Strange habits and traits give your characters specificity

We’re all a little strange.  All of us.  Even your friends who you think are really quite normal.  They’re hiding things.  They have habits, desires, peccadilloes that if you knew of them would really sound quite odd.  I know someone who closes his his eyes when he turns out the light.  He doesn’t know why he does this, he just does.  My mother saves answering machine messages from me and my sister in case anything should happen to us.  She hasn’t admitted this (the reason behind saving them) but I know her well enough to know that’s why she does it.  Someone else I know can’t stand to see one of her long hairs on the bathroom counter.  She has to stop everything she’s doing and throw it away. Another friend can’t stand the sound of brushing his own teeth.

Your characters should be like this too.  They should have things that are particular only to them.  And I’m not saying they should be good dancers, though you can certainly add that to their repertoire of personality traits, I’m saying give them something unusual, something well, a bit weird.  Now think about the whys of this oddness. If you are stuck with your novel, or work in progress this weirdness may galvanize you.

Examples:

Sredni Vashtar, by Saki:

“Every Thursday, in the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers in their season and scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as opposed to the Woman’s religion, which, as far as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths in the contrary direction.”

This peculiar habit, giving offerings to a hen provides a form of respite for Conradin.  So frustrated and thwarted by his aunt is he that he creates his own brand of religion in which the hen has mystical powers to thwart Conradin’s aunt.  Why does he do this? Because the ritual brings him comfort.

“The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien:

“First Leuitenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack. In the late afternoon, after a day’s march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending. He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there.”

We learn so much about Jimmy Cross in these first few lines.  The zinger though for me and what really sticks, is this image of him licking the envelope flaps.  It speaks to his desperation, his sadness, his longing.  And it does it almost instantly.

I tried this recently in my story Sugar Packets.  One of my characters writes on sugar packets.  He writes little messages on them and leaves them behind in coffee shops, hoping someone will find them.  I think it’s his way of reaching out, of trying to connect, like a modern day version of sending a message in a bottle.

Give this a try, especially one you’re having trouble with and give that character something unique and slightly odd about them.  See where it takes you.

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