Personality Quirks: P is for Pyromania

Pyromania is a mental illness characterized by an obsessive desire or irresistible impulse to start fires. Pyromaniacs are not arsonists. An arsonist deliberately sets fires for personal, monetary, or political gain. For the pyromaniac, setting fires either relieves tension and/or provides instant gratification.

Famous pyromaniacs include:

Agneta Isborn Lind—a leading Thought Terrorist who conducts Fahrenheit 451 operations;

John “Pillow Pyro” Orr—an arson investigator who started about 2000 fires;

David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz—terrorized NYC, but his love of setting 1411 fires led to his capture; and, sadly, many, many more pyromaniacs.

This mental illness, unlike many others, always leads to property destruction and often to deaths. The seriousness of this illness is impossible to overstate.

Pryromania comes to us from the Greek pur  ‘fire’ + mainesthai ‘be mad’ (madness).

Your pyromania character might be the nice guy next door who is always helping out. A series of fires in the neighborhood, thought to be started by unruly teens, finds him always there first, risking life and limb to save neighbors’ property. He always knows where the hydrant is, the water valves, the ladders, and so on. He even can figure out how the fires were started, since he has a signature pyromania technique like John Orr above. Who figures out his pyromania? His wife? His teenage daughter? His best friend? Or does he experience remorse and confess when an elderly neighbor dies in one of his fires?

Another pyromaniac could be a serial fire starter who is mad at City Hall or government in general and wants to destroy public facilities. Heesh might escalate the fires from those set on the lawn to burning down buildings. What events could trigger the pyromaniac to take action in this way? Who could figure it out? Is there a reporter who notices that the same person is in every photo taken at a fire scene? Does the pyromaniac realize heesh is about to be unmasked and so burns the reporter’s condo in retaliation?

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Personality Quirks: O is for Obsequious

One might think of sycophant when regarding an obsequious character. But that might not be the case. A sycophant acts subserviently to gain advantage from influential people. All sycophants are obsequious, but not all obsequious characters are sycophants.

An obsequious person is characterized by an excessive obedient or servile demeanor. Heesh is attempting to win sympathy but does it in an unhealthy way, lacking sincerity and spontaneity. It is opportunism run amok. Often, too, once the person has gained the objective of the obsequiousness, the character may no longer fake politeness or frlendliness. Or get fed up with the role played, and tell off those previously courted.

Etymologically, obsequious come from Latin obsequiosus meaning ‘compliance’.

Your obsequious character might be a sister-in-law who drives everyone crazy because she is always apologizing, even when an apology is unnecessary. She is always doing things for others, even when they don’t ask for, need, or even want her help. You might have a big confrontation when the relatives show her tape made of her pathetic obsequious behavior and point out why she annoys them acting like she does. How does she take that? What does she do and say?

At work, you might show an obsequious character who is always taken advantage of by others. A lovable loser kind of person who wants so desperately to be liked that heesh will tolerate absurdities and demeaning behaviors imposed by others. Does this character finally realize heesh has had enough? How far will heesh go in attempting to reclaim shis feelings of self-worth? Maybe tell off the boss and co-workers before resigning? Or is heesh pushed to the edge, and one day brings a gun to work to settle grievances?

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Personality Quirks: Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissism has been been tossed around a lot in the last election cycle as some wonder if this condition has now reached our highest office. I’m no psychologist, nor do I suspect that reputable psychologist/psychiatrists would engage in armchair diagnosis. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a serious condition best left to the professionals. But as writers, we have none of those strictures, at least as long as we take care to do our research in order accurately to portray narcissistic characters in our work.

The definition of one with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (we’ll shorten to narcissism for this post) is extreme self-centeredness, vanity, and selfishness. The narcissist has a grandiose view of shis own talents, maybe even an erotic interest in shimself and shis personal appearance. Heesh craves and seeks admiration in an enduring pattern of behaviors. The narcissist cannot admit to fault either because heesh doesn’t recognize being at fault or because to admit fault would be to crack the façade of created perfection.

Narcissism, of course, comes to us from the eponymous Greek character who fell in love with his perfect reflection in a pool of water, not realizing it was himself.

Scenarios for your narcissistic character might include a model or an actor who has made it on looks alone but who values shimself unrealistically for non-existent talents. When the looks go, so do the jobs, but the narcissist character can’t accept the new reality and so exhibits more bizarre and outrageous behaviors in attempts to be back on top.

Or maybe you write a narcissistic character who forms a cultish religion and takes shis flock to a remote area where heesh can become a god (Jim Jones style) to shis followers, attracting more and more people to the supposed utopian lifestyle. Such situations rarely end well for the demagogue because heesh is so out of touch with reality. Does your character end up in a suicide-murder situation? Or do authorities storm the compound to protect children?

Or maybe you write a narcissistic character who becomes, against all expected odds, President of the United States.

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Personality Quirks: M is for Metagrobolize

A multitude of M traits. A plethora of possibilities. Veritable riches. What to choose? What to choose? Metagrobolized is being puzzled or mystified, confounded and is often used in a humorous sense.

The word comes to us through Middle French from the Greek for ‘vain’ and Latin for ‘to sift, examine closely.’ 

