50 Unique and Fun Habits and Quirks for your Character

Characters are the heart of our stories and books. One of the most important tasks for a writer is to create convincing and unique characters your readers will love. A flat and boring character may result in readers not wanting to finish your book! Horrifying, right? Well, luckily it isn't that hard to craft engaging characters. Find out the different steps I take to create my characters.

In this post I will focus on the quirks and habits that add a little more personality to your characters. Here are 50 unique and fun quirks and habits your character might have.

Before we start:

Keep in mind to not use too many of these ideas for one single character. That might result in the character feeling unnatural, instead of adding personality to them. Also: if you pick a habit/ quirk, make sure to be consistent with it! Your character won't suddenly lose a habit if they previously did it a lot (except if they are actively trying to get rid of it, but even then they might fall back on it at some point in your book: e.g. a character who stopped chewing on their nails, but will maybe do it again during a particularly stressful situation). Also: not all of these habits are positive ones. It's also not necessary that every other character in your book sees these things as positive. So play around a little bit and have fun!

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Here is the list, happy writing!

1. Biting their nails

2. Being late most of the time

3. Bouncing their legs up and down

4. Drawing random things on paper while they try to concentrate

5. Rambling about random things when nervous

6. Playing with their hair

7. Avoiding eye contact when speaking

8. “Fun fact: did you know…“

9. Manages to include history knowledge in every single conversation

10. Adjusting their glasses a lot (even when not wearing them)

11. Biting their lips

12. They are always cold/ too hot

13. Daydreams most of the time

14. Never leaves the house without their noise cancelling headphones

15. Rarely sleeps, probably lives off of 3 hours of sleep per night (at most)

16. Can't function without a nap. Their naps are sacred to them (also: don't wake them up!)

17. Is unusually good at navigating through unfamiliar places

18. Talks too fast

19. Talks too loud

20. Walks around without a jacket, even though it is cold outside, because it would “ruin the aesthetic“

21. Talking to themselves

22. Extremely confident, but always gets shy when others compliment them

23. They reward themselves with good food/ comfort food whenever they successfully finished something they were anxious about (e.g. important presentation, exams, etc.)

24. They plan every single minute during their day and get anxious if something changes

25. They are really superstitious

26. They are obsessed with everything that is cute (plushies, animals, etc.)

27. They don't talk too much, but whenever they decide to speak they say the most mind-blowing things

28. They rub their wrists together to soothe themselves

29. They give nicknames to everyone, and some are really weird/ ridiculous

30. Taking pictures of others is lowkey their love language. They have thousand of pictures and videos of their friends and loved ones doing random things

31. They have a nighttime routine which has to be followed extremely strictly, because otherwise they cannot fall asleep at all

32. They are weirdly obsessed with cups for some reason

33. They have to take medicine daily, but they often forget to take it, so suddenly a week has passed and they didn't take their medicine

34. They can eat the same food for weeks or months without getting bored of it

35. Always wears mismatches socks, because they simply don't care (or they think it's funny/cute)

36. They always scream “A baby!“ whenever they see a dog or cat.

37. They are anxious about everything, but they are also really good at masking it. So if you are not a close friend, you wouldn't be able to tell

38. They don't really like children, but children love them for some reason

39. They don't understand sarcasm at all

40. They have emotional zoomies in which they are so overwhelmed with their love for their loved ones that they end up hugging all of them and telling them a hundred times how much they love them, or they start an extremely heartfelt confession

41. They quote random TV Shows/ Memes/ Books/ Songs, etc.

42. Clumsy

43. They are really competitive

44. They dye their hair whenever something happens in their life (can be positive or negative)

45. If they have an important exam, they will simply wait until the day before to study, and then complain that they are so stressed

46. They lose focus and interest in projects and plans easily

47. They are easily irritable

48. Accidentally starving themselves all day, because they just forget to eat (especially when busy)

49. Loves gossip and knows everything about everyone

50. They plan with their hair a lot (wrapping it around finger, tucking behind their ears, chewing on it, etc.)

I hope this list inspired you to give your characters some of these habits and quirks! Also check out my other posts and follow me on Pinterest for more content related to writing and world building. Also check out my Benable profile for recommendations all around writing and reading!

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