DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've just been working on a fun little Get To Know the Author post for our JRW friend Dru Ann Love's Dru's Book Musings (which will post May 18th, so keep an eye out!) One of the questions was, "What's the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?"
Well, this one stumped me. I couldn't think of a single thing. My characters have "traits," I suppose, physical details that we identify with them. Duncan is tall and has a habit of running a hand through his hair when he's thinking, but that's not really a quirk, is it? In the earlier books he drives an old rattletrap MG Midget, which he loves, but that's a thing, unless driving an old car is a quirk?
Gemma loves her piano and her Clarice Cliff teapot, but those are personal preferences. (And who has time for quirks with three kids AND a demanding job??)
Doug pushes his round wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose. Melody has a thing for cherry-red coats. I'm not seeing any real Sherlockian eccentricities here; no pipe smoking or ten percent solution or deerstalker hats (although I'm not sure which, if any, of these actually appear in the canon.) There are no Poirot-mustaches, no Wolfe-ian orchid growing, no only-a-toothbrush Reacherisms in my books.
It did occur to me that I have created a possibly quirky character in the book in progress, and also that we haven't yet had a snippet from Duncan's point of view. Here, we have our first glimpse of the Kincaid/James's new nanny:
It was nearly noon by the time Duncan
Kincaid had a moment to follow through on Gemma’s request, Monday mornings
being what they were in the CID room in Holborn Police Station. But when he’d
worked through the weekend’s case log with the team, he slipped into his office
and pulled up Bodie Murphy’s text thread on his mobile.
Gemma tied up at work, may be
late, he typed. I should get home, but can you hold the fort just
in case?
Their new nanny had been
recommended to them by their friend Destiny Howard, who worked in Wardrobe at
the Royal Opera in Covent Garden. Bodie worked in costume as well, but she was
freelance and floated between the opera companies and West End theatres. She’d
needed to supplement her income, and unless she was working a performance,
could usually manage to adjust her schedule to the children’s out of school
hours.
“Don’t be put off by the, um,
look,” Destiny had said before they’d interviewed Bodie. “She’s a love and very
dependable. And mum likes her. She’s helped out with the costumes for
Carnival.”
Praise from Betty Howard was the
gold standard in the Kincaid/James household. Betty’s son Wesley had helped out
with the children since they’d first moved to Notting Hill, but Wes was busy
with his own life these days, finishing a business course at college and doing
freelance photography.
The artistic gifts ran in the
family. Betty Howard, a talented seamstress who could turn her needle to
anything from millenary to soft furnishings, had for many years made stunning costumes
for Notting Hill Carnival. If Bodie Murphy’s work had been up to her standards,
it was indeed quite the compliment.
Kincaid had been glad of
Destiny’s forewarning, however, when Bodie Murphy had rung the bell of their
Notting Hill house a few days later. The young woman on their doorstep had
short, bright blue hair, milk-pale skin, and multiple piercings in her ears,
eyebrows, and nose. She wore a black hoodie over a black mini-skirt, fishnet
tights, and Doc Marten’s.
But when she’d held out her hand
and said, “Hi, I’m Bodie,” her round face splitting into a beaming smile,
Kincaid had been instantly charmed—as had Gemma and, more importantly, the
children.
So, maybe Bodie is a little quirky, at least in her sartorial choices.
Readers, how do you feel about quirks? How would you define them? And do you have favorite quirky characters? Am I missing the boat by NOT giving my characters obvious quirks?
