Quirky People Make Quirky Characters

You want your characters to be quirky, but not too quirky, right? You want them to have real flaws and believable habits, but not come across as a basket case of nervous energy, or just plain loopy. And you want people to identify with them, right.

So, how quirky is too quirky?

How about this:

A housewife counts the plates as she puts them into the dishwasher, the spoons as she puts them in the drawer. She counts the towels as she folds them.

A grandmother cannot bring herself to throw away a note of encouragement or anything of sentimental value.

A man who rubs his feet together to fall asleep. His wife has to be wearing socks to snooze.
What about a dirty napkin phobia?
A woman reports that she never crumples her used napkin. She folds it. If someone else crumples theirs, she can't keep from looking at it. And don’t expect her to touch someone else's crumpled up napkins when cleaning up. Ewww!
One of my own pet peeves: I can’t stand a crooked picture...it drives me insane. I will straighten them whenever I see them.

I can’t stand for a stack of stapled papers, or file folders, to be haphazard. I will undo them and re-staple them to keep them straight. I did this once with the guy standing there who’d stapled them together in the first place. It was kinda embarrassing when I realized what I’d done.
I’ve heard of someone saying it was impossible for them to fall asleep lying down. That one has me scratching my head, and I’d like to ask that person how they do fall asleep. Maybe they sleep in a recliner or something!

I'm a hand washer. I wash my hands all the time. If I drive from home to the office the first thing I do is wash my hands.

I love this one… One woman reported that she has a thing with even and odd. She doesn't like odd numbers so she only deals with things that are even. Like if she can't just have one piece of cheese, she’ll have to have 2 and if she gets 3 she’ll need another piece to make it even.

So, how about 3 Krispy Kreme donuts, please ? Oh, we had Krispy Kremes one day last week, didn’t we? Well, I suppose we can have them again today, and we’ll have muffins from the Beagle Bagle café. Yum!

I’ve got 11 pages of these quirks I’ve saved over the years, and I imagine your particular quirk is on the list.
Dollars to Beagle Bagle Café donuts, your quirk is also somebody else’s quirk, and even more importantly, can become one of your character’s quirks.

Three more, because I can’t resist….

M&M’s are a popular quirk, from eating them before a flight, to before a doctor’s appointment, to sorting them into piles and eating certain colors. One person reported that the more blue M&M’s, the better their flight. A co-worker of mine sorts her M&M’s before she eats them.
Any of you have an M&M quirk? Dip into the bowl of M&M’s on the table. Just don’t eat all the blue ones, and save some for the rest of us.

Another plane quirk: One woman said she has to tap the outside of the plane ten times. Someone else said he sleeps with a window open—even in the dead of winter, and will not sleep with his head pointed toward a door. (Now, this I can understand. I wouldn’t want my head pointed toward a door while sleeping. Just makes perfect sense to me!)

So, let’s share some quirks. Either yours, or somebody else’s. Even better share a memorable quirk from a character in a book.