Two Characters In Real Life

I had a great conversation with the hair stylist this morning. Sure, it was a chain-store haircut and I took the day off in order to do it, but I wasn't expecting to actually have a decent person talk to me.

A little back history: I usually go to Bud the Barber in Cheney, Washington but his place wasn't open. Bud the Barber is a unique guy; survivor of 14 throat cancer surgeries, still drinks whenever, about 70 years old, loves chasing women and cuts hair at $14, then gets the loose hair off you by using a shop vac hose. Yep, that's right, you get a hose sucking on your skull after he cuts your hair. And he's in Cheney, Washington sitting there on Main Street during most days except Sunday or Monday. Why he wasn't there today was disappointing but let's hope he wasn't going for surgery 15.

The hair stylist I spoke with had a funny manner about her. Everything was a rat-a-tat style that appeared as if she were operating a verbal machine gun. Then, I found that she was from the South (Georgia) but trying to cover her accent because "fellas-arounds-parts-here-ain't-got-no-tolerance-for-outsiders" or so I believe she said.

Notice how much character is in a little conversation. She built herself into a personality as much as Bud the Barber, but with less detail.

Bud is the type you see at the casino sports bar with a whiskey straight who tells you that while he uses a feeding tube to eat, he likes to drink and attempted to put beer in the hose and inject it into his system. Beer foamed up and he had the farts for two days after.

Now that is a character.

But the stylist is the type to tell you how she managed three haircut places at once, moved fellow stylists around if she didn't like them and favored others, but still said "customer-first" whenever there was a complaint. She had an employee yell at her and told the woman that "my seven-year-old knows timeout, if you want to keep your job, you're standing in the corner for the next ten minutes" and indeed said the woman did so. Imagine seeing a twenty-five year old get "timed-out" by her manager. I like it, but am sure it violated some stupid HR law.

And that is a character too.

There is a style, a grace to who each character is. They don't merely function, with no purpose. When you witness characters going through the plot without any quirk or personality, it tells me that the writer is using them as a crutch to push the story along. That's not good writing, and it's not great writing.

And if it's just good-enough writing, why do it?