{"id":1166,"date":"2020-06-17T08:02:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T12:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2020-06-17T08:02:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T12:02:02","slug":"to-quirk-or-not-to-quirk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/17\/to-quirk-or-not-to-quirk\/","title":{"rendered":"To Quirk or Not to Quirk"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 10, 2019, future_famous_author wrote, How do you create a personality for your main character? For some odd reason, my main characters just seem to be girls who like to read and who are outgoing, at least for the most part. The side characters all have very distinct personalities, for example, the very proper princess who likes everything to be perfect and can\u2019t stand anything that makes her seem like a commoner. Another princess is a complete rebel- she\u2019s the youngest of three, and both of her older siblings someday rule a kingdom, leaving her to be kind of forgotten.<\/em><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s my MC, who doesn\u2019t have much personality. She\u2019s pretty much every other girl.<\/em><\/p>\n

How can I make her more distinct and unique?<\/em><\/p>\n

Melissa Mead wrote back, Hm. What about this character made you pick her to be the MC? That could be a clue.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is such an interesting question!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the same worry myself. My secondary characters are generally quirkier than my MCs. And so are those of other authors. I don\u2019t think this is necessarily a problem.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take Peter Pan<\/em> by James M. Barrie. It\u2019s told in third-person omniscient, and the narrator has personality along with the characters. But the eyes the reader most often sees the story through are Wendy\u2019s. She\u2019s sweet, kind, somewhat adventurous but also conventional and not very quirky. This allows the reader to slip inside her. I certainly did when I was little, and I still do.<\/p>\n

Peter is strange, magical, irritating, brave. His thought process is alien. He\u2019s fascinating\u2013viewed from the outside, because it\u2019s impossible to get in. When I was little, I wanted to marry him! I couldn\u2019t understand why Wendy goes home.<\/p>\n

Now I do. He\u2019d be an impossible, unreliable partner. Too quirky!<\/p>\n

Or take the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle. Watson is the POV character because he doesn\u2019t have a big personality, and because, while not stupid, he isn\u2019t extraordinarily smart. Doyle couldn\u2019t put the reader inside Holmes\u2019s head, because then the reader would have to see the steps Holmes takes to reach his conclusions, and the magic would evaporate.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t often read novels or watch TV series with unsympathetic MCs, who always have distinctive qualities. I don\u2019t enjoy being inside them, though a lot of people do\u2013kind, decent people, who think these MCs are funny. So I mean no condemnation toward the writers who write unpleasant MCs. After all, these writers are most likely also kind, decent people, who just want to explore extreme characters. I want to do that, too, in my secondaries. For example, I\u2019m captivated by many of my villains, like Skulni and Ivi in Fairest<\/em> and Vollys in The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Having said all this, of course we don\u2019t want our MCs to be ciphers (nonentities). So how do we give them the kind of (probably limited) personalities that our readers can mind-meld with?<\/p>\n

We can look to our plots for guidance, which is what I do, because I\u2019m a plot-centered writer. Character is super important to me, but plot is paramount. If you\u2019re like me, you can ask yourself, What does my MC need to succeed in the end and yet also have to struggle along the way? Ella, who has a curse of obedience to contend with, is naturally defiant. Addie in The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em>, who has to face monsters in her quest for a cure to a dread disease, is shy and timid. Aza in Fairest<\/em>, whose looks are unfashionable, is sensitive about them.<\/p>\n

What will bring our MC\u2019s environment into sharp relief and make her and our readers suffer for her? Loma in A Ceiling Made of Eggshells<\/em>, whose life is full of stress, loves the orderliness of numbers and counts compulsively to calm herself. Dave in Dave at Night<\/em>, who lives in the regimented world of an orphanage, is a rebel, which both gets him into trouble and saves him.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re character rather than plot centered, we start with character. What problem can we give our defiant MC? A curse of obedience! What else? Whatever problem we give her, how else will it shape her? How else can we shape her around it?<\/p>\n

So that’s one strategy: use our plots to determine our MC’s quirks.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at Ella close up, and I hope I don\u2019t spoil her for anybody. What do we discover as we read? She\u2019s defiant, persistent, has a sense of humor, a warm heart, comes up with clever things to say, and is generally intelligent. Hardly unique. Her lack of uniqueness lets the reader inhabit her.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back to Loma for a sec. Her counting obsession is a quirk. If she were a secondary character, I\u2019d probably bring the quirk up often, because I want the reader to remember her. But since she\u2019s my MC, I bring it in only occasionally and trust the reader to remember. For the rest, she’s clever and loyal. Her primary motivator is her deep love for children, especially for her nieces and nephews–a trait shared by many people.<\/p>\n

So that’s another strategy: introduce the quirk, remind the reader occasionally, keep the character consistent with it, but don’t harp on it. The reader will remember.<\/p>\n

Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Try writing a mystery from Sherlock Holmes\u2019s POV. See if you can show the reader how his mind works and still keep his brilliance an enigma. If not, just go with him as he comes to you.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Your MC is contending against her two brothers for the throne of Saker. The competition has three stages: to fetch a golden feather of the misa bird from the depths of a witch\u2019s forest; to think of three policies that will make and keep the kingdom\u2019s subjects happy; and to cross to the middle of an oiled tightrope to proclaim the three policies to the seven judges of the succession. And the unspoken final condition: to survive long enough to rule. Think about the qualities your MC needs to have to have a shot at success and the flaws that will get in her way. Give her a single quirk. Make the brothers super quirky. Write the story.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Write the same story from the POV of one of the brothers.<\/p>\n

Have fun and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 10, 2019, future_famous_author wrote, How do you create a personality for your main character? For some odd reason, my main characters just seem to be girls who like to read and who are outgoing, at least for the most part. The side characters all have very distinct personalities, for example, the very proper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}