observe

The next time you and your evening meal are waiting in line at your favorite grocery story take the time that you have been given and look around you. I don't mean to check up on the latest celebrity gossip in the magazine rack or the latest in chocolate and caramel combinations. Look at the people who are sharing the moment with you. Watch your cashier, your grocery bagger, the patrons shopping in the isles around you, and the fellow patrons waiting along with you.

We all have our own mannerisms and quirks that make us unique. As a writer, we have been given the opportunity to freely observe billions of unique individuals and a seemingly endless supply of excellent character traits for a new novel.

It has been said before that great characters carry a novel. Your characters are the bones of a story. How they will react to one another, to their settings, or to their situations, will often dictate the direction your story takes.

Finding that idea for a good story, can be accomplished by finding those ideas for a few good characters.

So the next time your cashier proceeds to tell you about her cold sore and how her fear of needles kept her from getting it check out and how it also made her cancel her date the night before and how she spent the the night instead watching infomercials and...

Don't dismiss it as 'too much information.' Just make a mental note and wonder, 'what if a young lady with trypanophobia decided after the ending of a long relationship that she would confront her fears by becoming a phlebotomist?' Hmm... I wonder.