Anyone can be nice, but sincerity is a gift.
I discovered this many years ago when I was a single. Too introverted to be the pick-up artist yet too horny not to try, I discovered a fool-proof method to start conversations with ladies: ask about their shoes.
I commented to a lady on the bus about her pink suede loafers, and got her phone number. I got a date when a woman spotted me staring at her shiny green heels. “Sorry, not to be rude,” I said, “but I couldn’t help but notice your shoes. They’re really cool.”
This comment was able to complete three objectives without coming off as craven. First, I got a response — always. Second, I was able to flatter them; noticing the shoes shows one’s attention to detail. Third, I got a boner. I mean telephone number.
And if I didn’t get phone numbers from all these women, I was able to gain their interest. But there was a caveat: I had to mean it. I really had to think they had cool shoes. Women can spot false flattery a mile away, at least in those of us who are not sociopaths.
If I were to ask some comely lass about her Nikes, she would think, “That pathetic horndog.” Or she would just say it. Wife certainly does.
You could also say that sincerity — footwear related or not — is an attractive feature in a man, because it shows genuine interest in the other person. You don’t have to fake it.
My pitiful advice on skirt-chasing is not without a lesson in the realm of writing, that activity for which millions of loyal readers tune in to this space twice weekly. Sincerity is one of the hardest thing for me to convey in my writing, and at its worst, characters come off as plot devices or stand-ins for emotion or symbols.
Nice shoe, babe
You have have sincerity in your characters to make them whole, to make them believable. Readers can smell half-assed attempts at sincerity better than that really, really, beautiful redhead who nearly slapped me on the “L” when I said I thought her shoes were interesting. (Perhaps I shouldn’t have called them “fuck me pumps.”)
One of the main characters in my novel, the narrator’s maternal grandfather, is a brilliant, deceitful, manic, petty, and downright evil tyrant who also happens to be one of the world’s greatest cotton traders and a bowling aficionado, the intersection of which fuels much of the book’s plot. My agent loves this character, who he calls “almost Biblical” (I took it as a compliment).
The easy part of the old codger are his tics and madness; with a few strokes, one can illustrate the grandfather’s insanity. You show him having a breakdown, or committing a particularly cruel act upon his issue, or paying retail for that suit that my Uncle Izzy on the Lower East Side could have gotten him for wholesale! It’s crazy to pay retail!
But the hard part, the stuff that makes me crazy, is creating a character sincere enough to be believable. The best characters have lives completely divorced from the page, independent of the person creating them. They laugh, they cry, they eat Sphincter McNuggets and spend long hours in the bathroom, etc. And that requires showing complete sides to characters, their good and bad, their tender and mean, their generous and avaricious.
You don’t have to be a lit major to understand what I’m talking about when I say that it’s about making characters three-dimensional. The classic example of a writer accused of “two-dimensional” characterization is Charles Dickens, though I would cut off my right one to write a book like “Great Expectations,” even if Magwitch and Miss Havisham are as flat as a coffee filter.
Writing outrageous characters is easy; writing complex ones is hard.
Worth a nut
I think that’s why you get dull, artless prose a la Raymond Carver or supercharged rocket fuel from someone like T. C. Boyle. Staking a middle ground means amping up the volume while keeping it below a level that will blow out the eardrums.
One of the few writing teachers I actually respect said to love all of your characters, even the ones readers hate. Which means I could never write a character based on myself.
Now I have to go back and write my latest effort, about a megamanical movie star belonging to a cult whose recent marriage produced a baby unseen by the world. Don’t say I lack imagination.
Also, I hope that every horndog who Googled “how to pick up women” and landed here appreciates what I’ve done for them. I feel bad for you. After all, if you rely upon Bookfraud for pick up tips, you must be a wee bit desperate.
Lovely post, Bookfraud. It’s true that a little sincerity goes a long way.
I heard a guy say once, “I can’t wear European shoes. I don’t want everyone to think I’m gay.”
