The Power of Second Impressions
By Keith Cronin | November 15, 2021 |
I was raised in a central Illinois town of about 90,000 people. I realized as a child that A) I wanted to be an artist (specifically, a rock n’ roll drummer), and B) the Midwest was NOT the place where that would likely happen. So I planned from an early age to leave skid marks behind me the very second I was able to achieve escape velocity.
I have an older brother, who was also not a big fan of the region. He ended up working in Seattle for an up-and-coming software firm called Microsoft, around the same time I started making Florida my home. If you look at the US map, the two of us couldn’t have positioned ourselves much further apart, a pretty telling reflection of our own personal dynamic when we were children. To be fair, we reached a state of détente in our early twenties, and later learned to genuinely enjoy each other’s company – admittedly in very small increments. We continued to live 3,000 miles away from each other for many years, getting together every few years to share our current stage of extended adolescence with each other. My brother eventually relocated to Arizona, bringing us slightly closer, while I remained stubbornly ensconced in the Sunshine State, other than a two-year stint in Los Angeles in the early ’90s.
As our childhood acrimony faded, we found ourselves drawn closer together, in particular upon the occasions of the death of our parents: first our father, when we were both in our early twenties, and then again when our mother died during our forties. We came to look forward to our occasional visits with each other, and were surprised to realize we were both feeling a growing sense of nostalgia for the places that had defined our childhood.
One of these was a tiny town in central Iowa where our mother had grown up, which had been the site of an annual family pilgrimage during the Viet Nam War era. My parents would load my brother and me into our well-worn Ford station wagon, and make the seemingly endless northwestern slog across some of the dullest landscape in the country, all to spend a few excruciatingly boring days visiting our grandparents in what was certainly The Dullest Town In The World. My brother and I dreaded these trips, and, I’ll confess, did little to make them any easier on our parents.
Fast-forward 40-some years, and my brother was suddenly pitching the idea of us getting together for a family reunion of sorts in that tiny Iowa town. Apparently he had swallowed a few more nostalgia pills than I had, but he was not to be denied, and I soon found myself reluctantly booking a not-very-direct flight to the Iowa airport that could get me closest to that tiny burg – which was not very close at all. I rented a car at the Des Moines aiport, and then headed north towards my final destination (no, the town I was visiting was not actually Pleasantville, but that 1963 photo at the top of this post is NOT retouched, and was too perfect not to use.)
Take me home, country roads
The drive ended up being surprisingly pleasant (see what I did there?), as it took me directly through a sizable wind farm. In my extensive travels over the years, I’ve marveled repeatedly at the towering, minimalist windmills of the San Gorgonio Pass outside of Palm Springs, California, but could only view them from a distance. The two-lane Iowa road I was on took me directly past some of these futuristic-looking devices, quietly looming over me in a way that inspired a certain reverence. (Note: This was a year or two before a certain ex-president made us aware of the dangers of “windmill cancer,” a malady from which I seem to have miraculously escaped.)
My brother and his family arrived separately, and we reunited with a beloved aunt who had made the trek from Nebraska to join us in this trip down memory lane. In what simply had to be a coincidence (my brother is NOT a good travel-planner), our arrival in Not-Quite-Pleasantville coincided with some annual summer festival, and we were treated to an almost painfully wholesome small-town event right out of an episode of Gilmore Girls. Charming and quaint, the town and its people seemed frozen in time, although I was pleased to notice some black and brown faces, in what had been an entirely white town just a few decades earlier.
Hail to the Queen
The next day is a Sunday, and we learn that nearly all of the handful of local restaurants are closed, so we go to what is essentially the only game in town: a bar/restaurant with an outdoor area for playing Cornhole (a beanbag-tossing game whose name I’d rather not know the source of).
