Mannerisms

Sometimes I feel like I carry part of all the people I've ever known well around with me. A vocabulary is a strange thing, seemingly like a parched sponge eager for water, we often pick up the mannerisms of those closest to us, and carry them with us, repeating them long after the person who originally used them has gone.

I see it in my brother and his friends all the time. A name, usually a fairly playfully nasty one, gets bestowed on my brother by my dad, and then, at a later date, hear one of my brother's friends repeating it yelling at a computer game. It's weird how those phrases get passed on to those around us.

I feel myself doing it too, especially with Mark and Hayley. Those people I speak to every day know my signature words and phrases, and I find myself picking up theirs. Sometimes I'll say something to someone and stop and think "wow, that was such a Mark thing to say". I believe the word "pro" in my vocabulary originates from Ben, the word "awesome" I attribute to Hayley, and the elongated "gayyyyyyy" is so obviously Mark's. But sometimes I find myself saying them, and "awesome" has become one of my own.

This talk brings me to thinking about the mannerisms of my characters. Each character needs to be believable, and so shouldn't they be given mannerisms too? I mean we give them habits, flaws, and items they can't do without, but dialogue is often the key to a believable character. And mannerisms are one of the keys to believable dialogue.

In a world where everyone soaks up each other's words, how can these characters not be like that? Perhaps you could even go as far as to argue that this mimicking is a key aspect of humanity.