Character Quirks

This past Saturday at the DFW Ready Writer's monthly meeting, Margo Carmichael spoke about creating characters. Here are a few notes from her talk that hopefully you all can put to some use.

Margo Carmichael, who writes "Spirit-filled suspense that captures the heart," talked about Writing Personality Quirks for our Characters.

Not a counselor, Margo is "just a people person" and finds psychology fascinating. She took it as electives in high school and college, then some counseling courses a few years ago. Based on the theme of the book, Shadow Syndromes, by Ratey and Johnson, we probably all exhibit to some extent the traits of full-blown syndromes. These little traits could add interesting, challenging, even amusing layers to our characters. With this in mind, she shared resources and information about the full-blown syndromes from which to draw.

We treated the subject seriously and respectfully, aware that these syndromes can cause much suffering for the ones with them and their families. So, whether one wants to write about interesting character traits, ordeal with full-blown disorders, and God bless especially those who write from painful experience, the articles and resources we discussed could be helpful. They are posted on Margo's blog, "Margo's Moments," along with some confessions of her own~Writing about Psychological Traits (That Woman Unmasked!) at http://margosmoments.blogspot.com