Writers in the Storm

The most popular post here at WITS is a very early post from Sharla Rae on writing descriptively about hair. This post is so amazing, we pulled it up from the archives and buffed it up a bit for you. What's included? Everything from basic descriptions and colors to word choices and hairstyle names. and descriptions.

Let's have a hair party!

A few basic do's and don't's.

The #1 thing about hair descriptions is Do Not overuse them. You do not want to be known as "hair girl "or "hair boy!"

#2 on the essential List: Hair descriptions are a part of the character so make them work harder by using them to describe the person “inside,” not just what the person looks like outside.

Examples:

•  A tomboy might have a very short, non-nonsense haircut. Then again, she might hide long tresses under a ball cap, because secretly she’d like to be noticed as the girl she really is.
• A man who works as an executive might conform to a short, and very tailored look. Or, he wears expensive suits but he wears his hair a little too long because on the weekends he caters to his passion and joins his buddies for motorcycle road trips.

Alternative Generic Names For Head Hair

Coiffure	Locks	Strands
Curls	Mane	Tresses
Down	Mop	Tufts
Fringe	Ringlets	Wig
Fuzz	Shock	Wool

Descriptive Hair Phrases

Bangs obscured her eyes like a sheepdog
Flaked with snowy dandruff
Bleached, bottle baby
Braid like a thick black rope
Bundled at the nape
Bun resembled a cow patty
Cascading down her back
Chemically damaged
Coiled in a top-knot
Crowning glory
Curls foamed luxuriously
Tendrils danced on the breeze
Disheveled
Downy hair sprinkled her arms
Dramatic widow’s peak
Elaborately dressed with ribbons
Electrified
Kewpie curls
Smelled like burnt chicken feathers
Snow drifts of dandruff
Veiled her expression with
Greased into a ducktail
Flaming locks fluttered to the floor
Fluffy
Frizz job, bad perm
Glossy locks lifted on the wind
Grew like a thatch of straw on a roof
Grizzled, gray hair
Hair drooped around pale cheeks
Hair like Rapunzel
Hairy as a dog
Hung like a dark river
Kinky perm
Knotted
Left unbound to tumble
Like a clown wig, artificial red, plastic shine and fuzzy
Like a thatched roof
Like she put her finger in a light socket
Limp and lifeless
Long, shaggy hippy look
Lustrous as onyx stone
Marcelled into fingerwaves
Matted to the scalp
Perm fried
Prematurely gray
Puffed like a bubble around her head
Ragged bangs
Rat’s nest
Ringlets
Shock of hair stood straight up
Slapped her face like wet worms
Sleek and chic
Smooth honey dripped over her shoulders
Spiky Mohawk style of a punk rocker
Spilled out of the hat
Spread like feathers on a pillow
Standing on end
Stiff in front like a cockatoo
Straight as a wire
Streaked, highlighted
Stuck to her sweaty nape
Tangled mane
Tousled pixie
Two-toned dye job
Unconquered curls sprang loose
Unruly swirl
Old-lady blue rinsed hair
Vibrant color and shine
Wet with sweat
White Pigeon Wings at temples
Wispy ringlets
Wondered what rubble lay beneath that mess
Wreathed her face

Hair Texture Phrases

Baby fuzz
Bleached hair like mushy wet works
Blue feather hair of old lady
Bristle top
Broom chopped
Cat-fur fine
Cotton candy hair, fine
Cottony
Dandelion fuzz
Down
Gummy
Horsetail coarse
Moldy hay
Short-cropped and stiff
Soft and lush
Soft curls and waves
Yellow straw

Descriptive Hair Color Words & Phrases

Black

Coal	Jet	Obsidian
Crow's wing	Indian Ink	Onyx
Ebony	Midnight	Raven

Grays and Whites

Battleship gray, dull gray	Maltese gray (blue gray)	Smoke
Blue dandelion fuzz	Mineral	Snowy white
Blue rinse gray	Mousy (gray)	Swan's wing
Faded glory	Pewter	Steel
Flint	Salt and Pepper	Wood ashes
Grizzled (gray)	Shale
Gunmetal	Silver cloud

