Judgments

"Don't judge a book by its cover." "First impressions matter." We've all heard those sayings or variations of them. However, have you ever thought how wrong those first impressions can be? I had a thought of how amusing or interesting it could be to play around with the first impression. Just imagine a character that wears glasses and does her hair just so and everyone thinks she's smart because she rarely speaks. Then, at a critical time, they need her brains and she really has none. Or how about the muscular guy that everyone thinks is athletic so he gets picked for an important game just to find out that he works out at the gym a lot but can barely run because he's been focusing on looks over functionality. Having incorrect first impressions in a story can lead to a number of complications that could prove amusing, interesting, or annoying for the reader. Feel free to play around with ideas.