A Description

I like to read.  I think most of you know this.  I recently finished reading Sherlock Holmes (collection) by Arthur Conan Doyle.  What impresses me most about these authors of the long - gone era, including Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, and you know the kind of author I mean, is their incredible ability to describe their characters.  I refer you, as I did in this post, to Wilkie Collins' description of one of his characters:  "Some of us rush through life; and some of us saunter through life.  Mrs. Vesey sat through life. ... A mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady, who never by any chance suggested the idea that she had been actually alive since the hour of her birth."

Nowadays, it seems that when an author wants to describe their character it goes something like this: "She looked at him, and she saw him. He had brown hair, and chocolate eyes.  He was hot. So hot she trembled."  (Not a paragraph from an actual book... but I've read similar statements.)

Now, is it just me or do you feel much more connected to Ms. Vesey, even if all she does is sit through life, than to this random hot guy with chocolate eyes? I mean, who is he? Why do we care about him? Just because he made her tremble with his smoldering good looks?

And so as I read these descriptions of characters I can never help myself but wonder how they would describe me if I were to be a character in one of their books.  If I were to be a side character in a Jane Austen, what would she have said about me? If I were coming to Sherlock Holmes for help in solving, say, the case of the cut finger, how would Sir Arthur describe me as I came in through the door of Baker Street?  I have no illusions that it would be entirely complimentary, if at all.  These authors sought for honest, real characters and they weren't afraid to show their faults and weaknesses.  And so, I present to you my attempts at making myself into a character in a novel.

"It was evident from her haphazard, staggered manner of breathing that her body had long ago forgotten how to inhale and exhale in a normal, repeatable pattern.  Her body clearly suffered from frequent attacks of anxiety.  Based on her outward dress and overall appearance the cause seemed to be a gaping chasm between the organization of lifestyle she craved, and the actual chaos within which she lived."

Or perhaps, this one:
"She had a comic air about her, in a tragic sort of way.  The details of her appearance suggested a deep disconnect between her mind and her body.  The disappointment evident in the lines of her features provided evidence that the factions were at war, and her body was not the victor.  Her limbs seemed to move of their own accord, as though the body were desperately trying to be engaged in doing something productive, an effort which was stymied by the disordered contents of her brain that demanded she do nothing, nothing at all."

I hope you know that I write these as representations of myself as I am right now.  And perhaps as I am in just the first trimester, too.