There are anecdotes and incidents swirling around in my head that I know will one day end up in a story or novel but aren’t in and of themselves stories.

Here’s one. It has to do with clothes, but more with identity.

Many years ago, I was scrolling through the channels and came across a talk-show on which makeovers were to be featured. It might have been Dr. Phil. My imagination has certainly embroidered on the memory.

Here’s how I remember it.

There were four makeover subjects, all of whom had been suggested for the show by friends or family members who felt they needed significant change, like dressing younger or caring about their appearance. The fourth candidate was there because her high school-aged son wanted her to be less out there. One of her outfits the show highlighted to demonstrate her style was a bright red skin-tight leather bodysuit with sexy cutouts she’d worn to a parent-teacher conference or something school-related.

My writer voice immediately began filling in the blanks on this character. I’m going to call her Reba. She was clearly a young mother. I imagined she felt “If you are going to judge me, bitches, let me give you something to talk about!”

 I saw her as defensive but also fiercely proud that despite expectations, she was successfully raising her son. I would write her as someone who wasn’t able to get past her past—someone for whom every encounter was a chance to say, “You aren’t the boss of me!” From her son’s point of view, this defiance sometimes overrode his own needs. I could imagine him thinking, “Mom, this parent-teacher conference is about me, not about you.”

The other three make-overs were reasonable. Reba’s makeover? Think the Ally Sheedy makeover in The Breakfast Club.

They cut Reba’s hair. Isn’t that the first step in controlling any wild woman—tame her hair? Her new ‘do was safe and boring. For her clothes, they selected a dowdy suit (at least it was purple) appropriate for someone twice her age.

She was obliterated. The make-over team had a vision of her that was insulting to her individuality, and seemed designed to tell her that everything about her was wrong—that she was the opposite of how she saw herself.

I was so pissed off about it I thought about writing to the show. Could not the flunky makeover team find tailored leather slacks, a silk blouse, a suede jacket with a touch of fringe? Something fierce and edgy but more growl than a full-on howl?

But wait, it gets worse. She started to cry. The host was disconcerted and immediately sought to soothe. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Her son—blandly clean-cut but seemed like an okay kid—piped up to say, “You cut her hair, that’s why she’s upset.”

“No,” she said. “It’s because of you. You want me to change who I am, to be someone else. I can’t be this person.”

I wonder to this day what happened to the mother-son relationship after they went home. I hope they were able to talk to each other, for the son to communicate that he felt overshadowed, and that she was able to explain her hard edge.

If I were writing their story, though, she might double-down, show her son the same perpetual middle finger she showed the rest of the world.

The Devil in the Details: Part 2

When writers read, we take notes whether we mean to or not.

I’ve read descriptions of a character’s wardrobe that pushed me all the way out of the story. Too long, too much! I’ve also read clothing descriptions that rounded out a character.

A great example of the latter is author Laura Benedict, in one of her earliest novels, Isabella Moon. (Watch the badass book trailer!) She describes protagonist Kate as wearing a “paper-thin sweater.” I knew exactly what she was referring to, having purchased just such a sweater at a thrift store. I knew approximately the sweater’s price new, and how a person who did not shop at thrift stores might style it. That tiny detail enhanced Kate’s description so well, I understood, in a whole new way, how she fit in with the other characters.

I’m rewriting my own first novel (again) and trying hard to use fewer details to carry more weight. I know my characters down to what they’ll sing along to in the car when alone, but too many specifics bog down the story.

Wish me luck, that I find my own paper-thin sweater moments!