doubling up- writing excercise

Write two paragraph-long character sketches of two people you know well. Wait a day, then write another long paragraph sketch that is a combination of the two earlier paragraphs. In other words, write a character sketch that takes elements from these two people you know to create a third, fictional character. What is a character sketch? Telling details, characteristic tics and gestures, interesting contradictions (a hit-man who can't stand to see an any animal harmed- like the Michael Palin character in 'A Fish Called Wanda'), what Aristotle called consistent inconsistencies. The key here is to use the two pieces of writing, not the two people you've written about. Fit together the two paragraphs of prose into one character sketch, making sense out of the combination somehow. 400 words.

There's a clear distinction between the moments when she is thinking about herself, and the moments when she's not. When she is contemplating her place in the world, she tugs at her short hair, pulling it up and fluffing it out. Her shoulders slump forward and she leans on things- doorjams, desks, walls and brooms. Her lips pull to the side, always to the right, and she bites the bottom one in a chewing motion. When she forgets- forgets she is talking, forgets to worry, forgets other people might see her vulnerability- her eyes open wide and she smirks with her mouth, pokes clever fun at boys and snaps witty comments with her hands and fingers. Her voice loses its natural volume control and phrases explode loudly and randomly from her abdomen; so does her laugh. Regardless of how she's feeling, she always eats with her mouth open.

He weaves about his life like a moth, zig-zagging between scents: there's a final goal but the path looks like stones scattered across a stream. He talks in circles between these points and his plans, and one can never really tell how he relates to others in his life, at least not by his stories of them. In every direction he moves, he uses full momentum, seeing only the newest scene, as though it is all that ever existed, and the power of this passion is his charm: unplanned and accidental. His left leg is always twitching when he sits- in a barstool, on a chair, folding napkins, standing before a run while stretching his arms. He can adore and mock someone in the same breath, same sentence, same glint of an eye.