Heya friends. As writers, we have our strange habits that others think to be weird. Share in this post which ones or one do you have. Mine is getting up of the chair, with music and talk with msyelf. And does this happen outside of my home? Yes, it does, and as you can imagine, someone that sees me thinks I am just a lunatic. Even if I speak in a low tone, I have some eyes on me. But oh well. I embrace this side. It means that I always find interesting dialogue or scenes.
Talking to yourself is fine. But if you start conversing with yourself.... As for weird habits...hm...does never fully believing beta readers count? Cos even though I trust those readers for good criticism, they sometimes miss the aspects I'd criticize myself.
It's only a problem if you constantly argue with yourself and always lose. LoaDyron, if people are staring at you, just keep a bluetooth in your ear, people will just assume you're always on the phone.
I overdevelop my characters every time I write a story. In every single story, every character has a backstory, a family, a developed personality, etc. Even if their only role in the story is to bump into the main character once. It's actually a huge problem for me because I spend more time developing my characters than I do actually writing
This isn't a thing I do only when writing, but I will get up, run around the house a bit, and sit back down. Outside of writing, I do this while reading, playing video games, watching TV or YouTube videos, basically anything that stimulates my brain. My brain and my body seem to like to give energy to each other, so I get a bunch of ideas when I'm moving and physical energy when thinking. While we're on the topic of things writers do, I might as well throw this in. One seemingly strange tactic I recently learned about that coders often use is "rubber duck debugging," or as I call it, "rubber ducking." It's when you're stuck on something that isn't working (in the case of coding, getting an error when putting in a command or running a script), so you try to describe the issue to someone who isn't in your field, aka the rubber duck. I mean, literally a rubber duck on your desk. Anyway, as you describe it, you likely have a moment where you realize what's gone wrong. I want to experiment with doing something similar with writing. In the past, I've gotten ideas for my story simply by telling someone what I'm working on. Combine that with the fact that I talk to myself, and I think I just found my newest strategy for writer's block.
The worst is when you win an argument, but other you is so pissed they give you the silent treatment until you apologize and admit you were wrong, even though you weren't, so you resent it, and after it happens one too many times, you finally tell the other you to go to hell, and they start bringing some other dude around to make you jealous, and you murder them both in a fit of rage. Am I right? Yeah, I hate it when that happens too. Great. Now they're going to think you actually do talk to yourself and that we're really mean to each other. No, they'll know I was joking. Well, they're at least going to know you talk to yourself. Not if you shut up, they wont! Ahem. What was I saying?
For bigger problems and tough blocks... Posankka! When nothing else helps... Posankka! If you have no one to talk to... Posankka! https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/posankka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posankka By artist Alvar Gullichsen.
I might have done this way too many times to call it a habit, more like a way of life. Everytime I start developing a character, one of my first thoughts is how would this character work as the opposite gender. Sometimes it's a little disturbing what comes up then. I had a demi-dragon mercenary, and that train of thought flew through my mind... I'm scared of this character now. Spoiler Basically took that, attach mammaries and a dress. Scariest thing I've ever thought of.
I do this. I don't have a rubber duck, but when I'm gardening I often explain my plot issues to fictional characters, in my head--fictional characters created by other people, not characters in my book. Columbo is particularly useful--always very interested, though I have the vibe that he wants to pin a murder on me. James Rockford isn't interested, I suspect because I'm NOT paying him $200 a day plus expenses. Lord Tywin always just wants to talk about himself and his family; I need to get him off the team and replace him with someone else.
Whole riffs of multi-party dialogue are hashed out in traffic. I play all the parts, though if it's really bumper to bumper and I get to know my fellow traffic buddies, I sometimes pin roles on them. I get into it. I get angry. I get happy. I get sad. I choke up. I laugh. Hellen & Richard drive by in their Mercury Marquis that's seen better days and mumble to each other, "That boy ain't right."
Sometimes I write sidestories that no one should really even be thinking of at any point in the story just to see how the characters would react to the bizzare situation. And now my tablet has four layers of encryption because if anyone sees any of that crap I'm screwed
I have a habit of putting my own ideas into my stories. For example, ideas that have to do with politics, religion, existentialism, social norms and culture.
I can never turly "listen" to any music without imagining my characters in some kind of senario that goes according to the music. It does sometimes give me ideas but other times it's annoying because I just want to relax and enjoy a song, but instead I end up overworking my brain with character senarios. So if you ever engage with me while there is any type of music around trust me I'm only nodding my head to acknowledge your presence but I don't hear any words coming out of your mouth.
I know what you mean. And more problematic can become if you have another story for the same characters just by listening to a piece of music!
I'm not sure if this is a habit, but I think it would be easily viewed as weird by people who don't understand me. I have drawings I've done for the main characters in my book hanging up on my wall above my desk(basically portraits). As of last night there's four. And then there are three drawings relating to the book but aren't portraits hanging on the other wall (my desk is in a corner). Yes, I look at them. And yes, I actually do believe they help me when I'm writing. I don't know why/how, but I really believe they help.
Actually, that makes sense for other reasons, as well. For example, you know a person that you'd like to use as the basis for a character, but are worried they might 'find out' or somebody might guess who they are? Flip the gender. It's fantasic. Nobody will guess. Furthermore, it means you won't be creating stereotypes either. It works. It's fun as well, because only YOU know what you've done.
Weird habits? Oooh, I think my entire life is a weird habit sometimes. I don't know many people who puts raspberry jam on boiled spuds, mayo on hot pizza or cold spaghetti in my chicken wrap. But as for writing habits.... I find writing with my shoes on to be overwhelmingly distracting so I always take them off. Even if they be house-sandals/indoor shoes, or if i am outside.
I sometimes wonder about characters who have been frozen in crystal, which is actually a surprisingly common hand-wave for how this young-looking character is old as balls. If you've been frozen in crystal, as in literally the world around you turned into a big gem, and your mouth was open, what about your insides? I know you had air in your lungs, does that mean you had crystal in there too? Then you should be choking on rock as soon as you wake up or bleeding internally because crystals never seem to break on gentle slopes, always hard, sharp af edges. Or is the person who surrounded you in crystal that much more of a jerk and left you with the air in your lungs, making you choke on your old air from x years ago that has since turned bad because it's just been chilling in your lungs the entire time. I dunno, it makes no sense! But it's cool and I kinda want to figure it out. And what about other bodily orifices? Are you gonna have shards of crystal in your nose and ears? What about your pores? Do you now sweat glitter?