# Describing a particular hand wave?



## cinderblock (Sep 28, 2015)

Is there a word for the following wave?

You raise a hand, and instead of waving it side to side, you just open and close it?

I guess I can say it looked like she was clapping with one hand, but it sounds so stupid. 

I could also say she looked like she had a puppet on her hand... hmm. 

Please let me know if there's an actual word for this wave, or if you have any personal suggestions yourself. Thanks.


----------



## T.S.Bowman (Sep 28, 2015)

"She waved goodbye. Not in the way one would normally think of it. More like a baby opens and closes it's hand when grasping for something shiny."


----------



## Riptide (Sep 28, 2015)

She opened her hand wide until I noticed, then clamped it shut, moving it back to her side. I do this kind of hand wave... You would think I would know how to describe it.


----------



## Gumby (Sep 28, 2015)

She waved goodbye with a simple open and close of her hand.


----------



## Terry D (Sep 28, 2015)

Is the way she waved important to the story? If not, why risk making the reader say, "Huh?" while trying to figure out what you mean?


----------



## cinderblock (Sep 28, 2015)

Thanks guys, I'm taking all of your suggestions. 

And yes, it's vital to characterization. She does this in a solialite/blase sorta way. It's a distinct wave, also. I've only known one woman who waved that way. I'm writing a surreal novel, where everyone's appearance changes when the character crosses over to the other side. This is one of the ways he'll identify the girl. Also, when she waves in the alternate reality, she'll have a sock puppet that says, "Goodbye!" or "See you later!" or something to that extent.


----------



## InnerFlame00 (Sep 28, 2015)

If it's important to the plot you can even have your character notice that it's odd, compare it to the "queen on parade" sort of wave - it's like that only vertical movement instead of horizontal. A regular wave involved arm movement, but the wave you described only uses hand movement on a stationary arm like the queen wave.


----------



## Bishop (Sep 29, 2015)

Her hand opened and closed again in farewell.

Her fingers dipped down and touched her palm, stretching up again in a strange goodbye.

She gave her usual goodbye, the sly curling in of her fingers and release.

She opened and then shut her hand, proud of her little half-assed goodbye.

She waved really weird, with an open-and-shut of her hand.

I think she had some form of hand spasm, but she seemed to be trying to say goodbye.

Like a great jaw of Ghomatheph--one of his lower jaws, to be sure--her hand yawned open and clamped shut, as if mincing a petty human in its grip.


----------



## Cran (Sep 29, 2015)

Despite our penchant for labeling everything, we tend to be more reticent about simple one or two descriptions of our own body language, unless it is in sexual or derogatory terms. The closest I've found to describe your wave is "the child (or child's) wave" (as noted previously). 



> Greeting children is often done with a small up-and-down movement of fingers,  holding the rest of the palm still. Between adults, this can be a timid or safe  signal from a child position ('I won't harm you - please don't harm me.').


- Greeting Body Language

The actual message conveyed by the wave also depends on the intent and other non-verbal expressions of the waver. For instance, between adults, the negative expression of this wave is one of treating the intended recipients as children or somehow less authoritative than the waver, but not as subjects, which elicits a different sort of wave.

From a pre-verbal child - a baby - this sort of hand language is a call for milk (or, yes, "I want! Gimme!")

More serious variants of this hand sign occur in military and similar settings, and convey quite different messages.


----------



## cinderblock (Sep 29, 2015)

Wow, I didn't expect this kind of comprehensive education when I posted this. I thought I might get a few comments in a passerby kinda way, but I'm being thoroughly schooled. Thanks to everybody!



InnerFlame00 said:


> If it's important to the plot you can even have your character notice that it's odd, compare it to the "queen on parade" sort of wave - it's like that only vertical movement instead of horizontal. A regular wave involved arm movement, but the wave you described only uses hand movement on a stationary arm like the queen wave.



Yes, I definitely got the impression she was very queenly. Fascinating insight!



Bishop said:


> Her hand opened and closed again in farewell.
> 
> Her fingers dipped down and touched her palm, stretching up again in a strange goodbye.
> 
> ...



I laughed my ass off reading these. You're so versatile, it makes me wonder the current book you're writing. Your descriptions are pretty damn amazing. 

I consider my strength to be psychological/social, but I suck at physical descriptions, be it the background or how people are moving around or what a character is feeling physically. I'm like, "Alright, so there's a couple palm trees over here, some benches on the side, people eating, etc etc." I really admire your natural gift for it. You seem like the type that could just write pages and pages at a time a la a prolific author, your thoughts just flowing off your finger tips. 

PS: What is a Ghomatheph? I thought it might be from Star Wars or something, but a search turned up nothing. 



Cran said:


> Despite our penchant for labeling everything, we tend to be more reticent about simple one or two descriptions of our own body language, unless it is in sexual or derogatory terms. The closest I've found to describe your wave is "the child (or child's) wave" (as noted previously).
> 
> - Greeting Body Language
> 
> ...



Wow, that sums up my experience with her. 

Then again, I never saw her wave at others, so I don't know if she did that to everyone else too, but I assume she did. However, I maintain she perceived me as a child. She was so cosmo and aloof and ladylike and yeah...  

