As if I don’t have enough books (or WIP’s) I am working on right now, I recently (about a month ago) started a new one. I thought I could just outline, flesh out the plot a little and move back to something I am almost done with. That wasn’t the case, this story wants to be written. So between editing and revisions on the previous work in progress, I have been working on this other one.
It wasn’t very long before I realized that while I had a great story and plot, I was still in need of some characters that would fit into the story.
I am a people watcher. I love going places and taking in the people that are there. I do it unintentionally too. Last night I was at a bar with my friends band and obviously my mind was pretty far away from writing. Well, as of this morning, I have added three new characters to my novel all based on people from last night. I’ve been writing almost since I got up and I love the direction the story is going. I am assuming that I was supposed to see/meet these people last night. In a million years, I never thought I would ever find a character at a bar unless I was looking for someone drunk (which incidentally, one of the characters actually sort of is).
My favorite places to find characters for my novels have been the coffee shop, restaurants and the food court at the mall (a lot of interesting people pass the food court at a mall!)
Do you ever unintentionally eavesdrop? I feel like such a bad person, but that’s something I am finding myself doing a lot, and then sticking that dialog or simply a sentence or two that was said, into my books.
I’ve heard entire stories and then improvised the things that were left unsaid and written them into a chapter of my book. In fact, I have several notebooks FULL of dialog, character traits and things like that, that were seen or overheard somewhere, just waiting for the perfect character to use it with.
So, where are your favorite places to “character find” (people watch)?
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