We settle into a booth large enough to accommodate our party of four adults, two small boys and two Godzilla action figures, because A) I always travel with at least one Godzilla action figure, and B) I have determined that these two boys’ woeful ignorance of Godzilla lore creates a moral imperative for me to give them my own Godzilla figures, to fill the void they have no doubt been feeling in their own lives. That’s just the kind of sacrifice you learn to make when you’re a guy like me. The Godzillas are a hit, and soon they are stomping triumphantly across the table, in a land where no salt shaker or ketchup bottle is safe.
Plates of fried food begin arriving (it is seriously hard to eat healthy in small-town Iowa, I’m here to tell you), and the Godzillas are briefly set aside to allow us to focus on our nutritional needs.
That’s when I see her. Standing at the bar, leaning over to place her order, is the most attractive woman I’ve seen since arriving in this state.
Clad simply in jeans and a t-shirt, she is probably in her early 30s, and has that annoyingly effortless beauty with which only an anointed few are blessed, requiring no flashy clothes or elaborate makeup. Making her even more attractive is how clearly comfortable she is in her own skin, exuding an easy self-confidence that is engaging rather than haughty. The bartender’s face lights up as he speaks to her, as do the faces of others sitting at the bar, with whom she chats cheerfully. This is clearly an Alpha Female, likely one of the most popular women in this tiny town, graciously making the rounds among her admiring subjects.
A musician I’ve worked with for many years had a name for this. “Queen of the Pub” was his title for the woman who couldn’t help but know she was the most beautiful person in the room. His phrase wasn’t necessarily meant as a put-down. While some pub queens were clearly snooty and entitled, the simple reality is that beauty serves as a universal backstage pass to parts of the world most people are never given access to, and those who are blessed (or cursed) with it can’t help but be aware of its power. Whether they use that power for good or otherwise is up to them. This woman seems to be doing the former, and I find myself wondering what it must be like to be the town beauty in a community so small that literally everybody knows everybody else.
I notice that she is buying two drinks, so I’m interested in who the other recipient might be. The King of the Pub, perhaps? To my surprise, she takes the drinks to a table and presents them to two small children, who are clearly delighted with her delivery, and the three begin excitedly perusing their menus, planning their shared culinary adventure. I’ll confess that seeing her interacting with her kids makes her even more attractive – at least to a father like me.
Eventually a man joins them at the table. The kids seem thrilled to see him, and everybody at the table is all smiles – having a fun Sunday afternoon in what is apparently the town’s lone hot spot. He’s a decent-looking guy her age, but doesn’t exude anywhere near the same almost visible glow that surrounds her. Dude is definitely punching above his weight, I think, none too generously, and I turn my attention back to our meals and the Godzillas who steadfastly guard them.
After a while, I look back to their table, and notice that the man is now gone. So are the kids. But she’s still there, alone at her table, nursing a beer and chatting with other locals who stop by to greet her. And I start to fill in the blanks, realizing I have been watching a divorced couple handing off their kids from one parent to the other. As a father who shared custody with my ex, I’ve seen the transaction take place enough times to recognize it.
Duty calls, as I am being asked by my brother’s children to clarify some historical point regarding the somewhat convoluted lineage of the various iterations of Godzilla, and the next time I look over at the woman’s table, she is gone.
When we finally file out of the restaurant, I see the woman one last time. She is sitting alone in a pickup truck parked across the street, looking visibly haggard and dragging furiously on a cigarette while she speaks to somebody on her cellphone. Clearly this all-smiles encounter has taken far more out of her than one might have expected. And for the first time, I become aware that this “queen” might not be living a charmed life – or for that matter, a life any more easy than the rest of us. Which leads me to the point of this post…
First impressions are powerful. But so are second impressions.
My point is not simply that first impressions can mislead us. Maybe they do; maybe they don’t. But it’s very rare that they give us the entire picture of a person. Yet we still tend to mentally fill in that picture on our own, quickly drawing conclusions and making snap judgments that might be right on the money – or badly off-target. So my suggestion is that we take advantage of this as writers.
In many novels, the main characters are revealed to the reader gradually, allowing them to incrementally develop their own mental images and opinions about those characters as they delve deeper into the book. That’s a solid model, and provides an admittedly familiar path for readers to follow.
