Zara West: On Being Short
Do you like your heroes and heroines to be tall or short? Recently I was interviewed by Coffee Time Romance & More, a blog devoted to romance novels and their authors. The first question they asked me about was my pet peeves. Of course, the thing that came immediately to my mind was the fact that I am quite short. I am five foot, and in the world I live in, this is a distinct disadvantage.
I have always been short. I was the shortest person in every one of my elementary school classes. When I complained, everyone always said wait and I would get get taller. But I stopped growing in fifth grade. Which makes sense. I come from a short family. My father was five foot two and my mother five foot. My sister is only four foot eleven.
There are some advantages to being short. When you fall, the floor is not so far away. You can fit in the back seat of the car even when tall people have the front seats all the way back. You rarely hit your head when visiting Colonial reconstructions and Greek shepherd huts. It is easy to find shoes and clothes on sale. For some reason, size 5 shoes and small petites are the last things left on the rack.
On the other hand, there are some major disadvantages to being short. With a six-foot-one husband, a six-foot-two son and five foot-nine daughter, I get to ride in the back seat A LOT, I have to ask for help to get things down from the top shelves in the supermarket, and I am always hemming things and rolling up sleeves.
So How Does Being Short Affect My Writing?
This made me wonder how being short influences my writing. One thing I notice is that my heroines start out tall in my outlines and end up being short. So many romances feature tall leggy women, I guess my subconscious believes that us short girls need our share of romance too.
In fact, tall leggy women, while common in romances, are a rarity in real life. Check out this table of average women’s heights around the world. Seems like being five foot would be above average in some places like Nepal and Indonesia. The taller ladies at five foot five+ hail from Russia, Croatia, Czech Repulic, Denmark, Lithuania, and Austria. Compare these heights to the average height of men around the world. Only two countries have men whose average height is six foot – Denmark and the Netherlands.
Most men are much shorter. I personally think men under six foot get short-shrift in romance novels. The majority of the romances I read have heroes over six foot. Ari, my hero in Beneath the Skin, is five-foot-nine which I imagine is pretty short for a romance novel hero, perfectly average statistically.
But there are other ways for men to be manly besides being tall. Ari’s upper upper body strength makes up for those three inches under six feet. Of course, I don’t actually specify his height, only how he compares to the heroine. I believe a well-written romance lets the reader add in their own imaginative image of the hero.
No matter what our hero’s height is, however, I doubt that you will be imagining him looking like the average American male. James Hamblin in the Atlantic article “This is the Average Man’s Body” gives us a mock up of our average well-fed American male. He goes on to compare our USA guy to his average counter-parts in France, Japan, and the Netherlands. I’m not sure any of them deserve a romance novel. Shape up gentlemen!
Height also seems to determine whether a male actor is a heart-throb or a comedian. Check out The Vultures’ line up: “Hollywood’s Leading Men, Arranged in a Helpful Graphic from Shortest to Tallest”
How do you feel about short heroines and heroes?
Do you think height makes a man or woman more attractive or do you agree with me that it really doesn’t matter. If the two characters have great chemistry, that’s all that counts. Then again, if in a romance we can imagine ourselves any height we wish, how specific should the author be in describing the character’s stature?
Let’s find out. Please  take my survey.  I will publish the results on Facebook & Twitter.
Take My Ideal Height Survey!
I love hearing from you. Share your comments below.
It’s the chemistry. I write tall and short and hey, shout-out to average. I’m tall for a woman. 5’7″. At least I used to be. My husband’s an inch shorter. There were times I wanted to be taller and times I wanted to be shorter. I like reading and writing all body types!
Chemistry is what counts! Now that you’ve pointed out the dearth of stories featuring short people, I’ll be more open-minded about writing for all body types! Enjoyed your post – thanks for the smiles.
I don’t know if we as authors might just do better to be a little less specific about our character’s physical qualities so the reader can imagine them the way they want. For example, instead of giving a specific height or using the word tall we might compare the lovers’ height just to each other. For example: Her head reached his shoulder| He didn’t have to look down at her like he did other women. |She didn’t have to stand on tiptoe to kiss him.