Better Characterization through Personal Hygiene
The fancy manicure, twenty minutes in
I’ve been shredding my nails and it’s time to stop. One thing and another, I decided to glue on fake nails–give me some time to get out of the habit of picking at them and give my fingers a chance to heal.
It’s jarring catching a glimpse of this foreignness at the ends of my hands. I can’t pick at my fingertips any longer–but neither can I smear on lotion (it gets gunked under the long nail tips), open soda cans, or let my hands soak in water (the glue isn’t that great).
So I can’t wash dishes without rubber gloves (would that I could palm that task off on someone else) and I can hardly get the gloves on over my new talons. I can’t soak in a bath; I can’t knead dough. I can’t pick papers up off the floor. When I type, the nail tips clack on the keyboard (until I filed them down–that couldn’t stand). It’s easiest to grasp things with the pads of my fingers, tips (and fancy nails) curved away from the object. Whatever substance the fake nails are made of, polish gets chipped just as fast as on my real nails.
In short, there’s a raft of body language I’m learning, and all it cost was seven bucks at the the drugstore. That woman you see at the coffee shop with some affected way of picking up her change–how long are her nails?
What’s the fallout of a character’s appearance? If you can’t use your finger tips, how do you work with stacks of paper? (What jobs require agile hands?) If you can’t do anything that might scrape your nails, what can’t you do? If the manicure gets dinged, how do you react?
December 1st, 2011 at 11:20 am
Ann Marie,
Excellent points about learning a story’s character’s traits. Eye for detail often comes with personal experience, for recognition is what makes us *see*.
Good for you b.t.w. giving your fingertips some well deserved rest.
Can’t help but wonder: What do you do instead of shredding your nails now? Or is taking care of the fake ones enough?