But I wonder how well it reflects reality.
I know it’s not considered nice to be judgy (or is it judgey? – it’s a word I still haven’t figured out the proper way to spell), but I think it’s safe to say that many of us put a lot of weight on first impressions, and almost can’t help but come up with some very quick assessments of the people we encounter in real life.
As seen on TV
TV and film leverage this tendency to great effect. Think about it: When watching movies or TV shows, it’s often easy to immediately like or hate a character, sometimes based just on how they look, or the sound of their voice. To be fair, that’s kind of a storytelling imperative in that medium, since the writer only has two hours or fewer to get you invested in those characters. And because they are both visual media, there is often a LOT of emphasis on how a character looks, and/or their general vibe. When you see Dabney Coleman make an entrance, you know within seconds he’s a bad guy. Ditto for John de Lancie, that annoying guy who plays Q in the Star Trek franchise (who is equally obnoxious in the Stargate franchise). In these instances, first impressions serve as storytelling shorthand, counting on the audience to make those snap judgments.
I submit that we often do the same in real life, perhaps with more frequency and speed than we’d like to admit. We form our initial opinions of many people quite quickly, and then we adjust and revise them as needed.
So I’m suggesting that we try to leverage that model a bit more in our writing. Instead of giving us a “blank slate” character that you slowly fill in for the reader– particularly an important character like your protagonist or antagonist – try giving us one that makes a powerful first impression. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. But give us something to react to, so that we are not just consuming information about the characters; we’re forming active opinions about them.
Then you can start showing us how right or wrong we were.
Can you put that in writing?
Sure you can. Show us enough of your characters that we draw some conclusions and develop some expectations about them, and then have them start, well, doing stuff – ideally stuff that impacts those expectations. Challenging them. Confirming them. Confounding them. The famous acting teacher Sanford Meisner preached that “character is behavior.” This seems like a good place to test-drive that assertion.
This can go a variety of directions:
- The first impression as a harbinger of the future: You’re given the correct impression of a person, laying a foundation that will be fleshed out further in the book. That’s okay, but a more interesting variation is listed next.
- The first impression you instinctively distrust: You’re introduced to somebody who either seems so annoyingly perfect, you want to hate them – but it turns out they are genuinely good after all (which could admittedly make you hate them even more, depending on how insecure you are). On the flipside, perhaps you’re warned in advance that a character is bad news, but you don’t want to write them off – I mean, they can’t really be that bad, can they? But then you find out that OMG, they really can.
- The powerful but clearly incomplete first impression: This is a great attention-attractor, where you present a character who makes a strong first impression, but leaves you wondering what made them that way. The titular character in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove is essentially a grumpy old man, but his grumpiness is both so quirky and so utterly specific that you’re curious to learn what made him this way – and there’s a big payoff for that curiosity. Similarly, in Matthew Quick’s The Silver Linings Playbook (a stunning example of a book that is exponentially better than its movie version), the main character is introduced to us as a mental patient preparing to leave a psychiatric hospital. While the first-person narrator is extremely open about his thoughts and feelings, it quickly becomes clear that he’s viewing the world through a badly distorted lens, and we are eager to understand what’s really going on outside of his head. Seriously, this is one of the best examples you will EVER see of the “unreliable narrator,” and I cannot recommend the book highly enough.
- First impression as a red herring: You’re led to believe this person is far different from who they really are. Maybe they’re straight, but seem gay. Maybe they seem confident, but deep inside they’re a hot mess. Maybe they’re evil, but they seem basically good – or vice versa. Mystery writers use this technique a lot as they create their cast of suspects, purposely making us form mistaken impressions.
Those are just a few possibilities – I’m sure you can come up with others. Think about some of the memorable first impressions people have made on you, and consider how you could weave something similar into your story.
