Writing Quirks and Tics

[Britva415]

I see it as part of characterisation

I'm glad you said this and I'm going to springboard off of it into an extension of what I was saying before:

I don't think it's characterization if one only describes the action/motion/physical appearance of the reflex. If one only "quirks" the character's eyebrow without making clear that it's like you said: When they feel this way. When they're reacting to that specific type of irritation. Or amusement. Or uncertainty. Or attention. Or whatever. Who even knows!

That's not characterization - especially if there isn't any pattern. It would be characterization if the author made clear what the pattern is. I'm a even go as far as to say it's still characterization if there is a pattern and the author doesn't lampshade it, but they instead simply leave it to the reader to figure out the pattern over repeated applications.

It's a problem when the pattern doesn't become clear or the pattern doesn't exist: When dingus quirks an eyebrow in twenty totally different situations and the reasons are only inside the author's head and they don't spell out what the character is experiencing which leads to that reaction, or they don't even know, it isn't characterization, it's caricature.

I'm really hammering on this because it's so prevalent that it's a cliché. "Dingus quirked their eyebrow" is literally an empty cliché. It's empty because very often it's executed exactly like I described above, and it's a cliché because it really is very, very often.

Note: "Dingus" is never the character's name, but it usually is how I wind up feeling about the author who puppeted such character.

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

One of my favorite things to do is give my characters quirks and tics — often physical or verbal. I find they make great indicates of mood without having to go into detail, and can even be ambiguous enough that it leaves it open to reader interpretation, which is fun when you want to hide the exact nature of their feelings, but show something is clearly going on.

Obviously, mine tend to be more animal based:
Tamandua who stims with her tongue
Gecko who licks an eyeball
Lizard who picks at her scales
Zebra who whinnies her laughs
Lots of tail movement. So much tail movement...

How do you approach quirks and tics in your own writing? Are there any you've created that really stood out to you, or ones you've read that stood out to you? They can be sexual, non-sexual, really anything at all!

Let's get quirky!

I never really think about it ahead of time. Usually the character develops as I write them and while doing so I will accidentally add a quirk or "tic" to them without thinking. I guess you could almost say that my "tic" is that they acquire a tic while they are being created.

The nice thing about that is that the tic, not really being forced on them, becomes more natural and feels less like an afterthought. If all that makes sense.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

I disagree. OK, I probably haven't shagged a statistically-significant sample of EAL people and not overheard that many more, but it's a thing that certainly does happen.

How much is 'beyond their control' and how much is them doing it partly on purpose to show how turned on they are, possibly influenced by porn, I don't know. How and where they learned English, versus the language they got used to using during sex, will also have a big influence.

I agree on the non-verbal sounds, though - there's a huge range of noises even within speakers of one language.

As a non-native English speaker, I've been around folks who try to use the native word when they don't know the English word. Doesn't typically help, but I've been around when people have tried it.

I've also seen people swear in their native language if they're not very competent in English.

But during sex? Maybe moaning 'Oh God' or an equivalent in their native tongue, but I wouldn't do that in a story personally. Feels wrong.

Of course, that's just my opinion

 

[NuclearFairy]

On quirks and other languages, I have a character who purposefully peppers Spanish into what he's saying when he's talking with someone who's angering him.

 

[RetroFan]

In my story 'Spoiled Princess Hates Camping' one of spoiled rich girl Madison's many complaints about spending time with her country cousins is that the three of them - John, Kate and Dylan - eat like lizards, flicking their tongues in and out as they put food into their mouths.

With regards to personality quirks, Todd from my 'PTA Queen Bee and Teen Rebel' stories thinks about himself in the third person, but given Todd is a 300-pound bully so stupid that it takes him over half an hour to realize that being compared to the Hindenburg is a jibe at how fat he is, this is perhaps not so surprising.

In my story 'Banging Cousin Becky in Blackpool' the formidable Aunt Agatha refuses to abbreviate other people's names. Therefore she calls her son and daughter 'Samuel' and 'Katherine' rather than Sam and Katie as everyone else does. Her nieces are 'Jennifer' and 'Rebecca' not Jenny and Becky, and one of her nephews is 'Daniel' not Danny. Her other nephew is the story narrator but he is called Ian, and as he himself notes it is very hard to shorten a name like Ian.

 

[TheLobster]

Her other nephew is the story narrator but he is called Ian, and as he himself notes it is very hard to shorten a name like Ian.

It's a first-person narration, so you did actually shorten it — to "I"

 

[sirhugs]

For many years, I have had the compulsion to work the phrase "great gobs of goo" into each of my stories. the great gobs of goo often gush.

 

[Britva415]

It's a first-person narration, so you did actually shorten it — to "I"

No wonder Aunt Agatha refused!