A sense of drama is not conveyed only through mere action. In many respects, drama is embedded within the nuance and atmosphere of your story and the fabric of your character(s). How do you bring that nuance forward? In crafting our dramatic characters, we as writers, often imagine them in 3D ~ they're alive, corporeal, vibrant, because they live in our heads ~ and we can see everything they do, hear every word they say. We know their ticks and their attitudes, because once created in the mind of the creator, they have breath, they have sound, they have movement...

And they have quirks.

Quirks are a beautiful thing, because they're human, and they are particular, and they allow you to add a layer to your character, which can then lead to expanding them into something more than you had first envisioned, someone deeper.

And when you think about it, we all have quirks. You have quirks, I have quirks ~ some are noticeable and out there, and some can be closely guarded, which may be considered a quirk in itself.

In pondering this subject, I realized that I have a lot of quirks: some cute, some weird ~ not that I'm gonna tell you what they are!

Nope. Instead, I'm gonna throw somebody else under the bus!

I once knew a woman, on top of the world. She was powerful, influential, from a wealthy family... the world was her oyster. She wanted for nothing. But strangely enough, she had a quirk; a quirk many of us, on the lower rungs, made fun of. She would sit in her glass-walled office, on the phone, completely dead to the world, and pick at her hair. She would pull at strands, inspect them if they were long enough; sometimes, she would drape them under her nose like a mustache and purse her lips, sniffing, as if nobody in the world could see her. When she would emerge from that glass office, she seemed acutely aware of our perception of her, but she ignored it. We likened her to a monkey, at times, but in a weird way, it made her seem less threatening and more like us than not. For all of her money and affluence and hoity-toity upbringing, there was still something inherently human about her. Her quirk made us dislike her less, because it was disarming and weird. Come on! A woman who picks at and sniffs her own hair in unguarded moments, witnessed by all who work with her, can't be all bad, right? She's just a person, a flawed, imperfect human like the rest of us, right?

Relating those types of quirks can be troublesome, because we're not always certain how to create them, or how we should put them into words. We can see the behavior in our heads. These intimate, subtle, and sometimes off-the-radar movements or mannerisms can be what brings your character to life for your reader. What do those things look like to you, to your character? How does your character embody or reflect them? And how do you write it down or type it on a screen? How do you bring your dramatic character to life through their quirks and oddities? Are those quirks and oddities a positive or a negative in how they relate to other characters? Do those oddities and quirks endear them to or expel them from those in their orbit?

In getting this newsletter prepped, I asked our wonderful WDCers how they convey quirks in their writing, and I got some very useful tips!

From Jeff :



From Jim Hall :



From Cinn :



From NaNoKit :



From Steev the Friction Wizurd :



And from Joey' Falling for the Season :



Joey' Falling for the Season also pointed out the many ways to bring out a quirk vocally, as well as through phobias, philias, superstitions, habits, hobbies, and even diseases. You can read the entire rundown here: Linked 'Note' no longer available..

So go on ~ get quirky with your characters!