Brown

Amber (reddish)	Dirt
Ash brown	Fudge cycle
Auburn (reddish)	Glazed ginger
Baked Clay	Maple Sugar
Bison	Mink
Brunette	Mousy
Burnished	Muddy
Camel	Nutmeg
Caramel	Pecan
Chestnut	Rawhide, dark reddish
Cinnamon	Root beer
Clove	Russet
Dark beer	Tobacco
Dark Earth	Tortoise Shell
Dark toffee	Walnut

Reds

Auburn	Carrot top	Garish
Berry	Cinnabar	Orange
Brassy	Clown wig red	Russet
Brightest	Cognac	Scarlet
Burgundy	Dull brick	Strawberry
Burnished Copper	Flame	Wine

Here is a wonderful link, shared with us by Erin Michelle (see comment below) from Writing With Color: Describing Natural Hair.

Professional Hair Color Descriptions

Ash blond -- Lacks red or gold highlights (verges on green tones); light mousy blond, medium and dark blond, dishwater, beige

Ash brown -- Browns lacking warm/red tones tones; light mousy brown, medium and dark brown

Black -- Different shades of black vary according to the amount of highlighting or pigmentation shadings present in the hair; black lacking all highlighting will be duller, ash shade; black containing a lot of red may appear as deep burgundy

Red -- Warm shades; berry, russet, strawberry (red-blonde), rusty orange, wine, carrot top, etc.

Towhead -- Whitish blond; usually an ash blond lacking warm tones but not always

Warm blond -- Blond with touch of gold and red; whiskey, wheat, honey, strawberry, brassy, golden etc.

Warm brown -- Brunette, dark or light brown that contains red or gold tones; varies from light to nearly black; reddish brown, chestnut, dark amber, auburn etc.

Hair Styles Modern And Historical

It’s impossible to name all the hairstyles but the selection here should be a good start. Many listed here also are known by other names.

[See of some these hairstyles here.]

Afro -- Unisex style borrowed from African-Americans; short and very curly, forming a bowl shaped profile; a pick is used to pull the hair away from the head and shape it

Asymmetric -- Hair is cut long on side of the head and short on the other.

Bedhead -- Popularized in 1990s by starlet Meg Ryan; short to mid-length shaggy cut worn jelled or moussed in tossed fashion

Beehive  -- A 60’s French twist coiled at the back of the head and rising above it to form a cone shape (see upsweep)

Bob -- Introduced in 1915 this short cropped hair style was popular during the 1920’s; also called the shingle bob, the shingle, the Eaton crop. It is often cropped at the jawline and aligned close to the face.

Bouffant -- Puffy hair style’ hair is backcombed or ratted then barely smoothed, resulting in a bubble affect

Bowl -- Most commonly worn by young boys. The bang area cut straight cross the forehead as if measured by turning a bowl upside down on the head. The top layers are longer and cut along the this bowl line around the head.

Braid -- Plaited hair

Bubble -- 60’s hairstyle, short to mid-length, ratted/backcombed to appear like a football helmet or bubble surrounding the head

Butch/flattop/crewcut -- A man’s style; usually cut with electric shears; very short and stands on end at the front of the head and his shaved close to the head on the sides; sometimes called a GI cut.

Buzz -  Modern slang for a hair shaved close to the head

Chignon -- Bun, usually at the nape or top of head; topknot

Conk -- African-American textured hair that is straightened

Cornrows -- Small tightly braided rows of hair that hug the scalp

Duck tail -- 50’s style worn by girls and boys alike; hair on either side of nape combed toward the center of the head; reminiscent of Elvis Presley, Fabian, Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds etc.

Farrah Fawcett -- Long layered hair flipped or feathered back off the face with a bang that feathers or rolls off the face as well; made popular by the TV star of the same name; late 70’s and early 80’s

Finger waved -- Usually short haircut in which a stylist uses lotion and her fingers to create deep waves that circle the head. Popular in the 1920s and 30s.

