“If you’re a writer, you’re a people watcher,” Judy Blume says in her MasterClass on writing for younger readers. Observations that stem from heightened awareness will generate everything from plot ideas to characters who are real. You also have to create the world those characters are inhabiting. Scrutinizing your surroundings will help you fabricate that life that your readers will believe and lose themselves in.
It’s not enough to notice a few details in passing. You want to dive deep when it comes to the world around you. That’s why Blume suggests listening in on other people’s conversations when you’re out and about.
I tell my writing coach clients the same thing, and I’m going to borrow her suggestion of taking yourself on a heightened awareness outing. During that afternoon excursion, make notes of whatever you hear that catches your attention. Blume remembers overhearing a family argument at the table behind where she and her kids were having lunch.
“What are you doing, Mom?” her kids kept asking as she scribbled as fast as she could on her paper placemat, trying to get every word down.
“Shhh,” she replied. “I’m trying to listen.”
Don’t confine yourself to making notes of what you hear. Look around. Record details about how people look, how they move, and their mannerisms. Record details about their surroundings and yours. Don’t just note that there’s a particular tree in the park. Note what makes it distinctive. Even if it’s downright ordinary, there’s plenty to observe about it, from the bark and how the branches reach out to the leaves and how the light shines through. Will you use that in a book? Probably not. But the exercise of noticing that level of detail will serve you well when it comes to setting mood or establishing character.
As Blume writes in the workbook that accompanies her MasterClass:
“Details are key to creating characters and situations that feel real to you and to your readers. Practice this heightened awareness in your everyday life. From there, consider the difference between life and fiction. A simple transcript of life would be boring. Use real-life experience but transform it, make it more important.”
I’d love to find out how this heightened-awareness writing practice goes should you decide to try it. Let me know?
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