Body Types in Fiction

So I've noticed that a lot of people here in the west have gone about changing the way characters look in comic books, artwork, and stories lately and calling it 'realistic'. However, I must stress that a lot of these changes are not actually based on realistic body types for that character but rather they are based on what's currently politically correct. I won't go too much into the politics behind it as I want to tackle the actual body types themselves.

First off let me be the first to say that people are athletic, practicing things like running from rooftop to rooftop, climbing, or serious fighting tend to be very thin. Taking a super hero and making them have average body types is not realistic for the character's profession, it is instead a strange, and perhaps even offensive change to make. I know for a fact when I when I was doing two hour walks every day for a few months I got real skinny, but since I stopped doing that and fell off my diet I put the weight back on. But a lot of the character changes I'm seeing make these super heroes make me look thin. This change is unrealistic but it's also kinda offensive as it takes a lot of work to get into good shape, the work put in is hard, really hard, so it should be celebrated when people are willing to put in that much work. Instead the message becomes, 'no matter how much hard work you put in, you'll be fat' and that's not good.

Another weird choice that is based on politics and not at all realistic. A lot of these fat characters actually lose boob size... I'm sorry, but I'm a dude and I call tell you that when I don't take care of myself I get boobs! Boobs just get bigger when you gain more body fat, that's part of the place that the body fat is stored so that you can stay warm during the winter. It's a strange choice to be sure and far from realistic.

Finally one of the most hilarious choices I've seen is something that was almost right. Someone took the Iron Man suit, as in the robotic suit made of metal and machines and made it have a 'dad bod'. Now as hilarious as this parody art is, in truth it's the closest to a realistic change I've seen yet. The Iron Man suit would be a beautiful muscular or bulky machine, because it's metal and not real. The user of the suit may be over weight though. Tony Stark himself is unlikely to be fat as he does take his physical health very serious, but I could see people with Powered Armor being very out of shape in it as the suit may not actually exercise the body as there is little to no physical strain on the body itself, all the 'muscles' used are from the machine, not the person. So if Tony Stark gave up on his diet, he could very quickly have a 'dad bod' but the suit would look the same.

I want to just end with a note saying that if your writing a bunch of heroic characters who are skinny or have giant boobs, or muscles you should never feel bad or pressured to change their appearance for someone else. Your characters should look the way you want them too, I for one try to look at what a character in this position would really look like, and have had to make some cutting to characters in the past to keep up with realism. I had an overweight hero myself once, but after realizing how hard it would be for her to be a super thief and how she might get stuck climbing through a vent, I decided to cut her out of that role and place her in one that was a lot more fitting, aka she became a very powerful political figure instead. Don't be afraid to have characters that are in shape for you story, especially if it make sense.

As always, thanks for reading.

Restriction Breeds Creativity

So recently I've been forcing myself to work with some restrictions. Specifically every one of my latest rough drafts have been short side stories and I've been forcing myself to use only nine chapters (ten with a prologue) for each of these rough drafts. It has put my stories into tiny little boxes that I can easily deal with and decide what is or isn't important for the story in question.

Its been an experiment for me to test out a new method of writing I call module writing, I'll get more into that at a later date. For now I just wanted to say that it is essentially the idea of squeezing the story into a box or series of boxes. If it doesn't fit in the box it might need cut, but the point is the story becomes more concise, and more focused. So far it's been really improving my creativity and spurring on a lot of interesting ideas.

It is still a big restriction though. The last rough draft I finished for example had a lot of creative ideas but it was a real struggle to go through writing it. I'm hoping more than expecting it to come out good, but even if I end up having to revise a lot of it, or worse yet, cut said story out, I still learned some valuable things from it. I don't think I would have come up with some of these ideas had I not forced myself to use these restrictions.

It does has draw backs, for example I'm not sure yet how well this method of writing will work for longer fiction. Writing from multiple view points, or about a larger cast of characters would be a challenge. Since it's still a new method I'm sure I'll find more issues as I go. Still even with these challenges it actually makes me want to write more and harder.

These are just a few thoughts on how restrictions have been helping to cultivate my creativity. Anyone else have any experiences or thoughts to share on how restrictions can help creativity grow?