As a reader I get frustrated when a character does something that makes her life harder. Why can’t she just tell him how she feels? Why didn’t he feel the door for heat before opening it to a ball of flame? As a writer I know the answer is to create the tension that make a story interesting to read.
Whether I like it or not there is a big part of me in every character I write, especially the protagonists. I have a continual battle with myself to make those people focus more on their tasks than on the practical concerns that make up most of our lives. One of the gripes I read about the Harry Potter books was the lack of personal hygiene. For instance, did Hagrid have a bathroom attached to his hut? It is portrayed as one room only. Did he use a chamber pot or walk all the way up to the castle when the need struck? Where do the students bathe? There are scenes in bathrooms, but we never see Harry and Ron brushing their teeth. To diehard fans these are real issues, but most of us forgive the omission of daily tasks in lieu of a fast-paced story.
Image from Amazon.com
The best series I’ve read that manages to do both are the Kinsey Millhone books by Sue Grafton (A is for Alibi, etc.). As a female private detective, Kinsey runs her own business, including paying bills and writing reports for clients, grocery shops, cleans house, and even brushes her teeth during the course of her investigations. At first I thought this was frivolous exposition, but as I read and got to know the character I realized how important those little things are to understanding her world. This character cleans when she is stressed, as many people do. She exercises every morning, and for her job that is very important. It’s all bits and pieces of what makes the stories believable.
Do I need to see every character brushing their teeth, though? As much as some people would love to see Mr. Darcy in the shower, I certainly don’t need to see him clipping his toenails. And for him to keep his mystique it is much better to know very little about his personal habits. So it’s a balancing act where you need to give enough detail to draw the reader in, but not so much that you push them away. And to bring it back to where I started, there has to be tension. Unless there’s a murderer hiding under your sink or you have severe gingivitis, brushing teeth is not a stressful activity.
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