The latest extract from Life-Writes …

People Watching

Nothing we take on board during our daily routine is ever wasted if we are writers, although this doesn’t always mean things that happen to us personally, because few of us live life in the fast lane. Quite a large number of those ‘happenings’ that are of use to us will have involved other people and so we have to learn to become an avid people-watcher – in other words, a snoop! We watch, listen, spy and eavesdrop in order to collect ideas to convert into the written word. Just as we learnt to take notice of everything that happens on our patch, so we extend our awareness to people, what they do, how they react, body language, etc. Whenever we leave the house and travel to work each day, we have plenty of opportunity for people watching but what happens if we happen to be house-bound, or work from home? In that case we watch life by proxy.

All serious writers should take a daily newspaper because this, more often than not, will stimulate the creative processes on a mundane level. Newspaper stories and articles will give you the true human angle, because these are the real-life dramas that sell newspapers. And what better gauge of public interest than the daily scandal-rags or broadsheets?

Listen to conversations going on in public places and jot down what you hear. This is a great source of one-liners, even if the rest of the conversation is missed, or contains nothing of interest. Just as importantly, listen to how people say things and express themselves, because this can provide added depth to your character without resorting to long, wordy descriptions. Colloquialisms and similes, especially those of a regional or localised nature can convey volumes if used in the correct context and dispense with the urge to attempt to write in dialect.

 People watching is the writer’s fuel for good ideas.

Body Language & Gestures

What we generally refer to as ‘body language’ is someone’s unconscious reaction to a situation or person. People watching adds a whole new dimension to the way individuals react to one another and, like a picture, can easily convert into 1,000 words of narrative. The married couple who do and say all the right things, and yet their body language may give off conflicting signals at variance with the outward show of domestic bliss. Or the pretty, well-turned out child that does not appear relaxed in the company of a step-parent. Or the dog that refuses to respond to a particular visitor’s overtures. Each reaction can be detected in body language.

Gestures also tend to be an unconscious reaction to situations or people, and usually involve making some symbolic movement of the hand. Some are comparatively modern, while others can be traced back hundreds of years, but as Desmond Morris points out in his book, Gestures, this is a form of visual slang and just as slang words go out of fashion, so can gestures. Body language and gestures can be used as a ‘conflict’ device so essential to fiction writing, as a cause of misunderstanding, or the give-away in a thriller.

The observation that too many people go through life never looking around at what’s actually going on in their immediately vicinity. A writer needs to realise the importance of taking the ‘time to stand and stare’ because this is the only way to add to the inner retrieval system of our cerebral ‘zip file’. We must learn to observe in order to be able to record what we see and to be able to retrieve this information when we sit down to write. Because there really is a story, article or poem behind everything we encounter during our daily routine.

·         Accept the fact that writers are, without a doubt, vampiric creatures, in that they can only exist by sucking the life out of any situation or encounter, and it using to further their own writing careers.

Handy Hint:

People-watching provides us with additional material to use to develop characterisation and the obvious expert on the subject is undoubtedly Desmond Morris. His books, The Human Zoo, The Naked Ape, Manwatching, Intimate Behaviour and Gestures not only provide hours of entertainment but also plenty of background information about human body language. At least one of these titles should be among a writer’s reference collection but they should not be used as substitutes for the real thing, i.e. personal observation. Second hand copies are usually readily available on www.ABE-Books.com

Try This Exercise:

Take a copy of your regular daily national newspaper and mark each of the items that arouse your interest. Cut them out and keep them in files, together with any comments/ideas you might have for future writing projects. As the collection builds you will find that certain subjects occur more and more frequently; others were just a passing whim. Go through this collection every couple of months to stimulate ideas if you’re feeling uninspired. Throw away any clippings that no longer interest you. Use this opportunity to jot down ideas for:

• A short story

• An article

• A poem