Activity

Dearest Ereki,

In order that the peace and tranquility which reigned nearly undisturbed under the leadership of Morrea Firebird may continue without change under my Guildmastering, our guild discussion of character development will continue in the same direction as we were traveling before.

+++

And so, this week, we come to a lovely little topic that has the potential to lend a lot of life to your characters: quirks. You know, the way that she never uses the erasers on the end of her pencil (because clearly, that’s for resting the tip of one’s nose upon while thinking!). Or the wingless flies that indicate, clear as day, that he has been here.

Perhaps those aren’t the best quirks. But I think I’ve got the general idea across. And as a relatively trivial part of who your character is, quirks can’t be that important, can they? They clearly aren’t like character arc, personality, or inner conflict. Those are the big guys, the Ones We Must Figure Out.

But if you think of it in another way, quirks are typically the ‘face’ that your readers will see and interact with the most frequently. So, in a way, perhaps they really are that important, after all.

Here’s how I like to see it:

1. Quirks are meant to be memorable. They are like a hook on a wall for your reader to hang that particular character on. So with that definition, a quirk could be almost anything! It could be a physical trait (one eye larger than the other), a physical habit (constantly tugging ear-lobe), an aspect of physical appearance (wears fancy hats that are always maroon), a dialogue habit (is always apologizing), a mental habit (if you’re writing from inside the character’s head, that is), and on and on and on.

At the end of the day, the main purpose for a quirk is to catch the reader’s attention and give them something by which to easily remember and identify your character. They should be simple, easy to remember, and sometimes even bizarre.

2. Quirks shouldn’t just be quirks. There should be a reason for them, and it should tie into the character logically, in some way. In order to write a tightly-woven story that pulls your reader along without creating little bits of story-fat dangling at odd angles off the edges of your writing, each detail should be doing more than one thing. For example, quirks are there to catch attention and create a mental hook to hang the character on; that’s their main purpose. But they should also do something more: build the world, tie into the character (backstory or current), foreshadow a future event, or more.

Let’s take the examples I gave above and give each quirk a second or third purpose:

One eye bigger than the other, because… let’s say the character is a half-breed, and the two races don’t mix very well, genetically. This builds her backstory (now we know her parentage), and builds the world because the two different races clearly have different eye size/shape, but now we don’t have to actually say that out loud to the reader. This could also be a foreshadowing if one of the two races has a special ability that our character retains, and this ability helps her solve a big problem in the future plot. And the clue was there all along, looking us right in the face… 😉

Constantly tugging earlobe, because… let’s say the character has a really bad habit of lying all the time. Every time he lies, however, he tugs on his earlobe as a nervous tic. Once our MC figures out that this character is a liar, and that this quirk signifies that he’s lying, then the MC will think back to all the times this character tugged on his earlobe and realize how much he’s been lied to. Also, the reader will probably flip back through the whole book to find all the lies.

Always wearing fancy maroon hats, because… let’s say the character’s father was wearing a maroon hat when he was killed by highwaymen in a carriage robbery. Many years later, to honor his father’s memory, the character wears maroon hats all the time. However, he was hit on the head at the time of the robbery, so he forgets what exactly his father’s hat looked like. Now, every time he sees a maroon hat, he has to buy it up just in case it’s the same style as his father’s was. And at the end of the story, in a very emotional moment, after defeating the highwaymen… he finds his father’s hat among the hoard of stolen booty…

 

Notice how each of these examples feels at least a little bit alive. There’s a little bit of story here. It’s connected to everything. It’s a part of the story. And that’s because the quirk started doing more and more things to develop the story, the more we tied it into who the character was. And we still don’t even know personality, character arc, or any of that yet! But they still feel (at least a little) alive.

That is the power of quirks.

Note: personality, character arc, inner conflict are all extremely important aspects of character development; I do not intend in any way to lessen their importance. The point is that our quirks should tie into those elements in order to give our characters a face that our readers will remember.

+++

So. Your writing assignment this week is simple. NaNoWriMo starts mid-week, so I don’t want to hit you with something that’s too difficult.

Do what I just did with three quirks, and post your results here! Turn your brain into a random quirk generator, pick the top three, and then figure out how you can make that quirk do more than catch the eye! Don’t use an existing character! I did this all on the spot as I wrote this out. You can do it, too!

I believe in you. Frank the Thunderphoenix believes in you.

You are Ereki, after all, aren’t you? 😛

+++

@sarah-inkdragon @devastate-lasting @sageinthemeadow @enu @the-inkspiller @filewriter @princess-foo @emgc @catwing @kelly-lundgren @allison-grace @sarah-narnathron @ajaj2000 @warrenluther04 @lydia-writes @seekjustice @rose-noblescroll @taaka-merespinner @thetessinator @jose-cuellar-ramirez @bekks2017 @cowlick @ariednelle