Today I was asked by two commissioners about the exact size of some of my characters and so I figured a blog post was in order to discuss my reasons.
One reason is that weight and pounds aren't very descriptive by themselves. A woman who is 5'2 and weighs 180 pounds might look fatter than a woman who is 5'11 and weighs 220. Inches can be deceptive as well.
But there's a much more fundamental reason why I avoid numbers. Many readers of transformation stories, including me, have a particular size that they look for. Too small, and the story is tame. Too big, and the story is extreme. The problem is that there's not a lot of overlap between readers. In other words, trying to strike a happy medium can cause some readers to feel the result is too small, while others will perceive it as too big.
So what I usually do is describe the body parts with some detail but avoid placing a character's size exactly. All reading entails some amount of imagination, and I'm happy to let the characters look more like readers wish them to look, rather than describe them in such a restrictive detail that they can't help but know exactly what I mean. It's a strategy that seems to work well sometimes, but the more readers ask me for specificity, the more I am considering re-evaluating it.
What do you think? Would most of my stories be improved if I described the post-transformation bodies in more exact detail, or should I use the descriptive yet flowery and imprecise language I usually employ? Drop a comment and let me know your view.