Flip -- Feminine hair style of the 50’s and 60’s; long hair usually shoulder length turned up at the ends, sometimes in a roll.

Fontange -- Worn 1690’s to 1710; a towering fountain of frills and complex, lacy intertwining shaped around a wire frame and considered the height of fashion; nicknamed by disdaining men, the “tower and the comet”

French twist/seam -- Hair swept back from both sides the head (front to back) and rolled down the center of the head into a roll or tucked to make a seam

Fringe -- Curly bangs worn in the 1880’s; in 1900’s worn straight; alternate name for bangs

Kiss curls -- Seen immediately after Civil War; ringlets of curls on the cheeks or forehead

London Cut -- Short female cut popular during the 1960s and early 70s. The hair was cut over the ears, leaving a fringe in front of the ears, often brushed toward the face or straight down. The nape hair was cut along the hairline like a boys but more rounded instead of squared off like a man’s neckline.

Mohawk -- Shaved head with a strip of hair growth down the center of the head from forehead to the nape

Pads -- Late 1830’s long coiled curls over the ears (looked like ear muffs); at the back of the head they were called a Grecian knot or psyche knot

Pageboy -- Introduced in late 1930s early 40’s; long, hair turned under, usually just touching the shoulders

Pigtails -- Same as pony tail only the hair is parted down middle and each section is cinched into its own tail above or below the ear

Pixie -- Female short cut; feathered around profile of face and onto cheek, short at the nape line; usually with full bang and combed forward onto face; also called an Italian cut; permed version called a poodle cut

Pompadour -- Style of wearing the hair high over the forehead usually in some type of rolled affect; in 1940’s women used rats (nylon mash) to roll the hair off the forehead and puff it; a version of this also worn during the 1700’s and early 1800’s by most and women; name comes from a lady of this era called Madame
Pompadour

Ponytail -- Hair gathered together and cinched with a rubber band or barrette to make a tail at the back of the head; worn high or low; worn low it’s sometimes called a George (referring to George Washington) or a Paul Revere

Poodle cut -- Short, curly haircut

Powdered hair/wigs -- Unisex style worn from about 1760’s to 1820; after 1740 men were wearing shorter, simpler wigs and began to powder their own hair

Punk -- Usually short on top and styled with lotion to stand up off the head; often a mohawk fashion from forehead to nape; sometimes dyed bright neon colors of pink, purple, blue, orange etc.

Queue -- Pigtail, esp. that of a Chinese. (Chinese queue was braided) Men of Colonial America wore these as well, usually tied back with a ribbon and in some cases men wore a periwig styled with a queue

Roach -- Hair brushed into a roll

Sausage curl -- Long tube-like coils of hair; popular in early 1800’s; in the early 1970’s these were piled on top of the head in a cluster, esp. for formal dress for teens.

Shag -- Like a pixie, only long at the nape. Lengths vary from short to long layered cut; popular during the early 70’s

Skin heads -- Group of radical racist youths, men and women alike, who shaved their heads

Spaniel’s curls -- Late 1840’s into the 50’s; long thick curls worn by the ear (as worn by Elizabeth Barrette Browning)

Spit curls -- First seen in 1831; flat curls on women in front of the ear

Tonsure -- Shaven part of a monk or cleric’s head

Updo/upsweep -- Generic term for long hair styled high on top of head; hair might petaled (layered curls), barrel curled, arranged in a chignon, backcombed into a beehive or styled in French roll etc.

Wedge cut -- Also called Dorothy Hamill cut; short cut worn mostly by women; sides feathered off the face, back cut longer from the drown to the occipital bone, where its layered into a wedge; nape is trimmed close the head and short; a late ‘70’s and early 80’s style.

Do you see anything missing from this list? Are there modern styles we need to add? How do you decide what kind of hair to give your characters?

Sharla Rae passed away earlier this year, but she (and her amazing lists) live on at WITS. She published four amazing historical romances. The latest, How To Fell a Timberman, is available on Amazon.

