Long story short

You know you’re at a fun party when folks start trotting out their party tricks. Tongues are curled, shoulder joints are dislocated–one person I know can turn his eyelids inside-out. My best party trick developed from years of working fashion retail. Thanks to fitting hundreds of bodies, I can tell you, almost exactly, your waist and inseam measurements. This came in handy when I worked at the Gap, where the customer base is mostly men who have no idea what size they are and, if they claim they know, are full of baloney. A guy who tells me he’s a 32/34 is usually a 38/30, but that’s another story.

Being a longtime theatrical costumer enhanced this eyeball-your-size skill. Every male actor I’ve ever met claims he’s 5’10” even when he’s CLEARLY 5’6” if he’s an inch. I know this because I am (according to the clear-eyed, unemotional documentation of my doctor’s office) 5 foot, 9 ½ inches tall. So, if I’m looking down on scalp, somebody’s math is off.

Now, I share this to set up a revelation I got a decade ago at a TCM Film Festival. Without resorting to the exhausted witticism “size matters,” I learned an important lesson on the nature of physiologic size—and because of it, my readers will NEVER find a heroine in my books under 5’8”. More on that later.

Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny

It started when I saw a Loretta Young costume at the Hollywood Museum. My party trick instantly informed me the waist couldn’t be any bigger than 22”, if that. Quick, unflattering calculations also told me Loretta’s waist and my thigh had same circumference. To shake the vision of my leg wearing her dress, I moved to another display case. Here was Lana Turner’s jumpsuit from Imitation of Life. It was ridiculously tiny, like something I wore in 4^th grade. That evening (because I love my son so much), I waited for Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson to make an appearance at the premier of his new movie. He didn’t show, but costar and nice guy Mark Wahlberg deigned to sign autographs for the hoi-polloi. As he passed me, I mused, “huh, he’s maybe 5’ 7” tall” (and in great shape, I must add)…only a short woman could star with him or it would look funny.” Hold that thought, reader.

Representing the lullaby league

The film festival’s opening night was a joy. As a proud press corps member, I had the privilege of grabbing quick red carpet interviews with some of Hollywood’s Golden Age stars. First up, Coleen Gray (The Killing), positively twinkling tininess. I registered how teensy she was, about 5’4”. Little centenarian Marge Champion glided along with carriage of a ballerina, no bigger than a minute at 5’3”. Willow-slim Anne Jeffreys paused to pose; I gauged her at 5’4”. South Pacific’s Mitzi Gaynor was a sparkly sprite, surely no more than 5’3”. Show-stopper Tippi Hedren (The Birds) looked about as tall as my childhood walking doll. To speak to these homunculi, I had to bend WAY over, like a giraffe at the watering hole.

And that’s when the other size 12 shoe dropped.

You can read celebrity stats all day long, but when these miniatures marched by, it hit home. Bigger than life on the big screen, sure, but in the wild, movie stars are tiny people. Seriously tiny. Which brings us to today’s lesson about understanding and accepting body truth and deciding what to do about it as a writer.

Stats, facts, and truth

The average woman will read the above and think, hey, those gals are just about my height. You’re right. The average American woman’s height has only risen from the 1960s by 1 inch, from 5.3 to 5.4. This means the ladies mentioned above are standard issue—and that I, dear reader, am not. I mean, I knew I was tall, but I have never been so AWARE of my height. Well, except maybe in junior high and high school, when I was taller than almost every girl (and most boys).

I have to admit it. I’m darned tall. And with that knowledge comes some inescapable facts and one oddly comforting truth.

Fact #1: Most men prefer to hang out, especially romantically, with women shorter than them. It’s an ego/biological thing. Exceptions are rare: enlightened souls and Napoleonic types who flaunt super-model arm candy as proof of manhood (looking at you, Mickey Rooney).

Fact #2: Most audiences (and READERS) prefer to pair men with petite women. Some atavistic logic dictates males should be taller and stronger-looking than their female counterparts. Shoe lifts and covert heels, inclined floors, staying on horseback, standing on a box or one step up—Hollywood had ways to make Mr. Lil’ Movie Star look like a strapping big fellow.

Fact #3: Hollywood, yesterday and today, is a reflection of our society and there it is. You can’t fight city hall. (But you can rebuild it, if you’re a writer. Stay tuned.)

Oddly comforting truth: It’s not in your head and it’s not really about you, my skyscraping sister. Movie star or not, if you’re a tall woman, you will encounter similar issues, even in today’s brave new world. (Did you hear about Nicole Kidman’s recent admission she lied about her 5’11” height to get parts?) Now, shorties, before you write and tell me how you’ve wished all your LIFE to be tall like me, stop and think. Women over 5’8″ are literally less than 1% of the WORLD population. Are garment manufacturers designing for the 1%? No, they are not. FYI, there’s plenty of petite clothing out there, and you can always chop off the extra 4 inches of your pant leg. Show me where I can buy that 4 inches to attach to mine.

Once smacked in the face with the inescapable fact you’re not “average,” many of life’s little mysteries clear right up. Oh, you think, I get it! No wonder I can’t shop retail without tears. No wonder I didn’t have a prom date—or any dates—in high school. It aaalllll makes perfect sense.

What’s a tall girl author to do?

That moment of truth in sunny LA drove home what I’d always known but somehow occasionally lost track of: I’m taller than many, if not most, women. How I honor that truth determines how comfy I am in my own skin and that translates quite directly to how I understand my world and what kind of world I create in my writing.

I’ve read a wheelbarrow-full of romance novels lately, getting up to speed on current reader expectations and guess what? The overwhelming majority feature a hero who’s at least 6’4” (even in historical times when that was so rare as to render him somewhat freakish). The heroine? You got it. A feisty bantam hen whose pretty little head is inevitably described as “barely reaching his shoulder.” Sigh. (You can read my reaction to such tales in this prior post.)

To respond (I nearly wrote retaliate, so I clearly need more time in therapy) to this deluge of daintiness, I’m crafting ONLY tall, stately, statuesque heroines with proportionately tall male counterparts. There are millions of books out there with fairy-like protags for normal-height female readers to easily and readily identify with. My richly meaningful, high-spirited, very satisfying Christian romances will bring extra-special joy to the rest of us—the beanpoles, the tree-toppers, the “how’s the weather up there?” tribe.

So often, when I trudged home from junior high, feeling homely as a knobby-kneed colt and sniffling from yet another day of insults, my (diminutive) mom would greet me, wipe my tears, and briskly say: “You’re tall like a queen, honey. Never slouch. Always stand tall. Like a queen.”

Her wisdom, her confidence in her lanky cuckoo in the nest raised my head high, made me proud of my height. I stood tall, like a queen. I still do. And so will every one of my love story heroines. That’s a promise.

Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can fully share its joy. Proverbs 14:10