No I don’t mean the insect, this is a book blog after all.
Being a poor, starving writer AND actor (I thought to combine both in order to be as poor as possible and have twice the difficulty in achieving my goals), I was forced to find whatever job I could get. For the time being it is Exam Invigilation. I had heard it was pretty easy money, and to be fair there are a lot worse things to be doing. It’s murder on the ol’ legs and back, for standing up for about two hours solid is quite a strenuous feat. The most difficult part is the fact you are not allowed to do anything apart from watch the students to make sure they don’t cheat and also to supply them with the stationary they’ve inevitably forgotten. Normally I would love time to think, to come up with new blog and book ideas, and while I did do this the major problem was that I could not write anything down. My memory is not the greatest, so I have to write down as many of my ideas as possible else I’ll forget. It is like this blog post, I only just remembered it today after thinking of it on Tuesday. Speaking of this blog post, I probably should get to the point of it: Tics.
As I observed the students, I couldn’t help notice all the little signs and, well, tics that they all possessed, for both nervousness and boredom. Whether it was a tapping of the left foot, to reaching behind to rub their neck, to tapping their forehead with their pen, these were all unique signs their bodies were subconsciously making. It made me think that this could (and should) be easily applied to the characters you are writing on the page. What does your Main Character do when they are nervous? When they are bored, angry, lying etc? It doesn’t have to be a mention every time they are feeling something, but if you include it a few times alongside a particular emotion they are feeling, the next time you include just the tic the reader should know “oh he/she is pretty angry right now” or along those lines. It all reminds me of the brilliant game series Phoenix Wright, or in this case Apollo Justice, where the main character had the ability to hone-in and sense someone’s nervous tic to detect when they are lying. This could be a finger twitching, a scratching of an elbow, a lowering of eyelids and more.
Having tics like this make us all unique. Of the 150 students in one exam, I’m pretty sure each one had their own way of subconsciously showing us their current emotion. It also is a good example of putting a large amount of people in the same situation and see how they all react. Some were nervous, some confident, some couldn’t care less and just fell asleep. How would the characters in your book react in a similar situation? I know for my current novel, the main character would have studied hard, arrived early to the exam but still be bricking it internally. He would listen to the examiners but would probably get confused and nervous at filling in his name and student number. Give it a try with your own characters, thinking of a selection of classic situations and how would each react, for example: Ordering a Pizza (would they do it by phone, online, how much would they get, do they have a favourite flavour etc?), or Meeting a Celebrity, or Talking to their Crush, Seeing a Mugging. You might be surprised at what your characters might do.
Anyway, back to the tics. As I stood in the hot, smelly exam hall, thinking of what to write in this particular blog post, it made me recall the book Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. One of the main characters, Sarene, kept tapping her finger on her cheek in thought. It came up enough times that I noticed it, with me eventually linking it to her thinking without the author ever telling me.
Maybe as an example you could ask someone close to you if they have noticed anything that you do yourself as a tic? Or start looking at other people for ideas, the more you research the better your book will be, and this I think applies for even the smallest details. I noticed myself pulling specifically at one part of my beard and also moving one of my bracelets up and down when I’m nervous.
Write what you know, and often the best thing you know is yourself!