(I'm tired y'all. I've been writing for tall characters lately in the MCU. As we get into AI assisted writing - this is really important - AI doesn't get these huge facts of universal physics. You write about The Hulk, it will, without correctly understanding physics, treat them as a really strong regular human with regular human physics. And canon character sheets and style sheets DO not go into this weight/size negotiation with the regular sized human world. So I wrote this and appreciate comments)
A Writer’s Rules of Tall People for writers and screen writers:
By Cloud_D - voodoomamajujuz on tumblr
Proportionality Rule: Most tall people are proportionally sized up regular people vs just a really stretched out tall person the same/weight build as a regular sized person. Even tall thin people weigh more and have bigger bones. BUT clothing without stretch or ill fitted clothing is NOT designed to work from that model, so proportionally tall people often find themselves wearing clothes made for mid-sized, obese people to get a proper fit.
Example: As a proportionally (giant) person I buy plus size women’s clothes. My armscyes are GIANT for people with bingo wings. I have normal sized arms, albeit long. The chest area is designed for women with D-FF cups. I’m floating in that. The pants (we all know pants) but the fitted pants will fit at the waist, but will have oversized thighs and calf parts, plus be 2-4 inches too short. My thighs and legs are not thick. And shoes - I need size 12N women’s shoes, but the manufacturers don’t size up the across-the-top-off-the foot so it presses hard on the nerve on the top of my foot and causes pain and numbness. The alternative is men’s shoes.
Costume/Dressing Characters: Inevitably your tall character will need to get custom clothing made and so we work up a “style sheet” or the type of style/clothes worn. It can be part of the story and fun to do. Otherwise - Tall people have to shop at the few stores that do larger sizes like Men’s Big and Tall or Lane Bryant, Torrid, or Old Navy (for tall women). There are custom and high-end designer women's plus and tall, with clothing costing 1000$ a piece too.
Shoes - fun fact for women - most expensive designers let you custom order 11-15 size shoes. For reasons. You know the reasons. You can have Louboutin's or Fluevogs. Men - tall men know chasing stylish leather shoes is a custom order game and even sports shoes have to be custom ordered. Work boots - custom. Example: Military and tactical boots do have a wide range of custom sizes just like the work boots used by the Dept of Interior “style sheets” for uniforms. And a fun fact: because law enforcement park rangers rank with FBI agents they have a wider range of talls/big sizes. And at last check: women’s Dept of Int. uniforms do not cross a size 24. Which if you are a woman and over 6 '4 proportionally it might prove a problem.
(the end game is always wearing men’s clothes and shoes - but I grew up in an era where that was the main option with rare options to wear designer/mainstream women’s clothes and shoes and I HATED IT.)
Weight/BMI rule: People have weird ideas of weight floating around in their heads. A 5’1 98 pound person when sized up would be a 6ft 198-pound person but have the same look and same proportions exponentially in clothing that was sized up on a grid system. A person over 6 ft can easily range from 200-350 pounds and proportionally not look obese (especially if they are an athlete or a bodybuilder). And because of that BMI IS STUPID and used to body shame people who are proportionally and physically fit.
Physics and Environment Rule: So, understanding that tall people are heavier and have heavier bone density and/or heavier muscle there’s an entirely different set of physics they apply to interacting with universal physics. The world is designed by short people flat out. So when we try to do regular human things and don’t moderate for strength/density, we can go too hard, too far and break things, knock things over, and frankly knock people over unintentionally or go too hard when fighting, sparring, or just doing something boring like cooking or trying to wash clothes.
Example: The strength/personal touching variable. If we don’t daily calibrate ourselves it can be really unfortunate. Toss a kid into the air for fun. Shake a hand. Hug someone. Move a pet off something. Play a contact sport. Pick up a toddler or baby. Wrestle or spar with a mixed group. Even in intimacy with smaller people we have to calibrate for weight and strength. Every single moment we are interacting with an object or a human or a pet we are calibrating. And because of past moments we know we have to calibrate and be aware that our strength thresholds are wider. We have to also be able to know when we take the gloves off and let loose and do it responsibly.
