First time describing a dress, help!

Hi, I was hoping you guys might be able to help, I'm writing my first story ever and I'm getting a bit hungup on describing clothing. Specifically this dress: (it seems the image isn't embedding so I attached the image instead)


The character who will be wearing it (Eliza) is in her late 20's but dresses very conservatively she will be wearing it to a gala and doesn't really want to be dress shopping but her best friend is forcing her.

I've tried to describe the dress about 5 different ways but really haven't been happy with them, the first was too short and felt more like a shopping list, the second was way to long. after a few more attempts I've been left with this. I'm still not sure if I'm happy with it or not. what do you guys think?

I know its first person... but I've found writing in thirst person quite daunting.
...

After perusing the shop’s dress section, of which I was pleasantly surprised to find that they stocked petite sizes, I came across what Vic would later describe as a mother of the bride dress. Dark navy blue in colour, whose sequined lace bodice sparkled even in the shop's artificial lighting, it was very modest but also pretty. I balked at the price tag but Vic forced me to try it on knowing she wouldn’t back down until I did. It fit me quite well, the soft silk lined, ankle length chiffon skirt lightly caressing my legs as I slid it on. The lined sequined lace bodice was slightly fitted at the waist, not that I had much in the way of curves, and I would have to pad out the bust a little, but I enjoyed the high neckline that ended just below my collar bone, and the sheer sequined lace sleeves. I had to ask Vic to zip me up, but when I eventually did a small turn, chiffon shimmering and sequins flashing, I was in love. I didn’t even mind the shallow v-cut back of the dress, that showed off just the barest of skin between my shoulder blades.

 

I've noticed this problem seems to happen when somebody finds a picture of something and then they want to describe it in the story, I think there's a tendency to get caught up in unnecessary detail because they're looking at a picture.

Stories aren't visual the way movies or television are. Descriptions aren't generally visual, at least not primarily. I would close the picture of the dress and write about it more from memory, but not visually, just a quick overall description. Maybe something like this:

The dress was long, covering the ankles, and navy blue. Sleeves three-quarter length. Neckline high and scalloped, and the bodice was covered with sequins.

To me that's enough of a description. The only way I could see it requiring more is if fashion is very important in the story for some reason, like if it's for a wedding and the main focus is on how people are dressed.

OR if the dress really amazes the character and represents something powerful to her.

 

I have no idea how to describe women's clothing. I tend to avoid doing so.

 

How important is the dress to the story? As mentioned, visual representations are less important in novels. If not critical, simply describing the style and presence can do the trick. (A well cut green dress of shimmering silk draping to the floor while hugging her elegant frame)

Most of your description is fine, but starts to go overboard. You can cut out some specific details like the v neck as it seemed to be forced in.

 

I'm a seamstress and costumer; I get the desire to describe the dress.

You have a navy blue ankle-length silk chiffon gown with a sequined lace bodice, and three quarter length sleeves. Reread your description and notice how many times you mention lace, sequins, and the lining. Mention the main components once and leave details for the reader to imagine. Noting the glimpse of skin between the shoulder blades and the swirl of the skirt are a nice touches that hint at the shape of the neckline and skirt without being pedantic about it.

 

Thanks all,

The dress isn't all that important to the story, the character will be wearing it when she meets here paramore for the first time but it doesn't play an important part in the encounter. I will try giving what Xoic suggests but will try to keep it paired back. I'll also try to take in what Catriona has said and watch my repition.

Thank you all for the support.

 

Actually I quite like this description, @Bishop's Rook . You know why? Because you're not just describing the dress, you're describing the wearer's reaction to it—and sliding in these reactions AS you describe the dress, not afterwards. You've also included the reasons for buying it. And the possible reaction of others, etc. In other words, your description comes with lots and lots of context. I think it's fine, just as it is. I'm already getting a bit of a handle on your characters from this little excerpt.

Well done. Yeah, you can tinker with it a bit, once you're in the editing phase of your story ...after the first draft is finished ...but for now, your approach works very well. Less is not always more, as long as the 'more' is as calculatedly rich as this excerpt. Just keep going.

 

Oh, definitely keep the stuff showing the character's reaction! I didn't mean to remove any of that, just to cut down a bit on the wordier parts of the description itself, for instance 'the soft silk lined, ankle length chiffon skirt ' is a few too many words jammed together in one phrase, as is 'The lined sequined lace bodice'.

In fact it isn't really that you over-described it, so much as that there were too many descriptive words jammed into too few sentences. Looking at it again I can see that now. If you open it out and relax it a bit it sounds more natural.

Taking out 'lined' in the second example makes it work much better, but for the first one I would separate it something like this—'the ankle-length chiffon skirt, lined with soft silk'. That cuts down on the number of adjectives and makes the whole thing more manageable.

This is also a little jammed up with words: 'I enjoyed the high neckline that ended just below my collar bone, and the sheer sequined lace sleeves.' Enjoyed sounds a little strange here, I might try 'liked' instead, and expand it just slightly to 'sheer lace sleeves, sequined like the bodice.'

 

All you need to know about women’s dresses is that when asked, their arse never EVER looks big in it.