Shoes = important, no matter the gender.
is this just your way of telling us you have a foot fetish??
Lovely post, Bookfraud. It’s true that a little sincerity goes a long way.
I heard a guy say once, “I can’t wear European shoes. I don’t want everyone to think I’m gay.”
Shoes = important, no matter the gender.
Lovely post, Bookfraud. It’s true that a little sincerity goes a long way.
I heard a guy say once, “I can’t wear European shoes. I don’t want everyone to think I’m gay.”
Shoes = important, no matter the gender.
is this just your way of telling us you have a foot fetish??
is this just your way of telling us you have a foot fetish??
Guys never looked at my feet.
My villain is sincere. He sincerely wants to kill people.
Hmmm… makes me think. I have a pair of low heeled ankle boots that I think are great (kitten heel, pointy, cheeta print… meow and I have gotten quite a few comments. Work with me here, but I think that the comments that shoes generate also tell you a whole lot about the people making them. One obese, bitter neighbor called them fuck me boots (now as an aside, she has told others that her husband does not want to get busy with her… maybe she needs the boots)or the creepy neighbor who proved my assessment by saying he’d love to look online for more shoes for me. Yuck. It’s a regular Peyton Place.
I digress, I’m sure you came off as a stable man with great taste in footwear. Oh, yes.
Guys never looked at my feet.
My villain is sincere. He sincerely wants to kill people.
Guys never looked at my feet.
My villain is sincere. He sincerely wants to kill people.
michele: this must have been before the days of the metrosexual. does anybody use that word now, metrosexual, or was it a fad?
le: the truth always comes out.
bernita: guys never looked at your feet because most of them are clueless — you can stare at a woman’s feet without fear of getting caught.
cheraldo: it’s the shoes, baby! the comments are pretty much out of the sexually repressed handbook. just as long as they meant it — they were sincere — i’m ok with it.
Hmmm… makes me think. I have a pair of low heeled ankle boots that I think are great (kitten heel, pointy, cheeta print… meow and I have gotten quite a few comments. Work with me here, but I think that the comments that shoes generate also tell you a whole lot about the people making them. One obese, bitter neighbor called them fuck me boots (now as an aside, she has told others that her husband does not want to get busy with her… maybe she needs the boots)or the creepy neighbor who proved my assessment by saying he’d love to look online for more shoes for me. Yuck. It’s a regular Peyton Place.
I digress, I’m sure you came off as a stable man with great taste in footwear. Oh, yes.
Hmmm… makes me think. I have a pair of low heeled ankle boots that I think are great (kitten heel, pointy, cheeta print… meow and I have gotten quite a few comments. Work with me here, but I think that the comments that shoes generate also tell you a whole lot about the people making them. One obese, bitter neighbor called them fuck me boots (now as an aside, she has told others that her husband does not want to get busy with her… maybe she needs the boots)or the creepy neighbor who proved my assessment by saying he’d love to look online for more shoes for me. Yuck. It’s a regular Peyton Place.
I digress, I’m sure you came off as a stable man with great taste in footwear. Oh, yes.
michele: this must have been before the days of the metrosexual. does anybody use that word now, metrosexual, or was it a fad?
le: the truth always comes out.
bernita: guys never looked at your feet because most of them are clueless — you can stare at a woman’s feet without fear of getting caught.
cheraldo: it’s the shoes, baby! the comments are pretty much out of the sexually repressed handbook. just as long as they meant it — they were sincere — i’m ok with it.
michele: this must have been before the days of the metrosexual. does anybody use that word now, metrosexual, or was it a fad?
le: the truth always comes out.
bernita: guys never looked at your feet because most of them are clueless — you can stare at a woman’s feet without fear of getting caught.
cheraldo: it’s the shoes, baby! the comments are pretty much out of the sexually repressed handbook. just as long as they meant it — they were sincere — i’m ok with it.
Nah, it’s a guy from Iowa. I don’t think “metrosexual” is cool anymore. Now everyone’s back on the “manly-man” kick.
