Writing the Inconvenient Body
Even when I was a teen devouring stories of fabulous adventures, it used to drive me nuts when the characters never ate or rested, or did any normal human things as they traversed the haunted forest or the vast reaches of space.
Where, I would ask, are the washrooms on Star Trek's Enterprise?
And, my teenage hormones demanded, don’t any of those hot-bodied people ever have sex in the holo suite?
We all have a relationship with our body and that relationship shapes our identity in many ways. The experience of being a tall person or a short person or a person with one leg—these things shape our worlds and our interactions. So writers who ignore the body are playing with a partial deck when it comes to shaping character.
On the other hand, when writers compose dialogue, it rarely reads the way that people actually speak, with our space-marking ums and ers, our constant repetitions, our meanderings around the point. In the same way, writers need to represent the human body with just the right level and amount of detail.
Does your character struggle with shyness around anyone they’re attracted to? Think how easy it is to show that by having them wipe clammy hands against their thighs or nearly choke from the dryness of their throat.