A quick side note
I do want to add this one last point. Lest you find my attention to that Iowa “pub queen” a bit creepy, I can only cite Neil Gaiman’s excellent MasterClass series, in which he touts the value of going to public places and making up stories about the people he notices. I’ve always been an avid people-watcher and amateur sociologist, and spending many of my adult years on the road has given me reams of potential material to work with. And on this, my first return to this tiny Iowa town in nearly four decades, I was definitely in “eyes wide open” mode. That said, I chose not to spend any time describing her actual physical features, as they were not important. What was important was the effect she had on the room she was in, which was both palpable and undeniable. While I won’t claim my description was skillful, it was not inaccurate.
How about you?
What interesting experiences have you had with first – and second – impressions? When have you been VERY right? When have you gotten it all wrong? Have you applied these insights into your own storytelling? If so, please chime in and share your experiences.
Thanks for reading, and please stay safe. Oh, and watch out for windmills.
Author of the novels Me Again (originally published by Five Star/Gale), and Tony Partly Cloudy (published under his pen name Nick Rollins), Keith Cronin (he/him) is a corporate speechwriter and professional rock drummer who has performed and recorded with artists including Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, and Pat Travers. Keith’s fiction has appeared in Carve Magazine, Amarillo Bay, The Scruffy Dog Review, Zinos, and a University of Phoenix management course. A native of South Florida, Keith spends his free time serenading local ducks and alligators with his ukulele.
A story makes a first impression too and what I love about yours in this post is how my first impression of it was wrong. I thought we were on a sibling journey to some new place of brotherly love, but no. The story is really about the unexpected Queen of the Pub.
Didn’t see that coming but the tale, and the point, are so much better for the surprise. The great teller of aviation tales, Neville Shute, was good at this too. Excellent post, Keith, that reminds us that a story isn’t always a straight line and that the zag can be all the better for starting off as a zig. Loved this.
Wow – thanks, Donald. That means a lot to me!
(Now, of course, I need to act like that is what I meant to do all along, rather than being guilty of starting a post with a bunch of nostalgic throat-clearing before finally getting to my point.)
Yeah, that’s the ticket. I *totally* meant to do that!
Hey Keith–Sorry, but I feel contractually obligated to bring up the character that instantly sprang to mind while reading your marvelous essay. In my defense, he first appears in the common room of a public house (the Prancing Pony, in Bree–yep, Roycroft’s bringing up LOTR… Again). I think the book does a far better job than Jackson’s film in introducing us to “Strider.” I clearly recall eleven-year-old-me genuinely fearing for the hobbits upon their first encounter with Aragorn. And it didn’t become clear that he was an ally for quite a few pages–even a few chapters. Tolkien even had Strider make actual impatient threat when Sam interrogates him:
‘You might be a play-acting spy, for all I can see, trying to get us to go with you. You might have done in the real Strider and took his clothes. What have you to say to that?’
‘That you are a stout fellow,’ answered Strider; ‘but I am afraid my only answer to you, Sam Gamgee, is this. If I had killed the real Strider, I could kill you. And I should have killed you already without so much talk. If I was after the Ring, I could have it – NOW!’
He stood up, and seemed suddenly to grow taller. In his eyes gleamed a light, keen and commanding. Throwing back his cloak, he laid his hand on the hilt of a sword that had hung concealed by his side. They did not dare to move. Sam sat wide-mouthed staring at him dumbly….
Your essay reminded me of another common pub characterization in epic fantasy–that of the traveling bard/minstrel/singer. There are too many to mention, but they all have a superpower in common. They (seemingly) effortlessly captivate us with their storytelling. They get us to settle in, utterly sure that we are in for a delightful experience. There’s a comfort, an ability to get us smiling and nodding, then throw us surprises that make us laugh or gasp or even shed a tear. All while delivering us a powerful, often veiled and/or layered, and always useful underlying lesson.
On behalf of the geekish sub-community here at WU, I hereby nominate Keith Cronin as our Bard-For-Life. A placard will be hung behind the bar at the WU pub. We’re hoping you’ll supply an autographed headshot.
Thanks for reliably stopping by and delivering a worthy tale.
Wait, there’s a WU pub? Where? Password??
I’m with you, Donald.
