Exploring Characters Exercise Answer

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  Posted by Donna B September 7, 2014 - Filed in Writing Help, Advice and Tips - #exploringcharacters  - 851 views
  
  For this exercise, http://literarysocial.com/blog/5/exploring-characters-part-1/ . This is a character sketch so to speak.
  
  1. Norma Jean was short in stature, but as feisty as they come. Her blond hair, blue eyes and ample bosom got her attention from a young age. She loved the attention from men, probably because she never got any from her fisherman daddy. He was away most of the time, and the few days of the year that he graced their presence, were spent more with the bottle than with his 8 children and over patient wife. Norma wasn't a true friend. She was more a frenemy. Sort of like having a scorpion for a pet. You may think you've tamed it and gotten the wild out of it but if you turn your head away, it'll sting you soon enough.
  
  Norma could be a caring soul but she peppered it with animosity and treachery. If she knew there was a possession you treasured, well, she treasured it more and would purloin it. She had a mean streak in her too. More often then not, she would get her evil cousin to threaten to beat you up for no reason other than to stir trouble. She was a hard, hard person to love. I guess she had to be though, given the way she was raised and the lack of much emotional support from her family. It comes as no surprise that she turned to prostitution in her early teens.
  
  2. Old Mr. Ringle hated. That's it. He hated. He hated cats, kids, neighborhood celebrations, neighbors and any act of kindness towards him. He even hated Girl Scouts. He was a crotchety old man with a balding head, baggy pants, a sweater/cardigan worn year round and a frown that perpetually graced his wrinkled face. He hated cats so much that he would put out cat food laced with poison. He got in trouble one year when it poisoned a neighbor's dog - said neighbor being a member of the police force.
  
  You couldn't do any kind deed for Mr. Ringle that didn't go unpunished. I never saw him smile, laugh or do a kind deed for anyone.
  
  3. Call her the babysitter from hell. Long, black hair that was either not combed or was so wild with curls that it just looked unkempt. Tanya was a hippie sort of teen. She wore loud clothes, partied and liked to listen to loud rock music. She also loved to have friends over when she babysat. She was particularly cruel to the children she was entrusted to take care of. One incident involved pouring some ketchup on her friend, having them lie down on the floor and then calling the child downstairs. Once the child saw the friend on the floor, supposedly dead, Tanya would run out with a knife in her hand and chase the kid up the stairs, screaming wildly as though she were mad. Yeah, a fun sort of gal. She also had an eye for expensive stuff, much of which disappeared during her watch. The liquor also either disappeared or was watered down as she enjoyed that too.
  
  In her later days, she roamed the streets as unkempt as ever, on her one leg that was left.
  
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