This week, using June bugs as a prompt, let’s talk about what bugs our characters. How do these bugs inform your characters? Do you share any of the bugs?
Jessie: I love the graphic you created for this month, Julie! My sleuth, Beryl Helliwell, dislikes naysayers and conversations about why things aren’t possible. I am not a fan of those either. In my real life, probably my most glaring pet peeve is about drinking vessels. I cannot stand plastic cups and I really prefer that the vessel is suited for the contents. I want my champagne in a flute, my espresso in a demi-tasse, and my tea in a mug to hold the heat.
Edith/Maddie: I’m with you on appropriate drinking containers, Jessie. Mac is borderline obsessed with keeping things neat and tidy. Messes bug her, whether in the kitchen or in her life. I don’t share that completely, but I do like a nice clean kitchen counter (free of toast crumbs, which really bugs me…), polished with a dishtowel. Robbie gets bugged in her restaurant when customers don’t say please or thank you. She’s not their mom, but a little common courtesy goes a long way. Amen, Robbie!
Sherry: I have to agree with Jessie about not drinking out of plastic! However, I prefer a coupe glass to a flute. There are always arguments about which is better and frankly if someone is offering me bubbles, I’ll drink it. Hmmmm, I’ve never really thought about what bugs Chloe — probably people who can’t hold their liquor.
Julie: What bugs me? Talking loudly in the theater, cell phones in the movie theater, people who take up more than one seat on the subway, people who are rude (especially to any sort of staff). What bugs my characters? Lilly Jayne tolerates much less than I do. Anything that doesn’t work the way she thinks it should bugs her. The good thing about Lilly is that she’s willing to do the work to make changes. She is not faint of heart.
Barb: What bugs me you ask? People with the emotional intelligence of five-year-olds and the critical thinking skills of the lower forms of mammals loudly proclaiming their whiny resentments and petty grudges as if the were some kind of badge of honor. Harrumph. (I have to say I get a strange, tingly pleasure from drinking from a vessel that is plainly wrong, like fine wine from a jelly jar or coffee from a cardboard cup decorated for Christmas in the middle of July. I think this is because this has happened in my life in moments that were spontaneous and improvised and therefore loads of fun. It doesn’t work if you do it on purpose. Or maybe it does. I will try it.) As for my characters, Jane Darrowfield prefers people who are honest and direct, but has been around long enough to understand why some people can’t be. Julia Snowden hates it when people insist on doing things the way they’ve always been done, for no other reason than they’ve always been done that way.
Readers, do you like it when bugs work their way into characters?