I’ve been stumbling around WU for ten years just trying to find the damn bathroom, and now they tell me there’s a PUB?!?
Vaughan, thanks for such effusive praise. And for such a great example of the expectations a skilled author can create, both in us as readers, and in their other characters as well.
While I’m humbled and happy to accept a bardship (hey, it might be a word), I think it should be a portable honor, to be passed around among the many wonderful storytellers who populate this site.
But seriously, about this pub. Donald and I have questions. So many questions….
This went in my “save for later” file. Thank you, Keith! Your post is especially helpful for mystery writers. It’s fun to play around with a detective’s own tendency to judge–and judge wrongly.
Keith, I’m coming at this from a different angle. I moved from a life in Chicago and suburbs to–Iowa, actually Des Moines, and loved it! An excellent job change for my husband, and not a total environmental shock for my family, but yes, different. We engaged in everything that PLACE had to offer, a symphony, opera, and universities. It wasn’t Chicago, but it was easy to navigate. We lived just blocks from the Governors mansion. My point–that even when writing about PLACE, norms are broken, change should be present, stereo-typing falls flat. And from place can come our characters. I’m fascinated when reading about authors who don’t live in New York City. Their agents probably do! Thanks for taking me to a small town in Iowa. I know I’ve been there. And yes I have brothers, and they visited, one more than the other one. Sometimes a place speaks loudly to one’s needs in time. And the woman in the pub, she could live anywhere. Great post.
Ooh, Beth – you bring up such a great point.
While this post was in its early drafts, I’d intended to do a whole section on the impressions that PLACES make on us. It’s so easy to make assumptions about places, particularly based on initial impressions, but there’s almost always more going on than meets the eye – and this little town was no exception.
Sadly, my post was already reaching Melvillian lengths, so I had to cut that part, but I might resurrect it for a future post. Thanks for chiming in, and enjoy your Iowan life!
Keith, like you, we wander. We moved to California for seven years and now–wait for it–are back in Chicago. I miss California more than I miss Iowa, but each place has its wonders. Thanks, Beth
Keith has my vote, and in the spirit of Vaughn’s reply, I have to say that Strider popped straight into my head as well. But after him came Stepan Arkadyich (from Anna Karenina, which I started reading this morning). Within paragraphs, I wanted to smack ‘Stevi’ for his self-centered rationalizations regarding the wife he’d just betrayed. Then, a few pages later he cracked open and turned sympathetic. It was artful and I felt wonderfully manipulated by the author, all before finishing my first cup of Joe. Between that and this post, the day is off to an auspicious start.
Susan, thanks for both your vote and your feedback. And for what instantly became a new favorite phrase:
“wonderfully manipulated by the author”
Now THERE’s a reaction for us writers to strive for!
Keith, I just finished a debut Historical Fiction book and it’s in the final editing stage with an editor/proofreader. It starts out in a PLACE setting with a strong first impression of a character antagonist grandmother & protagonist granddaughter. I realized, from reading your post, that I did what you said we should do. The grandmother’s behavior gets worse. And you don’t see it coming. Neither does the granddaughter. Impressions change along the character arcs and story line. I liked your beginning post story. It made me think of the small Maine town I grew up in and how the people’s lives looked from the outside. Then, knowing their eye-opening skeletons in the closet changed the impression. While shopping in stores, people watching and making up their imaginative stories is a great pastime. Thanks, Keith. 📚📚 Christine
Just finished the first draft of my first novel on Saturday. On the list I started this morning of things I am excited to wallow in, is getting to know the characters well enough that they surprise me as I revise. I already have a crush on the unexpectedly good-looking a-hole of an older brother and I am uncomfortable about getting to know him better. I think this is a good thing.
