Character Quirks Part 2

So if you'll remember, in my last post I rambled about character quirks and what they were and ways to see them in real life.  Now I feel I should talk about ways to make quirks influential in your plot.

Quirks aren't always this important; they usually just add a degree of humor or uniqueness to your characters; but sometimes they also play a big enough part in the plot to help it move the way it should.  Perhaps their part is to cause the hero/heroine to make a decision (the inciting incident) that propels them into the rising action.  [If you want to know more about these plot points (inciting incident and rising action) go here.]  Maybe it's as simple as this little story about our dear friend Angelica Accola.

Angel absolutely adores chocolate chip cookies.  They are her favorite edible thing in the whole world.  But she's very particular about one thing.  The semisweet chocolate chips absolutely HAVE to be Ghirardelli, or she won't eat them - plain and simple.  Everyone who knows Angel has been given the spiel about her chocolate chips, to save them the embarrassment of giving her cookies she wouldn't eat.  
Well, one fateful day, Angel went to a New Year's Eve party at her friend Gabriellia's house.  She trusted that Gabriellia would have remembered her preference for Ghirardelli chocolate, but she still examines all the cookies carefully.  Across the table, a young man is doing the same.  They don't notice each other at first but study the cookies.  Angel uses her sixth sense that informs her of the kind of chocolate in the food.  Don't ask me how she does it.  O_o  Anyway, Gabriellia's little sister Alessandra toddled up and asked Angel what she was doing.  The young man across the table thought she was talking to him, and the two picky cookie-eaters answered simultaneously.  "Making sure they used Ghirardelli chips in the cookies," was their answer.  Startled, they looked at each other for the first time.

I will leave your own imaginations to divine what happened immediately afterwards, but Angel is married to that young man right now.  His name is Eric Accola.  

So if Angel was not so picky about her chocolate chips she may never have met the man she loves.  So it may be with your protagonist, a supporting character, etc.  But quirks don't always lead to happy endings.  Take Eric's great great grandfather Alan for example.  As a young man enlisted in the army, he had been impetuous and spirited.  A big quirk of his was that he was petrified of needles and other sharp things.  
When his camp was fired at and the soldiers were forced to flee the area, they found that a fence of barbed wire set up for their enemies' demise was now their own.  They crawled under it and hacked it down, but Alan was scared stiff by the pointy things and fainted.  This caused him to be captured.

So that was a sad story.  But sometimes quirks can be like that.  They're not always good for the character.  Maybe the story is about overcoming a quirk that grew into a phobia or an obsession.  It is guaranteed, though, that quirks will make your story more original, more interesting.

So how can you turn your quirks into important elements of the story?  Here are some questions you can answer.

What is the quirk?

How does it affect those around the character?  Do they love it, hate it, or are they indifferent to it?

How does it affect the character? Does he/she love it, hate it, or is she/he indifferent to it?

Can your character be rid of the quirk?

If so, how?

Take these questions, review your plot, and see if the quirk can become more than a quirk.

Hope this helped someone!

-Ashley