In this week’s Story Works Round Table, we discuss fashion in fiction. Dressing your characters is more than a matter of preventing nudity. What they wear communicates a great deal to other characters and your readers.
VIDEO
AUDIO
SHOW NOTES
Why should you think about clothing and fashion in your story? Is it just part of your world building and setting? How can you use it to illustrate your characters arc? Or your characters flaws and insecurities? What about when everyone is dressed in a uniform? We dig deep into the choices you can make about fashion and how it can affect every aspect of your story!
What we talked about:
Why should you think about clothing and fashion in your story? (1:36)
How much should you invent your own fashion when inventing your own world? (4:09)
How much does your fashion need to matter in order to be mentioned? (8:20)
How can you use fashion to create metaphor in fiction? (10:13)
How Alida uses clothing to shape her character’s arc. (11:25)
How you can use fashion to illustrate conflict within the character themselves. (14:15)
What about when everyone is dressed in a uniform? (17:09)
What you need to think about as you create your characters clothing and accessories? (21:20)
What sort of resources are there for developing your fashion? (24:35)
Think about how people develop their different fashion. (27:21)
Don’t ignore your clothing! It’s part of your world-building, part of your setting, and often part of your character as well! (31:44)
LINKS
Things we mentioned:
Silence of the Lambs
Jack Reacher by Lee Child