My personal experience with first vs. second impressions was at a small pub with a stage. A world-famous blues musician I was dying to see graced our town with a concert. He enchanted us all with his humor and homey stage presence. He also announced that it was his birthday and there was no place he’d rather be. During a break between sets, I wound up in line behind him at the bar. When he turned around to walk back to the stage, I said, “Happy birthday and thank you for being here.” His face transformed into a glower and he snarled, “Back the f- – – off.” He mounted the stage and resumed his charming performance. Thirty years on, I can now admit to hot tears that I successfully fought off, but my ability to enjoy the rest of the show was compromised. That’s the kind of unexpectedness I want to write.
Katherine –
First of all, congratulations on finishing your novel’s first draft. That is a HUGE accomplishment!
Second, I am so sorry you went through that experience. From a lifetime spent in the performing arts, I’ve learned there’s a reason many artists refer to their live performance as their “act” – all too often, that’s what it is, rather than a clear reflection of the actual person. I’ve met some raging jerks over the years, many of whom have public reputations for being deeply spiritual beings who emanate inner peace. Yeah, not so much.
Here’s hoping you can harvest the surprise and hurt you felt into some wonderful “unexpectedness” in your own storytelling. Good luck!
Thank you, Keith! Had a good gripe about it at the time and moved on. The pain is in the event, suffering is in what we choose to do with the pain.
Wow, that’s a story. I might have walked out.
Keith, most summers for at least a decade my parents drove us whinging kids in a Ford wagon to my mother’s hometown, Belle Plaine, IA, which might be a smaller town than your reference. It did have a four-lane bowling alley, though, as well as many fireflies and my grandparents’ backyard, big enough to field full baseball teams and endless rows of corn.
I so rely on my first impressions of people to be wrong that on the rare occasions they are right, I am shocked. I loved how Ove developed in the book, going from tedious and almost stereotypical curmudgeon to acts of gruff kindness and loyalty. A guy like Holden Caulfield in Catcher rails against the phonies, but as the work develops, he too seems to argue his clean position too neatly. Eleanor in “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine” is almost scary in her social awkwardness and inappropriate declarations, but she becomes such a sympathetic character as the work develops.
Anyway, nice post. I would be happy to devise a cocktail (it would have to have a whiskey base) called “Queen of the Pub” when we all get the password.
You had me a “whiskey base,” Tom.
And wow, sounds like you and I had VERY similar experiences in Iowa. My destination was about 100 miles northwest of yours, but I suspect the two towns had much in common.
Keith, I enjoyed your story so very much; it was quite Chestertonian in its meandering. But this made me teary. “And I start to fill in the blanks, realizing I have been watching a divorced couple handing off their kids from one parent to the other. As a father who shared custody with my ex, I’ve seen the transaction take place enough times to recognize it.” You never know the sorrow people carry.
My sister and I used to play a similar game as you and your brother, making up stories while we people-watched. I still do and have told my bemused husband everybody does this. I enjoy being surprised very much and it’s a necessity when you write for little kids. I’m always thinking of how best to use that page-turn (esp. in picture books).
Thanks, Vijaya.
And now I must add Chestertonian to my vocabulary and begin using it when I can! :)
” You never know the sorrow people carry.”
So true, Vijaya! I think of this often as I try to learn to be more patient with the driver who cuts me off, the colleague who speaks sharply, the mechanic who makes things worse.
Some years ago, when I was living in Louisiana — in a small town — I was leaving a shopping center when a dog, a Border collie, jumped off the sidewalk in front of the Walmart and started to chase the car ahead of me. Two, three, four blocks — he raced alongside and from left to right bumper, barking urgently. Poor lost dog, I thought, and heartless people. Didn’t they see? Didn’t they care? The poor thing would have a heart attack in that summer heat.
After half a mile, the dog bolted across the street and flopped into the yard of a nearby house. The car then turned into the driveway of the same house. Two kids got out, swinging Walmart bags, and scratched and patted the happily panting collie. He wasn’t never lost — he was herding his people back to the fold.
Talk about wrong first impressions.
OMG, Christine – that story is utterly CLASSIC!
Love it!
Yeah, and it’s earned me a couple of bucks in essays and short stories.
Extremely helpful posting. And . . . I can’t get out of my mind the image of the Queen sitting in the car, pulling on a cigarette while engaged in a testy phone conversation.
