Being as much of a recluse as I am, as I have been all through life, and as uninterested in clothes, I avoid talking about clothes in any of the stories. With Helen, I kind of finesse the dressy clothes; talking about the fabulous clothes a violinist would wear to be a soloist is a losing plan; I just describe how much someone in the audience was delighted or impressed by it, and leave it at that. (At home, Helen used to wear a denim skirt; after amnesia, she wore jeans and a flannel shirt.)
Lorna loved clothes, and I had to pay attention if I were to describe what she was wearing. Lalitha, being foreign, could wear almost anything. Maria (from Jane) was the same; she usually wore calf-length skirts and a contrasting top. Somehow, I got away with not describing what Sita was wearing.
But I'm reading stories where young authors describe what their characters are wearing in painful detail! This is not good. This will only draw in readers who really like the particular styles that the author is describing: the Jimmy Choo shoes, and the designer dresses, and the designer handbags, and so on. What about someone who hates Jimmy Choo shoes?
I don't think describing the fashions in a story as if writing a style catalog is a good strategy; that's my personal opinion. That approach assumes that the styles a woman is wearing works well as a means of describing the woman herself. Does it, really? Are the fashions we wear a judgement on our character?
Then she goes on to describing the house, and all in terms of houses in other books, and TV shows! This author seems to live vicariously through the books she reads, and the shows she watches!
Kay
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