CHARACTER DETAILS THAT SHOULD NEVER BE DIVULGED
Posted on September 9, 2018
Recently, I was chatting with my good friend and fellow writer, Keith Robinson, about keeping track of the character details of our various cast members. I mentioned about having to double check Irving Wishbutton's eye color as I was writing the fourth book of that series, and it sparked a conversation about how a particular trait really doesn't get mentioned about characters.
I'm talking about handedness. Being a leftie myself, I cited that it really is not a natural detail to inject into the narrative. Keith quickly pointed out it might come up if your character had a broken arm. I shared that it could be a pivotal aspect of a character if their imposter used their right hand and the real character was a leftie and that detail had been seeded in the chapters early on.
We then talked about other details that, if mentioned, might load down the character with too many exhaustive aspects. For example, here's a deliberately poor character intro featuring some oddly specific and ultimately unimportant particulars:
Mark Hampton reached out with his left hand and grabbed the No. 2. pencil to begin bubbling in his scantron sheet. His desk was designed for right-handers, but he compensated by curling his hand extremely around to mimic the angle of a rightie. He thought about his lunch and how his mother had packed his favorite type of straw, curly.
He suppressed a hiccup that if he'd let it loose would've sounded like a gag with an awkward uptick in pitch at the end. His friend, Stanley Wiggins, always made fun of his hiccup eruptions. Mark tried to concentrate on his test but was distracted by his cuticles. Definitely time to do some cuticle maintenance tonight when he got home and sat in his preferred seating, a recliner, and engaged in his favorite destressor activity of stacking toothpicks. He hoped his mom would bring croissants home as a treat rather than his dad's ultimate snack, and Mark's mortal gastrointestinal enemy, pork rinds.
He licked his dried and cracked lips with his extra-wide tongue, annoyed that his absentmindedness had resulted in his lip balm being left on the kitchen counter.
He wiped his sweaty palms on his untucked shirt. He didn't know how people could put up with tucking in their shirts. Too restrictive for him.
Mark struggled to focus on the test. He really needed to stop obsessing on every little detail about himself. His sister would call his fixation rather vain, but he knew it was all a part of his OCD.
He breathed in through his nose, scratched each elbow twice, and let out a slow, calming breath through his mouth. He had only ten minutes to answer fourteen more questions. As long as he didn't fret about any of his other habits and quirks, he could get the job done.
A fly flew by in front of him and he thought of his favorite insect. Most people didn't have one, but he did. And it wasn't the ordinary, spawned-from-a-maggot house fly. No, he loved dragonflies. He pictured the sleek bug in his head and smiled, exposing his braces that constantly needed tweaking by his exasperated orthodontist, Doctor Stephen Combs.
Ugh, that was painful, but surprisingly fun to write.
What traits do you think are not worth mentioning about a character in a story? Don't all answer at once. Just raise your left hand when you have something to contribute and I'll call on you.