Quirks

      I'm typing this blog on game day. I sincerely hope I’m wearing the right shirt.

         My wife and I pull out our college T-shirts, whether we’re attending the game or watching it on television.  It’s an idiosyncrasy we share with fans around the globe. There’s a Pascal’s Wager element to our wardrobe choices. I don’t know whether it makes a difference in the outcome, but since I’m putting clothing on anyway, why not try to align the mystical forces on my team’s side. It’s a quirky thing we do together. We think it’s fun.

         We wore the right T-shirts last Saturday. Our team won big.

         The other day, I was talking with a friend about this habit. As conversations sometimes do, my family’s wardrobe choices led to a larger discussion about idiosyncrasies. “Have you ever noticed,” my friend asked, “that when people in public must walk between you and something you’re looking at (an airline monitor, a grocery store shelf, etc.), they do this slight shoulder hunch? As if by reducing their height an inch or two, they become transparent?”

         Now that the seed has been planted, your grocery store run may be forever changed. And that’s how it goes with quirks. We’ve all got them. They may be intentional, or we may be unaware of their existence. Strangely, even though many of us may share the same ones, they still make us unique. Even universal ones provide small variations. Let’s return to the grocery store. The next time someone cuts across your bow in the canned goods aisle, notice how many not only hunch slightly, but also splay their arms, elbow-level, palms down in a gesture that signals they’re trying to press themselves lower. Myriad variations on the shrinking maneuver.

         Because quirks are fun things to observe about people, they serve us well as writers. These peculiar and memorable idiosyncrasies help transform a character. They help a character evolve from a creature that looks good on paper and does all the right things into someone with life, form, and vibrancy. Quirks help a character feel like a person. Quirks are at once universal and unique.

           Several elements help to make a good quirk for fictional characters.

·         -Uniqueness. A true quirk helps fix the character in the readers’ minds. They associate the quirk with that character alone.

·         -An Idiosyncrasy should have a reason to exist. In fiction, there are no random coincidences. The quirk should help to say something, positive or negative, about the character.

·         -Observe quirks in the wild. Go to the grocery store. See how people interact in public. Hopefully, you’ll notice characteristics in people that you hadn’t considered.

·         -Be sparing about their use. Too many quirks and a character will transform from memorable to weird. The means test, asking what the quirk says about the character, should help restrain the temptation to bog the character down with unique tics.

·         -The quirk should be a reflection of the character’s overall disposition. A character who obsesses about safety, for instance, shouldn’t like to discharge firearms randomly.

·         -Be creative. Avoid tropes. Look for ways to package the quirks we all have in unique ways.

            Cormac McCarthy’s novel, No Country for Old Men, illustrates the value of a quirk better than anything I’ve read recently. Early on, Chigurh, the villain, flips a coin and has the victim guess heads or tails. This idiosyncrasy appears throughout the book. Life or death gets decided by the flip of a coin.

            Not everyone who has read the book remembers the villain’s name. Everyone, however, remembers “the coin-flipping guy.” The gesture fixes Chigurh in the reader’s mind even after they’ve finished the book.

          The flip is purposeful. It propels the action. As readers, we know the victim’s fate hangs on the outcome. He doesn’t. The victim only knows that a stranger insists he choose whether the coin shows heads or tails. The tension mounts while we all wait for McCarthy to reveal whether the outcome.  

            The coin flip speaks to fate versus free will, a theme of the book. Chigurh insists each victim call heads or tails, making them participants in their own demise. As a character reveal, the coin flip is a masterclass in “Show, Don’t Tell.”

          Coin flipping is a common gesture. Every football game starts this way. In No Country for Old Men, the flip is repackaged from a simple way to decide minor questions into a life-defining act. The quirk becomes one of the most memorable parts of McCarthy’s novel.

         Chigurh’s coin toss successfully uses each of the elements of a good idiosyncrasy. McCarthy transforms the quirk into a narrative tool. It shows the power of a small gesture.
What example comes to your mind when you think about literary characters and their quirks? I’d like to hear. Now, however, I’ve got a game to watch. Go team.

          Until next time.