Character Exercises: Meet Beth

I wrote this short character profile a while back for my creative writing class.  This blog is lacking in content and if I don’t post it now, this shit will sit in my files and clog my computer’s memory forever, so I’m releasing it into the webosphere as a gift to you.  Enjoy!

Elisabeth Crowley is 24. Anyone who’s close with her calls her Beth. She has been singing since she was three, opera training since she was 11. She was born in a suburb of rainy Seattle, a place that seemed grey and dull even on a sunny day. Her family was as close to poor as can be without actually being poor. Her father Charles—he goes by Chuck—worked in a factory; they were close until he started drinking more when she was 6. Her mother Pam was a secretary at the local Planned Parenthood. When her mother was at home, she was usually sleeping—Beth never saw her much. Neither of her parents really encouraged her passion for singing, but she and her little brother Charlie would put on plays and dance around the house. He used to be a great dancer, but now models and does coke in LA. Last time she saw him, he looked sick but happy. She tries to call him at least once a month to check up on him. Beth fueled her own passion for singing. Her family couldn’t afford lessons, and no one in her house except Charlie was much for music, anyway, so she wasn’t exposed to opera until she was 10 and they watched part of Carmen in her music class. She went to the library the next day and borrowed the VHS, watching the opera as many times as she could before it was due.

Beth is 24 and has thick dark brown hair that hangs halfway down her back in big, loose curls. It’s the kind of hair that is good for putting up and styling, something the hair and makeup designers who work on her always appreciate. Her favorite way to wear it is in a loose bun or pushed back with a headband, but most of the time she wears it down and parted on the right so she looks put-together and marketable to casting directors. She has what her dad always called an “Orion’s belt” of moles on her upper left forehead, right near her hairline. Some days she likes them, and others she’s thankful her hair covers them. She also has a freckle on her bottom lip, right in the middle. It’s not very visible unless you’re very close and she’s not wearing lipstick, which she almost always is in public. Her face is symmetrically pretty, like a woman in a Renaissance fresco. She has a thin, pointed nose and high cheekbones, somewhat offset by her ears, which are a little large and tend to stick out when they’re not hidden beneath a curtain of her hair. Her cheeks are usually pink, which always causes someone to assume she’s cold, hot, or embarrassed depending on the season. Beth’s eyes are wide and amber brown. Her eyelashes are short and she used to have a unibrow before the makeup designer at the community theatre taught her how to shape her eyebrows in 7^th grade. She has a slight overbite and large teeth that she’s always been self-conscious about. When she’s around new people, she covers her mouth when she laughs. Her body is an hourglass shape. She has big hips but could otherwise be described as skinny. She walks as if her spine were a rod. In public, her posture is perfection. When she’s alone or very tired, her childhood tendency to slouch into herself reveals itself. She has small feet for her height—size 6 on her 5’4’’ frame—with high arches from years of dancing. There’s a mole on each of her hipbones; if you connected them, it would make a line straight across her lower stomach. A horse stepped on her right foot when she was five; her big toe on that foot has been messed up since. She almost always maintains a pleasant demeanor when walking down the street and dealing with people, though her face is expressive and if she’s caught off guard, it will betray her instantly. When she talks to people, she stands close enough that they are forced to pay attention to her, but not so close that she makes them uncomfortable. Often, she’ll touch the person—resting a hand on their arm, or clasping their hand until the conversation ends.

Beth’s wardrobe could best be described as preppy chic. She always has a pair of earrings in; usually pearls (fake; she’s not made of money, jeez), or if she’s going to an audition, she wears bigger earrings—hoops or Gypsy-like chandelier earrings depending on the part. She likes printed dresses and blouses, flowing and clean-cut skirts, and structured jackets. One of her favorite outfits is a taupe floral dress with big red flowers synched by a skinny red belt, paired with cork wedges and a denim jacket. She loves to shop at Salvation Army and in vintage stores. When in doubt, she goes to TJ Maxx to find designer clothes on clearance. She can’t afford the clothing her peers wear, but she can pretend. The one truly expensive accessory she owns is a silver bracelet one of her first boyfriends in New York gave her. He was rich, generous, and in love with her, but even these perks couldn’t change her lack of romantic attraction to him. At this point, it’s so a part of her person that she forgets it came from someone else.

Beth just moved out of an apartment she was renting in Astoria in New York to move to Vienna for 18 months for an opera workshop that could result in the offer of a spot in the Vienna State Opera company. They’re doing Don Carlo this season and nothing would make her happier than to be a part of it. Because of the move, she had to leave a lot of her possessions behind. Not that she’s ever been one for big possessions, anyway. Trying to have an opera career forces her to do a lot of traveling, and she’s constantly in cities where having a car or even a boat would be pointless. The biggest thing that she brings with her when she moves is a travel trunk from the 1940’s. It was her grandmother’s and has stickers detailing all the places she’d been. Occasionally, when she has a chance to buy them, Beth adds new stickers to mark her travels.

Though she still can’t keep too many things, she has more small possessions. Her fairly extensive wardrobe travels everywhere with her, packed in duffel bags and suitcases. She has a lot of jewelry, as well, some of it costume, some precious gifts from family members and ex-boyfriends. She brings a framed photo of her and Charlie dressed as Power Rangers for Halloween at ages 8 and 5 with her every time she moves. She was the yellow one, and he the red. They’re laughing like idiots in it—nothing makes her smile more. She also values her journals for the way they remind her how she’s changed since she left Seattle at 19.

Opera is her passion and has been since she started lessons at age 11, late for someone wanting to do it professionally, but not so late that her dream would be impossible. She’s had other interests over the years: a brief period in 9^th grade when she thought that being popular and on the cheerleading team was more important than music, a horse phase from 8-10, learning guitar when she dated that guy in a band, and most recently, knitting to relax, though she hasn’t felt compelled to work on the scarf she was making for over a month, so that too may become obsolete soon. Rarely does Beth attend movies—she’s too antsy to sit in a theatre that long—but she’ll watch documentaries on the History channel for hours and can somehow manage to sit through a four hour-long opera with ease. She doesn’t read too many books, either, but she likes to reread her favorite, The Catcher in the Rye, once every year.