Character Description: Smoke Break

Anti-Wife wrote out some great notes and example of character description. I've been having a mind block on one of my characters lately. I'm writing a jumble of experiences (loose and fictional) and trying thread a homeless person in and out of the book. So I thought I'd give her exercise a try -

Assignment - Write the description of 2 characters with potential for conflict, include internal and external traits. (Maximum 250 words each)


1st Character:
Waxie Peters had a home once. In the heart of Watts, it was styled Chicago gray with a flower garden carefully trimmed. Black proud with a husband and two sons. But when Jimmy was killed on the job, most of her died too. Her sons married, she became discarded trash. She wandered to the streets one day and somehow never turned back. Her life became no better than the heroin needles that killed her mother. So much for conquering – she had become the ghosts of her past. She didn’t even know where she was most days let alone find her way back.

Haunted, she was 73 by calendar but emotionally past 80. She had no idea where to find her sons. She was ready to die. Her mind played tricks, she heard voices of her mother telling her what a stupid bitch she was, and of a little girl begging for forgiveness. She couldn’t help talking back - sometimes crazy loud, other times in fits of tears. People offered her quarters. “I’m not one for pride,” she said. She took what she needed.

Yet she had her pride. The first of the month, she’d cash her SSI and painted her nails red. She made sure her bright golden wig was placed on straight. Her rough brown skin was always made up. But she couldn’t hide the jaundice in her eyes and deep wrinkles carved on her face. They told a story that she wouldn’t admit. Of a life alone.

2nd Character:
Berlin Symes was no beginner. Even though her long blond hair and smooth lavendar skin made her look no older than 18, she was actually mid-thirty and been licensed as a Shrink for a good seven years. True she was yet to be a mother, but her maternal instincts were regularly exercised on two cats, a fiancé and a psych ward of patients. Twenty-two patients to be exact. And Berlin was nothing but exact. Deliberate in movement, she stayed in control. Her voice was level, her presence soft, but she’d cross her T’s and dot her I’s before you could notice otherwise. It was her vaccination for the chaos she had lived as a child. There hadn’t been much order in the house of seven and the casserole-baking-no-boundary community she had finally escaped from.

She barely needed glasses to read, but she wore them anyways, covering her hazel eyes. She had a natural beauty, wore just the faintest touch of makeup, modest clothes and her blouse carefully pressed. She could be intimidating – she kept peers at a distance, but opened her heart for her patients. It might have been the shyness she had carried with her since she was 5 - despite her accomplishments, she felt out of place, like no one could really understand her. Maybe that’s why she drove herself so hard.

Any suggestions or critique are most welcome.....