How to write a interesting gimmicky characters ?

[valiant12]

I need help for a character.
I want to introduce a new character in my current WiP, and I want him\her( she is female at the moment, but I may change that later) to be unique and memorable. And she need to be memorable , otherwise the readers will forget who is these person by the time she become relevant. ( and in the worst case scenario I will forget why I introduce the character). So I decided to give her some unique magic powers , weird appearances and eccentric personality, in other words making her very gimmick.
How to improve that character?
Whats your opinion on characters with too many gimmicks?

 

[Geo]

Does it have to be all gimmicks?

Gimmicky characters work, if the tone of the book/story helps. Think of the Tourist visiting Ankh Morpork in The Colour of Magic from Terry Pratchett. But all it work very well because almost everything is somehow gimmicky in Discworld.

If your world is not build on those terms, why don't you focus on just one very noticeable gimmick. Just make it very patent/obvious with comments from others characters.

Example, 1.6 m tall guy in a country where the average height is 2 m.
You can have couple of characters making jokes about being afraid to step on him, a store clerk calling him a kid... things like that, you only need one short scene to make it memorable without having to make it totally exotic. If when you need to call on him again somebody again mistake him for a child, ever reader will remember who he is.

 

[valiant12]

If your world is not build on those terms, why don't you focus on just one very noticeable gimmick. Just make it very patent/obvious with comments from others characters.

Her main gimmick is that she looks very similar to one of the main PoV characters, and she have similar personality and similar backstory. The main difrence is that the main character have the uncanny ability to attract troblee and other interesting people.

 

[Geo]

You can make the second character (the one you're trying to differentiate) to be very helpful, and conciliatory (as trying to solve the problems the other one attracts). She looks like the main character, her story is like that of the main character, but their "personalities" are opposite. One attracts trouble, the other one runs around with a first aid kit, and a mop trying to clean up the mess left by the main character (both mop and first aid kid acn be real or metaphorical...)

A bit like when two guys than look the same go to the same school but one is all nerdy and shy and the other one is a outgoing rebel.

Because you are contrasting one single aspect of two people that look the same, you make both more memorable.

 

[FifthView]

There's an interesting Writing Excuses podcast on using character quirks to make characters more memorable: WE 5.2: Character Quirks | Writing Excuses