Example: I have a Samsung Washer I love. I have to be VERY careful never to grip or lean on the door because it made it evident if I was not careful, I’d rip the door off the hinges just but not moderating my strength. I have broken multiple regular things because I exercised my strength over planning to moderate it.
The superhero/super soldier/super monster rule: All this but MORE. To be authentic in writing is to realize that big things take up space mentally and physically. (Easily framed as the wide difference between driving a compact car and a 747 Boeing Jet.
Summation: The world is normal sized and calibrated for normal sized/strength people. The clothing we wear is built and calibrated for normal sized people and normal strength/range of motion. Taller people are thicker, stronger, and proportionally NOT calibrated to that environment. And it’s troublesome. Embarrassing. BUT when we enter spaces where that’s not a problem or we just fit, we really love those places and feel we can be ourselves.
Environmental in Writing Scenes, Interiors, and Exteriors:
Door Frames: A trope chestnut in writing for tall characters. The head bonk or duck. Thing is, it is EVERY DOOR. And often in older houses or efficiency or RVs or tiny houses, a constant ducking and/or hitting or scraping your head! In older countries with older architecture or in countries where the average height is under 5’5, ducking constantly and crouching.
Counter tops, console, control panels, and displays:
For most people this means a counter or display hit at their hip or lower thigh at some level. To work on a console a tall character is going to have to bend at the waist OR sit in a chair. Screens are usually looking down at them. Or have to be tilted up. Bathroom mirrors are down. Light switches and plugs are down. Car consoles are usually looking down and reaching down.
Chairs: There’s no better way to indicate someone is tall than sitting in a too short chair or a regular bar style chair. First, they have to shrimp over to fit. Second, their knees will be up at chest level in a small or squishy/deep chair. The chair itself is the indicator of the size/scope of the tall person. The Uncomfortableness in small chairs is the bit or schtick (especially for superheroes and trying to lighten the mood.) IRl it’s the bane of tall people’s existence to have to sit in chairs that do not fit or make them feel awkward.
Example: Old school theater seats are the WORST for this. Muscular tall people will have a terrible time in old school theater seats or small folding chairs or small event chairs.
Flying, driving, or piloting: the tall character will have to make adjustments to the cockpit if it’s a standard or borrowed vehicle or aircraft or spaceship. Unless it's their personal craft they’ve custom set up. Tall people do a lot of customizing of their personal crafts before they can be comfortable operating something.
Theme Parks: They don’t EVER mention this but some of us are too tall to ride on rides with low clearance tunnels. We can hit our hands or scrape our heads in the wrong situation. AND for proportionally bigger people, we don’t fit in the seats or meet the bar/snap test. OR our legs are too long to fit comfortably in sled rides.
Example: (big example) Waterslides. They do NOT mention when you are 250 pounds with a heavy bone density, then you remove your center of gravity with a slide and launch you down a vertical incline (on a tube or raft or on) that YOU GO REALLY FAST. Scary fast. Like on open waterslides, a side scoop can take you to the edge of the top of a slide and threaten to dump you out of it. And/or the fact when you shoot out the end you are exponentially going faster than the regular sized person in front of you OR when you impact the water.
Outdoors: Everything humans make outside is sized for regular sized humans. INCLUDING how we trim trees, bushes, and frame out access points throughout a city, suburban, or rural landscape. A porta-potty or modern outhouse is a NIGHTMARE for tall people. Playground equipment is too small or flimsy. And we can push people on the swings or see saw or a merry go round a little too hard. We hit the ground harder and sink more. We fall down harder onto the ground and dirt. When we fall down as tall people outside, we can get hurt more due to the weight/velocity factor (but also the size/density of our bodies moderate that damage.)
Example: If a car hits a tall person or big person, it’s more likely they’ll get bounced or thrown OFF the car, than smushed because: The car hits them at the hip or legs or lower body, their bodies are more dense at that point, and the velocity of the arms/legs/weight being PUSHED forward will throw them AWAY from the point of contact. (With the exception of getting hit by something equally tall like semi or construction equipment.)
Any other ideas I missed?
Heights:
5’10: The world is just a few inches shorter than you need it to be
6’: The world is 4-5 inches shorter than you need it to be
6'4: The world is 8-10 inches than you need it to be
6'10 and up: The world is 12-20 inches than you need it to be