You can read more about her here.

Do you ever wish you could go back and have a chat with "Baby Writer You?" I think about that sometimes, about the things I'd tell that shiny, awkward, clueless soul.

But like parenting or dating, or any other hands-on life thing, you have to figure it out for yourself. Like learning how to adult, until you really get the hang of it, you don't know how much you don't know.

Besides, shiny "New Writer You" wouldn't believe you anyway.

So logical, practical advice only then. Advice that even clueless Baby Writer Me could relate to...

1. It gets harder.

A few *cough* decades ago, I listened to an audiotape (on cassette!) of Nora Roberts in a Q&A session. When asked what she wished she had known when she began, she answered: "It gets harder. It gets harder. It gets harder."

This is the biggest oxymoron of our chosen path.

As the writing itself gets easier, the writing life gets harder. You have higher standards, more pro-writer tricks up your sleeve, and many more demands on your time as you try to execute those stellar skills.

If you are published, and earning a living as a writer, there are demanding deadlines to adhere to. If you are unpublished, or not quite able to quit your day job, you have a double set of deadlines - those from the day job and those from your writing life.

In each of those scenarios, you have the rest of your world clamoring for attention too: kids, spouses, parents, volunteer commitments.

I truly believe this is why most writers have an insatiable caffeine addiction. We need the extra zing to juggle all those flaming commitments while still nurturing the creative juggernaut in our brains who sends out the stories.

Perhaps that's why so many of us write in our pajamas. It's our little rebellion against all that adulting Grown-up Writer Us has to do.

2. Story trumps everything.

Lisa Cron wrote a wonderful book called Wired for Story. She's done several posts here at Writers In the Storm. (My favorite is her explanation of the "Origin Scene.")

She's quoted in this Jerry Jenkins piece, explaining how and why story is the most important element of any story.

What grabs readers isn’t beautiful writing, a rip-roaring plot, or surface drama; what grabs readers is what gives those things their meaning and power: the story itself.

And so first you have to create the story, which doesn’t start on page one, but long before it. Because the story is not about an external plot-level change. The story is about an internal change — a change that the protagonist enters the story already needing to make. Thus the protagonist walks onto the first page with a long standing driving desire — an agenda — that she hasn’t been able to achieve because an equally long standing misbelief (about human nature) stands in her way.

And here’s the last thing I wish I’d known: backstory is the most fundamental, present, and meaningful foundation of the story. Or as Faulkner said, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”

Bonus: I highly recommend reading that entire Jerry Jenkins list when you are done here. Forty established authors and writing instructors answer the question asked by the title of this post: Writing Tips 40 Experts Wish They’d Known as Beginners.

3. Done is better than good.

Stories like Fifty Shades of Grey really brought this home to me. The writing doesn't have to be brilliant. It just has to contain themes that are relatable and universal.

And the book has to be done so people can buy it and experience it for themselves.

Despite Anastasia's penchant for saying "Holy Crap!" and her preoccupation with her "inner goddess" (not to mention Christian's preoccupation with bondage), millions of people downloaded this book.

Why? Because the story had a compelling hook. The story grabbed them, and the author kept upping the stakes so they would stay glued to the page.

At its heart, Fifty Shades was a love story, not a spanking story. Mega-agent Donald Maass pointed out that, "The prose is plain." and "The unfolding of Anastasia and Christian’s relationship happens mostly through dialogue." In other words, it was easy to read.

Yet, most of the writers I know couldn't read it. Probably because of those skills in their writing toolbox, etc. They couldn't see that the finished compelling story trumped the beautiful sentences we all strive for.

As important as those sentences are to us, Fifty Shades proved that the readers couldn't care less. Pretty sentences don't feed their reading addiction, story does.

Bonus: Donald Maass and Lisa Cron - both amazing teachers - analyze Fifty Shades across three posts. The links to all three are here.