A metagrobolized character might be the comic relief in your novel. The perpetually confused older neighbor who makes the neighbors laugh with shis crazy antics as heesh tries to make sense of shis world by trying to figure out things in the wrong way.

Or possibly, your character might be a ditzy woman who is more body than brain and thus often taken advantage of. I’d play that one serious, and show how the world too often is unkind to those working with less natural intellect. Show her redeeming herself by revealing other talents people didn’t realize she had because all they saw was the metagrobolization of her character.

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Personality Quirks: L is for Lacunar Amnesia

A lacuna is an unfilled space or interval. There might be a lacuna in the historical record, or one’s diary, so that events during that time are lost and unretrievable. In lacunar amnesia, there is loss of memory of one specific event that happens in the cortex region where memories are stored.

The lacunar amnesia is often caused by physical damage to the cortex or by psychologic factors, and can be triggered in several ways. Injury, disease, and alcoholism can cause physical damage to the cortex. Psychologic factors for memory loss may result from situations that are too painful to remember. Memories are repressed and retained only in the subconscious mind.

Etymologically, lacunar comes to us from Latin lacus, ‘pool, lake’ and from Greek amnesia, ‘forgetfulness.’

Perhaps your lacunar amnesiac character was in a car accident in which someone died. Did heesh cause the accident or was heesh a victim, too? After coming out of a concussion (or drunken fugue state), the character is charged with vehicular homicide and sets out to recover shis memories in order to prove heesh was not responsible.

 

Or your character might be the key to solving a crime, but heesh can’t remember anything beyond a certain point. The lacunar amnesiac might be a child who witnessed shis mother being killed or it might be a woman lying on the floor during a bank robbery who is the only one left alive. Lacunar amnesia resulted from the observation of shocking and unacceptable situations. Does hypnosis help unlock the unconscious? If so, perhaps one of the investigators doesn’t want the memory unlocked and tries to interfere or discredit the recovered memory.

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Personality Quirks: K is for Kleptomania

Kleptomania is a recurring urge to steal or it’s the failure to resist urges to steal. Most often the kleptomaniac steals items with little value and that they heesh doesn’t need. What the kleptomaniac needs is to steal items.

Kleptomania is a serious psychological disorder resulting from an impulse control disorder. Some impulse control disorders are emotional and some are physical self-control issues. Even when the kleptomaniac realizes heesh has the disorder, heesh has trouble resisting temptation. Even when heesh realizes the kleptomania is causing distress or harm to others, heesh has trouble stopping or can’t stop the thefts.

Many kleptomaniacs are ashamed and fear being outed so they won’t seek treatment for the condition. Treatment can’t cure kleptomania but a combination of talk therapy and drugs may help control the compulsion to steal.

Kleptomania comes to us from the Greek kleptes ‘thief’ + mainesthai ‘be mad’ (madness).

Imagine with me some scenarios for developing kleptomania characters in your stories.

What if a bride-to-be realizes, after many puzzling disappearances of small items, that someone is stealing from her, that she is not just misplacing items. She sets up a nanny cam for her bedroom in order to entrap the thief. When the film captures her prospective mother-in-law she wrestles with the information? Does her fiancé know about his mother? What will be his reaction when she shows him the footage? Are her family in denial? Does the bride call off the wedding, or does the groom, after the revelations with no attempt to get his mother treatment?

Or perhaps your villain could be a kleptomaniac whose kleptomania is the undoing of the criminal. Perhaps the kleptomaniac is a killer who identifies victims because of wanting something those people possess. Heesh might find shimself killing others to add to the thrill of stealing. A clever detective figures out the something missing is a clue to the perpetrator.

What if you have a kleptomaniac detective who can’t resist stealing small things from crime scenes being investigated. And what if that detective realizes that one item stolen is the key to unraveling a murder. Does heesh come forward with it, face the consequences, and solve the murder? Does heesh continue to conceal shis theft but work on the side to solve the murder and conceal shis kleptomania?

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Personality Quirks: J is for Jocund

Are you a writer looking for some interesting personality traits and quirks to create characters? Or maybe you’re a logophile, someone who loves words, and wants to collect more of them. Either way, you’ve come to the right place.

Slim pickings for personality quirks beginning with J. While there was an embarrassment of riches for the H, J had only two that I could find. So I picked one of them.

Your jocund character is defined by jokes and good humor. Someone who is cheerful and lighthearted. Yes, you are right. Jocund is related to jocular and joke. We all have one in our family. Perhaps Uncle Pete is always telling jokes and pulling pranks. Or maybe Aunt Mabel just has the sweetest disposition and the kindest words for everyone.

Jocund comes to us from Latin juvare “to delight” via Old French.

I can imagine a couple of scenarios for a jocund character.

What if Aunt Mabel were targeted by a phone scammer? She wouldn’t believe anyone would actually lie to her and try to get her money. She might make excuses for the scammer, even try to help shim become a better person once she admitted heesh had flaws. Would she convert the scammer? Or would she be crushed, her jocund attitude shattered that she had so misread another person and on top of that, now be broke?

On the other hand, Uncle Pete could be hiding his mental illness behind a jocund exterior. Many comedians suffer from manic-depressive disorder. Perhaps Uncle Pete has a very dark side at odds with his jocund side. Do his depressive episodes deteriorate into violence against himself or others?

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