What makes a character unique?

I have an interview scheduled for July 15^th with Maggie Smith’s Hear Us Roar podcast for The Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA). One of the items she’s asked me to consider ahead of time is to share something interesting about me that doesn’t have to do with writing. Something quirky that my bio doesn’t address. I don’t have a hobby, and the fact that I’m a therapeutic bodyworker doesn’t exactly put me in the quirky category. So I’ve been thumbing through my life in search of something fascinating. You can laugh, I don’t mind.

I don’t garden anymore, but even if I did, trust me, those pests and weeds and fruits of my labour would be transformed into words. I don’t collect anything, in part because I tend to break or lose things. Not on purpose, mind you. I’m just not good at keeping stuff. I don’t hike or fish as a passion—I do those things to spend time with my son. I like to cook, but it doesn’t drive me to visit kitchen stores or seek out exotic spices.

I do have stories from my past that are interesting to me, but neither are they particularly distinctive, nor are they current. Such as living in a remote mountain cabin the year I turned twenty-one, or spending four winters in India in my thirties, learning various healing techniques.

But what do I do now that might hold some fascination that also doesn’t have to do with writing? The problem is that anything that interests me gets funnelled into writing.

I have some ideas that I’ll share with her about what interests me, but I will also have to admit that my fascinations get channelled into my writing. That’s just how it goes.

So the question remains: what makes a person unique other than the fact that we are all unique and possibly quirky in our own ways?

How about talking to ourselves? In a recent workshop, I offered this poem:

The written responses to the prompt of having a character talking to themselves made me realize that this trait isn’t “quirky.” Everyone does it.

My mother used to say that it was fine to talk to yourself as long as you didn’t get any funny answers. Thing is, my initial thoughts are generally silent, so it’s the answers that are spoken aloud. Such as, “I think so,” or “That’s a great idea.” I have to stop and try to recover the thought that prompted the response. In other words, I only get funny answers. I suppose that to help me track my runaway ponderings and ideas, I could speak every thought aloud. Luckily, these days, there are no madhouses to speak of. Still, maybe not the best solution.

The other day, I was surveying some chicken breasts, my head down in the grocery store cooler, when a woman’s voice, loud in my ear, said, “No, they’re not.” I jumped and scanned the air for the residue of my voice asking about the nature of the meat. “We’ll have to get something else,” she boomed. We? She was a formidable woman, dark hair piled and fluffed, also bent down to investigate the chicken. She wasn’t looking at me, and she wasn’t talking to herself, of course. In this era of earbuds, people just burst out talking. It seems we’ve all gone a bit mad and we’re all on the loose.

Nothing unique here to see, I’m afraid.

Here’s a prompt: What makes your character unique?

· What kind of fabric/patterns do they choose for their clothing? For instance: I knew a woman once who would only wear plain clothes – no patterned, only solid colours. Her counters were bare, no rugs, white furniture, white linens.

· What are their routines, or do they act spontaneously? Have them waking up and write the first thing they do, for example. Leap out of bed, reach for their phone, pull a pillow over their head?

· Do they have many or one single friend? How long do their friendships last? Since childhood or do they get discarded once they’ve outlived their relevance or pissed off your character?

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Thank you for reading these musings and ramblings.

If you’d like to muse and ramble with me, I have lots of workshops coming up where you can experiment, rage, wonder, and play… You can also get serious if that’s your jam. These workshops are very inclusive. You are welcome to use the prompts in any way you choose, or ignore them altogether. The point is, to get writing, right?

• Two-hour online workshops every Monday and Thursday at noon Eastern, and alternate Tuesdays at 7 p.m.

• One Saturday each month features an in-depth four-hour session.

• Explore archetypal traits for your characters in a bi-weekly series – August 21 to October 2

The following series at 3 pm Eastern is available as a package or individual sessions:

• June 30 – Hemingway’s Iceberg Method

• July 14 – Braided or Personal Essay/poem

• July 28 – Character-building techniques

• August 11 – Jack Grapes’ Image Moment to build tension

• August 25 – Long-Armed poem or prose

• September 8 – The Freewheeling Mind & Word Play.