Thank you for that lesson.


----------



## Blade (Sep 29, 2015)

Gumby said:


> She waved goodbye with a simple open and close of her hand.



This nails it for me, simple, brief and accurate.



InnerFlame00 said:


> If it's important to the plot you can even have your character notice that it's odd, compare it to the "queen on parade" sort of wave - it's like that only vertical movement instead of horizontal. A regular wave involved arm movement, but the wave you described only uses hand movement on a stationary arm like the queen wave.



This is also known as the 'royal wave'. If you get a chance sometime watch Queen Elizabeth on parade. She uses a low energy arm motion that allows her to do an extraordinary amount of waving without falling victim to fatigue. (I suppose this is especially useful now that she is 89):eagerness:


----------



## EmmaSohan (Sep 29, 2015)

She flashed her palm -- a quick hi -- and [continue story]


----------



## Bishop (Sep 30, 2015)

cinderblock said:


> I laughed my ass off reading these. You're so versatile, it makes me wonder the current book you're writing. Your descriptions are pretty damn amazing.
> 
> I consider my strength to be psychological/social, but I suck at physical descriptions, be it the background or how people are moving around or what a character is feeling physically. I'm like, "Alright, so there's a couple palm trees over here, some benches on the side, people eating, etc etc." I really admire your natural gift for it. You seem like the type that could just write pages and pages at a time a la a prolific author, your thoughts just flowing off your finger tips.
> 
> PS: What is a Ghomatheph? I thought it might be from Star Wars or something, but a search turned up nothing.



Totally made up Ghomatheph, just threw some syllables together. I'm weird like that. 

Eh, not so much a natural gift as lots of reading and writing. I've still got a long way to go, too. But I much appreciate the praise. As for the current book I'm writing, the short description is in my signature. As for your own work, you don't always need to describe the physical, it's just my way. Some writers are very cerebral with their characters, with a lot of internal description. I personally try to expand out and practice as much as I can. If I find I'm not doing something or not doing something well, I'll force myself to write it, read it, and hopefully improve on it.


----------



## cinderblock (Sep 30, 2015)

Bishop said:


> Totally made up Ghomatheph, just threw some syllables together. I'm weird like that.
> 
> Eh, not so much a natural gift as lots of reading and writing. I've still got a long way to go, too. But I much appreciate the praise. As for the current book I'm writing, the short description is in my signature. As for your own work, you don't always need to describe the physical, it's just my way. Some writers are very cerebral with their characters, with a lot of internal description. I personally try to expand out and practice as much as I can. If I find I'm not doing something or not doing something well, I'll force myself to write it, read it, and hopefully improve on it.



Pretty awesome.


----------



## T.S.Bowman (Sep 30, 2015)

Don't let Bishop kid you. For someone who always wants to downplay his abilities, he is a DAMN good writer. 

Now if I could just figure out a way to bamboozle him into telling me how to improve the crap I have been writing lately....


----------



## Bishop (Oct 1, 2015)

T.S.Bowman said:


> Don't let Bishop kid you. For someone who always wants to downplay his abilities, he is a DAMN good writer.
> 
> Now if I could just figure out a way to bamboozle him into telling me how to improve the crap I have been writing lately....








And the only writing I'm even half decent at is pulpy sci-fi. If you want to learn that I might be able to help. Like this:

"How's this scene work Bish?"

"The alien needs bigger boobs."

BAM. Masterpiece.


----------



## The Green Shield (Oct 1, 2015)

Bishop's pretty awesome. 

But yeah, I would've described the wave like, "She curled her fingers into her palms and waved slightly -- weird, it looked to me like she was waving her fist side to side."


----------



## cinderblock (Oct 1, 2015)

Bishop said:


> And the only writing I'm even half decent at is pulpy sci-fi. If you want to learn that I might be able to help. Like this:
> 
> "How's this scene work Bish?"
> 
> ...



I'm very interested to see how this sense of humor carries over to your book. I don't know. It's reminiscent of Stanislaw Lem in that it's outright comical.

By pulpy sci-fi, I take it you mean adverb-heavy? If so, I don't mind. Great Gatsby's one of my all-time favorites, and it's very reliant on adverbs. It's like high end pulp. 

I think pulpy sci-fi gets a bad wrap, but Philip K Dick did it justice. Same with Alfred Bester's Stars My Destination. Sadly, there are a lot of sci-fi grandmasters who really give sci-fi a bad name, which is a shame, because on one hand, you wanna honor them somehow, but at the same time, they're turning away a lot of literary readers.


----------



## T.S.Bowman (Oct 1, 2015)

Bishop said:


> And the only writing I'm even half decent at is pulpy sci-fi. If you want to learn that I might be able to help. Like this:
> 
> "How's this scene work Bish?"
> 
> ...



Dude. You are so full of crap that you squeak. Lol

You seem to forget that not only have I seen the "pulpy" sci fi from your first novel (which I understand you scrapped and rewrote) but I have also seen you write some very passable noir stuff. 

Either you severely underestimate your writing, or you are exceptionally modest.

Either way, you are pretty doggone good at whatever you choose to try your writing chops on.


----------