Thanks, Daniel. And I’m with you: This happened more than five years ago, but the arc I watched that woman go through stays with me to this day.
Keith,
You had me hooked early because my debut featured best friends (a drummer and bass player) gigging’ gritty Seattle bars in a 90s cover band. I agree with praise already offered, but add what may be the highest of all.
I’m dying to know what’s up with Bar Queen. Who’s she talking to on the phone? She could be talking to a collection agency or a new love interest. Could it be some Hollywood casting agent? Could it be some academic offering an internship to study the Mariana Trench — a wanna-be marine biologist’s wet dream?
Did that ex-husband hold her back? Knock her up? When you last saw her sitting in her pickup truck, did you miss a suitcase in the back? Did she just hold court for the very last time? What about those kids? What would it be like to grow up in a small town when everyone knows your mom abandoned you for city lights or a deep-deep sea expedition? Will she return in 10 or 15 years only to find…
Also, love your voice and especially this: “I have determined that these two boys’ woeful ignorance of Godzilla lore creates a moral imperative for me to give them my own Godzilla figures, to fill the void they have no doubt been feeling in their own lives. THAT’S JUST THE KIND OF SACRIFICE YOU LEARN TO MAKE WHEN YOU’RE A GUY LIKE ME.”
And to the point of your essay. I love a villain who doesn’t realize they are the villain because this is almost always the case with humans. I need a “reasonable” antagonist and so, in this respect, your advice works perfectly.
Thanks for the kind words, Ina. And I’m glad to see I’m not the only one whose imagination runs wild when I see an intriguing person or an interesting situation unfolding.
But kudos on how much further you took this: I can honestly say, the whole marine biology angle did *not* occur to me during my observance of this particular Queen!
This is what they call beautifully written. And oh man, I identify with that pub queen, in more ways than one. My experience is in that car, waiting for the drop-off, and he is wayyy late and I’m fuming. And some poor, well-meaning guy leans in the car window and says “excuse me, ma’am, are you having car trouble, you look upset” and then I bite his head off. Like Godzilla, lol. Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey, there’s a headless guy still running circles around a certain rest stop.
I appreciate this post. I’m trying to play on readers in my WIP with two people raised by con artists, but they actually have nothing but good intentions. No one trusts them, because they act like con artists, because that’s the only language they speak. I’m hoping I can pull it off and the reader will realize first impressions aren’t always accurate.
Thank you for the post. And if there’s any chance of a pub for WU that Viggio, um Aragorn, might visit, I am there!
Thanks, Ada. And a hearty LOL at your origin story for the legendary headless man who to this day haunts the New Jersey Turnpike!
Love your children-of-con-artists scenario. The setup of being born into a life that brings with it a set of negative but unwarranted expectations is rich story fodder indeed. Good luck with it!
Sorry to be late to the show, Keith. Your return to home ground reminds me a bit of my own for my 50th HS reunion, which I wrote about here at WU a month or so ago. And I too was struck by how often my impressions of fellow students back then was spot on — and how often they weren’t. I love your distinct techniques for introducing characters and developing them from there. It’s almost a mini-plot course all in itself. I’m particularly fond of the strong but incomplete introduction — beginning with something bold, specific, and unique, making the reader wonder: What’s up with this person? And thanks for the tip about Silver Linings Playbook. I actually enjoyed the movie but can’t wait to find out how much it missed or got wrong!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. One thing I’m grateful for is the opportunity to chat with you and so many other lovely folks here. Some day, we may even get to meet again in TRW.
What a fun post. I loved reading about the evolution of your relationship with your brother (which I thought was going to more directly tie into the title of the post somehow haha) and then I loved reading about the scene with the family in the pub (which was a perfect illustration of your theme). Thanks for sharing these “short stories” of sorts with us!
Wow, Keith! Fantastic post. I was so taken with the story and your presentation of it that I almost missed the wise writing advice at the end. Now the story will help me remember your suggestions for how to play with the characters’ first impressions.