4. Find your peeps.

We've done many posts on this topic here at WITS because it's hugely important. Call it what you will: your peeps, partners, writing tribe, critique group. But writers need writing friends. Period.

No one else will understand the joy of writing classes and conferences or the addictive frenzy of NaNoWriMo. Get some writing pals so you can experience these things with friends who will share your giddy happiness.

Plus, when the going gets tough -- and it will -- it's your writing friends who will help carry you through those hard times until things get fun again.

We're writers...we LOVE fun.

5. Give back, to others and yourself.

For most of us behind the scenes here at WITS, this blog is one of the ways we pay forward all the help and advice we were given during our newbie stage.

Although the writing world is small, it is easy to get lost, particularly for introverts. Volunteering and giving to others is one way to expand your writing world and to join hands with others. If you do that often enough, you will end up with your own set of writing peeps!

But what about giving back to yourself?

Exercise and proper nutrition and hydration are the simplest ways to give back to yourself. Sure, it's hard to get motivated. (And put on makeup. Or pants.) But you'll feel better if you do.

Continuous learning is another fantastic way to give back to yourself. It expands your knowledge and your network.

It might be a conference you go to every year, an online class or an active Facebook group, but DO expand your own knowledge. It will tap into your inner superhero, and help you tell better stories.

I'll leave you with this quote by Ray Bradbury, one of my faves.

Bonus: If you need more Bradbury quotes, we have a whole post on him.

What advice would you give to "Baby Writer You?" Is there a piece of advice you were given that really resonated? Share it in the comments!

About Jenny

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 18 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA or at Writers In The Storm.

Resource articles:

• 21 Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Writing: Must-Read Advice for Writers at All Levels
• 7 Painful Truths I Wish Knew Before Writing My First Book
• Buy a cat, stay up late, don't drink: top 10 writers’ tips on writing

Top image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

We've all been working hard on writing goals, NaNoWriMo and butt-in-chair. Let's reward ourselves with some FUN!

Share a favorite  sentence or paragraph of your current WIP (work-in-progress) or even one from someone else in the comments. Be sure to include the title and genre with your paragraph.

Feel free comment on others' as well!

We'll get you started...

Ellen

Jack Schmidt clenched his hands at his sides and glared at his father. The man, aged beyond his years, sat collapsed on his chair, staring at his fragile wife through a whiskey fog. As his once-spirited mother fell deeper into her illness, his father slipped farther into his liquor bottle, barely acknowledging the existence of his three children.

-- Untitled YA Historical Fiction, set in 1905 (Wausau, WI to LA's Bunker Hill).
[For all of Ellen's books, including her middle-grade Charlie Chameleon series, visit http://ellenbuikema.com]

Jenny

Fear stalked through my childhood, a rabid dog that refused to be put down. As the child of a retired military officer, who cuddled his glittery narcissism beneath a shadowy cape of PTSD, I grew used to navigating a world filled with fear.

-- The Six-Percent Baby, unpublished memoir

Julie

Rachel looked past me, and a pained expression flashed across her face.

I turned to see Cade Wilson, another baseball player and long-time friend of Wes and Hunter, staring into my window. "Speaking of idiots..." Pushing open the door forced Cade out of my way.

"Hey"—he jumped back—"you could have injured my jewels."

I smirked. "Fake jewelry ain't worth much."

Sharing Hunter (Click here to pre-order!)

Laura Drake stopped by too!

Most days, I feel like a human Golden Retriever: loving, loyal, dependable. But in my experience, humans with those traits tend to go unnoticed. The dogs, on the other hand, people find adorable.

— Cowboy for Keeps (Click here to pre-order!)

She’s probably headed for a convention on, ‘Saving the Universe Through Toe Massage’ or something.” My grandmother was New-Age before it was new, trying every religion, every weird philosophy out there. Hampering her enlightenment is the fact that she has the intellectual depth of a kiddie pool, and the attention span of a caffeinated gnat.

— The Road to Me, unpublished Women's Fiction

We can't wait to see your favorite lines! Please share them down in the comments.