Some everyday things you can include in your writing to make your character more beliveable:
• Most knives and scissors have the edge on the opposite side. We use ‘blunt’ or customized blades most of the time. May sound as a little thing, but really annoying. This also goes for swords, bows and some other weapons.
• Left handed people need left handed music instruments (guitars, violins…)
• Left handed writers tend to ruin fountain pen nibs, because they have to push them instead of pulling it on the paper. They also have to write in a weird postition because otherwise they’d smudge the ink. Some of them write from the top to the bottom, even if they use european languages.
• being left handed was considered ‘devil’s mark’ or ‘wrong’ and people were forced to use their non-dominant hand until very recently. Keep this in mind if you writing historical fiction.
• Left handed people tend to do circular movements in the opposite direction. If they have to draw the circle or seasons, they mostly draw it in a mirrored way. This also cause small everyday issues with locking or opening doors or using analog-style clocks.
• In swordfights or fencing, left handed have an advantage because most people train against righties.
• Left handed people put the computer mouse on the opposite side, and we have to switch the button settings.
• Left handed people normally eat with their left hand, so they make the table the opposite way and they may accidentaly bump elbows with right handed at the table.
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I, S am left handed. Although a lot of those points make sense to me, I think I need to make a point. Not everyone is this extreme with their leftieness. For example I write left handed but I do everything with my right. I throw a ball with my right, play cricket with my right. It depends on the person.
The most annoying thing is can openers. I can’t use them, it takes me ages to open the hotdogs as they don’t seem to work for me. Knifes aren’t a problem for me as I use my right hand.
Followers? Any experiences to add?
I’m the same as S here. While I’m a left handed, I do most things with the right side of my body. And the mouse of my computer is on the common side.
Something that really annoys me is handwriting. I don’t like having to write in a weird, awkward position, so I just don’t, and the left side of my hand gets dirty as hell.
I’m also able to write from right to left, that way you can only read things while holding them next to a mirror.
-Alex
of course, the pen-nib thing isn’t a problem for people who are writing in e.g. Arabic.
I’ve noticed a lot of lefties are more prone to turning images upside-down while drawing/ inking.
also I only know two lefties who put their mouse on the other side, and none who change keyboard shortcut configurations (+edit: or mouse setup, wow i misread that, anyways point still stands).
other than that though yeah I’ve noticed a lot of these haha
My stepfather is a leftie, so I can confirm from observation that a lot of these are true. We always have problem with eating arrangements because he has to be on the outside of the booth whenever we go out to eat. I did notice that he uses scissors with his right hand, though, but that might be because we don’t own any left-handed scissors?
But it’s nice to note that even if someone makes their character dominantly left-handed, mixed-handedness is also a thing. I, for one, am left-handed (or I guess some might prefer if I said left-preferred?) in certain tasks, even though I grew up writing using my right hand. Although honestly in the first grade I just chose a hand and stuck with it and, according to my parents, had been using both hands before then. So YMMV.