woods filled with predators.
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Yet we get told about every meal, bugs they see that interest them, and the colour of the sky. ;)
No, I do understand your point about irrelevant details, I just find it annoying when you follow a character for three days straight but not once is there a "went into the bushes for a minute" reference.
Then again maybe we're just weird for being bothered by non-references to things that most people don't refer to in everyday life either?
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At least in the SF case, I rather hope that by the time we can build starships, we can also control body processes much better.
Re: body processes
Re: body processes
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spacesuit plumbing
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For fantasy, if they live in a world with rubber, they could use a keeper (http://www.thekeeperinc.com/). It is great all the time, but especially when camping and whatnot.
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Mercedes Lackey--Lark
Robin McKinley--Aerin
"Califia's Daughters"
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Re: "Califia's Daughters"
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-eat my hair. Seriously. It _likes_ being in my mouth.
-lie down on my hair in a way that I can't figure out how to get back up again for a second or two, because I've trapped my hair under me, and therefore can't move my head
My hair is also _very_ thin, though, so it doesn't take forever to dry. Of course, I doubt it'll ever consent to being much longer than it is, either. Ah, well.
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Not sure. Totally guessing, in case you couldn't tell. My eyes seem to be protected from that, except if the wind is blowing hard. Perhaps it's my glasses helping out with that.
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Huh! OK. I tried to see if I could tell from your icon, but couldn't. And, of course, perhaps you weren't wearing them in it! ;)
I have wisps that are maybe jawline-length. It's not much hair but maybe that's what's getting in my eyes more often.
Ah... .yes. I can easily see this.
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it depends on the author and the genre, of course. ian fleming, of all people, in on her majesty's secret service (if you read the actual book), has james bond worrying about getting old and his creaking knees, and having trouble holding his liquor. it can frame a character nicely to show flaws and realism; but not every author is willing to do that, or able to do it well.
you also have the problem of reading about a subject you personally know. :) my wife was peeved at the movie "the scorpion king" for constantly referring to the main character as an "akkadian" and then in the one scene with a big rock with holy writings of his people on it, not even bothering to use cuneiform. (it's a distinctive, visually-interesting script, and you could steal an example from the internet with 5 minutes of work-- how could anyone pass that up?) that's an obscure example, but... i'm sure that the fact that there are weird ramifications to having long hair doesn't occur to many authors who've never had it-- how would they know to ask?
when i grew my hair out (still short by your standards: if i pull it it will reach to the small of my back, head erect, but it's very curly and doesn't... act that long, and i don't think it can get longer) i eventually noticed that it got very strange and unmanageable if i washed it every day. a former girlfriend explained about conditioner, previously a complete unknown to me. i'd guess that enemies would grab the heroine's hair; but that it would get caught in car windows? how would i know to even wonder about that?
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They sure as heck never menstruate. :-) SF authors will provide descriptions of a space suit's waste collection systems and at least an offhand explanation of how people sleep in zero G. It's not the focus, but they'll mention it because it shows normal day-to-day activities in the interesting setting. Then they'll send crews out for several two-day treks across a new world, back-to-back, and somehow not one of the gals ever has to figure out how to change a tampon in a space suit. I think menstruation is a huge taboo.
you also have the problem of reading about a subject you personally know.
It's sad that that's automatically a problem. I have the additional problem of being picky. If someone doesn't know something, and advertises that fact by making stuff up about it and not asking around, it disappoints me.
...doesn't occur to many authors who've never had it-- how would they know to ask?
I think this is part of the FUN of writing: you get to think up bizarre things to ask about! Hey, my main character is iron-thewed and a head taller than everyone around him. I'll ask my ultratall coworker what it's LIKE to be a head taller than everyone else. I might remember a conversation with a bodybuilder friend wherein he notices that he intimidates people without meaning to. Stuff. Maybe I won't use it, 'cause I suck, but for me figuring out what *would* or *couldn't* happen is part of the fun. Or else I just like annoying my friends with questions. That could be it.
To answer a little more seriously, I would guess that visualization might help a lot. Beautaia's hair falls to her knees (or Zaphod has a third arm or whatever), and now s/he's scooting backwards through a narrow tunnel: if I'm writing that, I'll try to imagine what that scene and its actions and movements look like.
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and why does it never mention how, when you bend over to pick something up, suddenly you can't find what was on the floor to begin with, since you're hair-blinded?
good examples
Another is CJ Cherryh, Invader (and the other 5 books in the trilogy) where not only does everyone braid, there are complex cultural signals in the ribbons in one's braid. Fortunately the main character is an ambassador/translator, and has a staff to take care of his braid, which he grows to appreciate more over time.
(I would braid mine, but I've never really gotten good at it [and am lazy about such things] so a braid ends up being a signal that my girlfriend is in town :-)
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i used to have hair that went down to five inches above my kneecaps. it was rarely unbraided, due to a very high tangle coefficient, and due to it getting into all kinds of trouble.
for example. one day, i was sitting at home in an office chair with castors, hair unbound, on the telephone in a deep and wonderful conversation. over the course of the conversation, i had draped my hair over the back of the chair and i slumped down comfortably. while talking, i was slightly rolling the chair back, and forth, and back, and forth... almost in a meditation... relaxed...
(you are by now probably anticipating what happened...) at some point, i tried to sit up, and realized i couldn't. i panicked, and told my co-conversant that i needed to get off the phone.
fortunately, the house had phones with two lines. even more fortunately, my housemate was home. i called her from one line and asked her to come upstairs. she came up, lifted the chair with me sitting in it, and i lifted my head. aieee!
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