[Shinji2015]

**WARNING: SHIT POST OPINION NOT DIRECTED AT ANYONE IN PARTICULAR INCOMING**

I will say this: one thing I hate, hate, HATE in a shrinking story is the mention of an exact height.

Like, it feels unnatural. If the shrinkee is of unusual height (either extremely tall or short), then it makes sense; if you're a few inches shy of five feet tall naturally, it makes sense to mention that you're very short, and vice versa if you're pushing seven feet tall. That's gonna color your world view.

However, if you're of relative normal height, then it shouldn't matter if you're 5'2 or 6'1; you're not thinking "I'm 5'3," you think, "I'm short." If I meet someone over six feet, I think "he's tall," not "he's 6'4."

I completely understand it from the fetish POV; it's easier to fantasize about the shrinking if there are concrete numbers to start with ("I'm now barely 18 inches tall... and I used to be 69!") That, along with other physical descriptions of the person, helps to build a description of the character that the author wants us to think about when the magic happens. Again, I get that.

What I don't like is how unnaturally it occurs.

If the character is tall, then introduce us to that character like someone would in real life; by asking ("How tall am I? Well, last time I checked, I was 6'7."). If short, then perhaps mention how they sometimes struggle to get anything above their heads at a grocery store ("I hate how they always put my favorite peanut butter on the top shelf! How the hell do they expect anyone under five feet to reach it?!"). It just doesn't gel organically for me to read a sentence like "The 5'7" 34D-26-36 woman was always having to fend would-be suitors off." Who thinks like that?

I guess what I'm saying is that most writers do a terrible job of including measurements into stories. Show me that the character is tall and curvy; don't tell me that she is.