Character Quirks

As a writer, my mind and hands are constantly working at world building and story crafting as I go through processes of brainstorming and note taking to fully flesh out details. However, when it comes to characters, I like to take it one step further.

Have you ever heard of method acting?

It’s when an actor will take on their role quite literally, embodying their characters traits and interests even when the actor is off the clock. If their character likes pink, the actor will start wearing pink clothing. If their character is a spin instructor, the actor will take spin classes and mimic the teacher, and spend most of their free time in spin-style workout clothes. If their character is Irish, the actor will consistently speak in an Irish accent.

Some method actors go as far as to become their character completely, even asking the people around them to call them by their characters name.

Here’s a good description from http://lionhearttheatre.org/the-difference-between-method-acting-and-classical-acting/

“The operating theory is that the actor should “live” the character he or she is playing even when not on stage. For this reason, many method actors refuse to break character before the last scene of the film is shot, or the final performance of the play is given. Some performers will go to great lengths to fully inhabit the role, including changing their sleeping, dietary and other habits and more.”

Why I deem this important

I like to do a similar thing when I’m creating characters for my books and stories, though I don’t take it to the extreme. I think I would go insane (I’m already crazy enough!) if I tried to become each and every character of mine. Instead, I think about it one quirk at a time.

If you were to ask one of my college friends/peers, they would probably admit to me doing weird things for only short amounts of time (although, I adopted some of those weird things and now live with those quirks). I’ll do things like wear ripped jeans and hang pens off of the holes, or clip my keys to my belt loops, or go a week without wearing black (this one was hard for me. I wore yellow a lot for this one character and it was… just not right).

One of the reasons I do these character quirks is because sometimes a quirk won’t make sense. Like, have you ever seen someone who constantly batts their eyelashes? While that might work for some very specific things and moments, ‘batting eyelashes’ just doesn’t happen in real life. There are more that I simply can’t think of, but you know what I mean, right? When a character does something and you have to pull away thinking, “Man. I’m not sure that’s even physically possible or comfortable!” So whenever I add something new that a character regularly does, I do it myself for about a week.

The first quirk/character driven thing I remember consciously doing just so I could figure out the emotional tie to the character, was when I was 15. I honestly don’t remember if I told people that I was doing it for a story or if I just let them believe that I felt the honest need to do this… but I started wearing a flash drive around my neck.

The character I did this for has been buried and I don’t know if she’ll ever be uncovered, but her name started with an A. Armita or something? This was back before I kept records of my stories in my computer and saved it to my flash drive, so her name and description are in my handwritten notes under my childhood bed… I’ll look for them at some point.

This girl, though, was a type of fairy who only knew two things about her past: that her people had been taken from her and that the answer to getting them back was on the encrypted flash drive she wore around her neck. Wanting to know what it felt like to wear your identity around your neck, I strung a bright red flash drive on a thick silver chain and wore it for a week straight, keeping all of my new ideas, pictures, homework assignments, and other random things that fit onto this 8 gb drive, on me at all times. Eventually, the red flash drive and silver chain turned into a purple flash drive and black yarn, and it recently upgraded to a black flash drive and a thin leather cord. It’s a rare sight to catch me without my flash drive. I really only take it off to sleep, shower, or workout.

I actually find it quite funny that this started as a character quirk because it is a staple in my life right now. Wearing this flash drive means I always have my work on me at all times, and it’s a bit of a security blanket as well as incredibly helpful when it comes to me needing to print out homework assignments. I never have to wonder where anything is.

I’m actually curious as to whether or not I’ve subconsciously started acting like my characters without meaning to. I spend so much time writing them, I feel like it would be nearly impossible to not. I don’t know.

In any case, what about you guys? Are there any random quirks a character does in books you’ve read that just don’t make sense, or things that your character does that you’ve picked up as well? I’d love to hear other people’s experiences with this!