That was an interesting post, but you come off as pretty one-dimensional. Surely you were interesting in more than those women’s shoes?
I never quite got -off- the manly-man kick. And I’ve had enough experience to know that when a guy starts complimenting your platforms, he probably wants to see if he can cram his fat feet into them.
Sometimes I crave the 2-D characters. Does that make any sense? I just want something bland before I launch back into the world of Method Characterization. I love you, Nick Adams.
Having said that, one of my characters is a shoe-guy. And I love him, too. Sincerely.
michele: those iowa boys. he wasn’t in the writer’s workshop, was he?
neil: correct. when talking to those ladies, i had all three dimentions in mind.
benny: my feet are not fat. and i hate platforms, they hurt my back.
sometimes 2-d characters are fun, i agree. they are nice shorthand. but it’s hard to write a novel about them. at least i tried.
Nah, it’s a guy from Iowa. I don’t think “metrosexual” is cool anymore. Now everyone’s back on the “manly-man” kick.
Nah, it’s a guy from Iowa. I don’t think “metrosexual” is cool anymore. Now everyone’s back on the “manly-man” kick.
That was an interesting post, but you come off as pretty one-dimensional. Surely you were interesting in more than those women’s shoes?
That was an interesting post, but you come off as pretty one-dimensional. Surely you were interesting in more than those women’s shoes?
I never quite got -off- the manly-man kick. And I’ve had enough experience to know that when a guy starts complimenting your platforms, he probably wants to see if he can cram his fat feet into them.
Sometimes I crave the 2-D characters. Does that make any sense? I just want something bland before I launch back into the world of Method Characterization. I love you, Nick Adams.
Having said that, one of my characters is a shoe-guy. And I love him, too. Sincerely.
I never quite got -off- the manly-man kick. And I’ve had enough experience to know that when a guy starts complimenting your platforms, he probably wants to see if he can cram his fat feet into them.
Sometimes I crave the 2-D characters. Does that make any sense? I just want something bland before I launch back into the world of Method Characterization. I love you, Nick Adams.
Having said that, one of my characters is a shoe-guy. And I love him, too. Sincerely.
michele: those iowa boys. he wasn’t in the writer’s workshop, was he?
neil: correct. when talking to those ladies, i had all three dimentions in mind.
benny: my feet are not fat. and i hate platforms, they hurt my back.
sometimes 2-d characters are fun, i agree. they are nice shorthand. but it’s hard to write a novel about them. at least i tried.
michele: those iowa boys. he wasn’t in the writer’s workshop, was he?
neil: correct. when talking to those ladies, i had all three dimentions in mind.
benny: my feet are not fat. and i hate platforms, they hurt my back.
sometimes 2-d characters are fun, i agree. they are nice shorthand. but it’s hard to write a novel about them. at least i tried.
No, no, Fraud! I’m sure you’ve got the most delicate twinkle-toes on Blogspot.
I understand about trying to make a novel of 2-D characters. A lot of genre writers seem to do it guilt-free, though. Stock characters count as 2-D as far as I’m concerned.
(Says the girl who was late getting back from her break last night because she’d picked up someone’s discarded Tom Clancy ppb.)
No, no, Fraud! I’m sure you’ve got the most delicate twinkle-toes on Blogspot.
I understand about trying to make a novel of 2-D characters. A lot of genre writers seem to do it guilt-free, though. Stock characters count as 2-D as far as I’m concerned.
(Says the girl who was late getting back from her break last night because she’d picked up someone’s discarded Tom Clancy ppb.)
No, no, Fraud! I’m sure you’ve got the most delicate twinkle-toes on Blogspot.
I understand about trying to make a novel of 2-D characters. A lot of genre writers seem to do it guilt-free, though. Stock characters count as 2-D as far as I’m concerned.
(Says the girl who was late getting back from her break last night because she’d picked up someone’s discarded Tom Clancy ppb.)