 

My feeling is similar to @Xoic's that if the dress isn't important, the description is a bit too long. But I agree with @jannert that if you weave in some character description within, you have more flexibility and readers will tolerate a longer description. You've already done that a little bit with describing the characters general figure, etc. but I think for a paragraph this long you still might want to either cut a little bit, OR keep it the same length but link it to some additional information for the reader. Of course, if that information has already been covered in another chapter, it might seem redundant. This is sort of what I was thinking of, for what it's worth (and if you asked 100 people for suggestions you'd get 100 different answers), but it might not work for your story/scene anyway:

 

Thank you all for the feedback, I'm going to sit down tonight and try to re-write the description and I will try to post the new draft tomorrow

 

Here is the new draft based on the feed back you gave me, @Bruce Johnson and @Xoic I hope you guys are ok with me using some of your suggested wording, I re-worked most of it to fit the character but I hope my changes have improved the previous draft. I certainly feel a bit better about it.

After perusing the shop’s dress section, of which I was pleasantly surprised to find that they stocked petite sizes, I came across what Vic would later describe as a mother of the bride dress. Dark navy blue in colour, whose sequined lace bodice sparkled even in the shop's artificial lighting, it was how I hoped to feel in it—very modest but also pretty. I balked at the price tag but Vic forced me to try it on knowing she wouldn’t back down until I did. It fit me quite well, the ankle-length chiffon skirt, lined with soft silk lightly caressing my legs as I slid it on. The bodice was slightly fitted at the waist, not that I had much in the way of curves, and I would have to pad out the bust a little, but I liked how the high neckline ended just below my collar bone, and was intrigued how the sheer sequined lace sleeves both seemed to hide and reveal my arms. I had to ask Vic to zip me up, but when I eventually did a small turn, chiffon shimmering and sequins flashing, I was in love. The only thing that caused me to hesitate was the shallow v-cut back of the dress, which showed off just the barest of skin. But Vic was quick to remind me that despite how I liked to dress, I was not yet an old lady and could afford to show off a little skin.

 

Sorry to concentrate on SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar), but it needs a little work here:

She didn't find the dress after perusing the dress section, but while doing so. And this is an egregious misuse of 'of which'. More properly it would be 'which I was pleasantly surprised to discover', but that seems needlessly convoluted. I would simplify it to something like 'I was surprised to find the store stocked petite sizes.' (no need for any perusing or difficult sentence structures that get out of hand so quickly). I don't think you need to say the dress was in the dress section, that goes without saying. Of course, keep in mind many of us do tend to err on the side of cutting out as much as possible (you may have noticed that already ). But it does seem people like to try to sound 'writerly', and often that means using strange sentence structures and extra words.

At the end, it isn't Vic who knows she wouldn't back down, it's 'you' (the character). But 'knowing' refers back to Vic here because they're in the same clause. I would change it to something like "I balked at the price tag, but Vic forced me to try it on, and I knew she wouldn't back down until I did."

What you've got there all in one paragraph should be split into 2 or 3. But aside from the specific things I mentioned (and Moose's thoughts on extra material that would be better removed) the rest is good. Again sorry, I hate to go into such persnickety detail about grammar.

 

I apologize, I will try to get two reviews in this weekend possibly so as to post anything else like this in the workshop section. I thought because of some of the previous posts in this section it would fit best here. Sorry!

Thank you for your feedback none the less and I will have to have a hard think about cutting this down more.

@Xoic I appreciate the pickyness on grammer, the story is still in rough draft and not yet complete. So I haven't had a chance to go back over it yet for a full grammer check, I've mostly just been making sure nothing was horrifically mispelled and that sentances make sense.

I see now I am going to have to pay more attention to clauses while using first person. I'm finding 1st person both easier and yet more difficult than 3rd person especially when I start trying to describe things or actions.

 

"After perusing the shop’s dress section, of which I was pleasantly surprised to find that they stocked petite sizes, I came across what Vic would later describe as a mother of the bride dress. Dark navy blue in colour, whose sequined lace bodice sparkled even in the shop's artificial lighting, it was very modest but also pretty. I balked at the price tag but Vic forced me to try it on knowing she wouldn’t back down until I did. It fit me quite well, the soft silk lined, ankle length chiffon skirt lightly caressing my legs as I slid it on. The lined sequined lace bodice was slightly fitted at the waist, not that I had much in the way of curves, and I would have to pad out the bust a little, but I enjoyed the high neckline that ended just below my collar bone, and the sheer sequined lace sleeves. I had to ask Vic to zip me up, but when I eventually did a small turn, chiffon shimmering and sequins flashing, I was in love. I didn’t even mind the shallow v-cut back of the dress, that showed off just the barest of skin between my shoulder blades."

I'm kinda weirded out that you have any sort of problem with this paragraph. It tells a story in of it self and that's a gold standard for a paragraph or a block of writing. Its actually very good.

I think your second one is much chunkier than the original as well. If you cannot find anything to cut, I'd leave it alone (as I said I liked it already). But I'd not go for more than what you wrote in the first one because a girl putting on a dress cannot sustain that much more interest either.