How do I show that my character's special?

I seem to be able to see whether a person is essentially shifty or essentially good from a first meeting. It's a gut feeling that I've used many times.

My sister, on the other hand, seems to have no such intuition. She constantly befriends/dates people who use her, backstab her and leave her for broke. Every time she meets someone new and I see them as being bad news, I tell her. She ignores me every time, claiming that 'this person isn't like the others'. She gets backstabbed and I tell her 'I told you so'.

A few years ago I was looking for work. I was determined to get money. I handed out resumes to anyone who would take one. I landed a job at a cake shop, which was actually fulfilling, hard work. Not long after, a pharmacist called me up and asked if I was still available. I took the job.

The first time I met the manager of the cake shop, we hit it off. He was a funny, cheeky old bloke who was a perfectionist with his work. When I first met the pharmacist, when I handed in my resume, he instantly struck me with (at risk of sounding like a hippie) bad vibes. I didn't like him one bit. I felt he was shifty. He seemed like a snake, even though he hadn't really said anything that would make such attributes apparent.

One of the worst things I've done in my life is ignoring my gut feeling in this instance. I left a job where the work was shit but I was happy, only to go to a job where I was working for a corrupt, snake of a boss who wrought virtually every system out there and stole money from the staff on a regular basis. It was a 3 year rollercoaster that I could have avoided if I'd only listened to my gut feeling that has been proven so many times.

Why did I go against my gut? Because I felt that becoming a pharmacy assistant would give me a sense of prestige in the workforce, that it was a 'better' job to have. The cake shop seemed beneath it. I was attracted to the potential of more money and more respect, so I ignored the gut feeling.

If your character is to be believable, you need to give reason for her actions. She can't have great intuition or insight into people or whatever, and then be dating a jerk-off without good reason. What parts of her personality are dominant? What aspirations does she have? What would have to happen before she starts distrusting her feelings? What is it about her toxic relationship that makes her blind to what goes on?

If you don't answer these questions properly, she will seem fake. If you have conflicting aspects to a person without good reason, it will simply seem like you tried to have two main characters smooshed into one. Show 'special' interactions with people.
The family members who have seen my interactions with my sister ("I warned you...") will know that I'm generally pretty good at reading people. My husband understands why I took the pharmacy job despite my gut feeling, because he's seen my desire to be in a job where I'm respected and viewed as successful.
Do with your character what occurs in real life. Think about her aspirations, what drives her, and what clams her up.

How to make audience think your character is insightful? First of all, you have to humanize her, give her a vulnerability, don't make her so - self-assured. Give her moments in which she doubts herself. And yet - the pattern of her insights pays off, throughout the story, or at least in the significant life-changing parts. Maybe there is ONE particular insight that she has a hunch about - but doubts in some way, which is a significant pay off for later - maybe in the climax, or even the aftermath. On the other hand, perhaps she is EXTREMELY self-doubting, but winds up being incredibly RIGHT about ONE REALLY IMPORTANT THING. At any rate, you have to get the audience or the reader behind her, in some way, rooting for her. If you make her preach to the reader, or if she arrogantly BELIEVES that she's just-so-insightful - she'll wind up being annoying, unless that is your purpose, and the character arc is to humble her, despite her insights.

About being pathetic. You're pathetic if you feel sorry for yourself and are incompetent. If you are in a lousy situation, but make the best of it, you're not pathetic. If you feel sorry for yourself, but don't let that stop you from doing your job, or getting out of the situation, or seizing opportunity when it arises, you aren't pathetic.

What's pathetic is if you don't ever think that there's any way out, or anything you can do to help yourself, but just sit around waiting for someone to save you. And even that can be redeemed if you realize what you're doing and change it.

About insight -- does she give good advice to others, that she can't see also applies to herself? Like the marriage counselors whose marriages fail?

OliviaMagdelene said:

Sharon opened the door to the coffee shop, but paused just over the threshold. The scene before her unfolded in slow motion, rolling over her ever thought until the very breath stilled in her chest. She saw her lover's hand reach out to caress the face of her best friend at a corner table. This his lips, the same lips she loved so well, met Julie's in a soft kiss. Their eyes drifted closed as the contact deepened, swelling to a crescendo so horrifying that Sharon backed out of the shop in denial. Her hands fluttered by her sides erratically as her heart stammered, then broke in two. Blindly, she walked down the street seeing nothing except the kiss, feeling nothing except the pain...

Click to expand...

waaaaah...my heart broke for Sharon!

Pepper said:

I seem to be able to see whether a person is essentially shifty or essentially good from a first meeting. It's a gut feeling that I've used many times.

My sister, on the other hand, seems to have no such intuition. She constantly befriends/dates people who use her, backstab her and leave her for broke. Every time she meets someone new and I see them as being bad news, I tell her. She ignores me every time, claiming that 'this person isn't like the others'. She gets backstabbed and I tell her 'I told you so'.

Click to expand...

I'm just curious about your sister's profession. It's been my impression that people in the helping professions -- nurses especially -- are more vulnerable. It's as if they either lack or have deliberately turned off the survival instinct that says, "Different! Strange! Run!"

Regarding showing that your character is mistreated, I remember reading an article about one of Amy Hempel's stories, where the guy the main character's dating is a jerk. Rather than explaining what a jerk he is, she (Hempel) simply has the guy make a thoughtless, uncaring comment to the main character. The comment sums up his "jerk-ness" without her having to explain it to the reader. So sometimes the person's actions (or comments) speak louder than any wordy description you can make.