Saturday, March 12, 2011

Quirky


We have a leaky refrigerator at my house. Since we don't want to put out the money to fix it or buy a new one at the moment, we catch the leaks in small plastic containers that eventually freeze up into blocks of ice. The other day I was dumping the ice blocks into the sink and realized I couldn't walk away until I had turned on the hot water and completely melted the ice down the drain, something I do every time I dump out the ice.

My husband cannot stand to hear anything rattling in the car when he's driving. If something fits too loosely in the cup holder or the stroller is not firmly tucked into the back storage compartment, he stops to fix it as soon as possible before driving further.

These are just a couple of examples of what makes hubby and I distinctly who we are.

Some of you may be saying, "Wow, those two need to get on some OCD medication right away." However, I would assert that we all have our quirks. I've been thinking about how quirks make characters feel more real and easier to relate to, whether its Indiana Jones's fear of snakes, Bridget Jones routinely eating an entire box of chocolates in one sitting, or "Boo" Radley's reclusive nature.

I found a website that lists 1001 character quirks, which I thought you might get a kick out of.

5 comments:

  1. I'm trying to think what makes Steve quirky. I just remembered.
    He will not wake people up. Even now, he will not wake me up. He will not talk to me if I am asleep. (He will kiss me goodbye, but he won't wake me up.)

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  2. Wait don't buy the book we can come up with at least 1001 ideas for character quirks at our next meeting. I bet it only takes us 10 minutes and that most of them will apply equally well to ninjas and zombies.

    I love keeping a character journal it really helps with making characters likable.

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  3. Nikola Tesla had a lot of cool quirks--he hated anything not divisible by three, for example.

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  4. My list of quirks is formidable. I completely agree with Donna...in ten minutes we could come up with a list of 1001 ideas. And we could do it using only our own quirks :)

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  5. I vote that our next writers group we write our list of quirks.

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