For this exercise, you will need three things: yourself, a pen, and a notebook. That's all. Three simple things. Four if you're doing this when the post goes live and it's seven in the morning. If you're up that early, a "but first coffee" is more than allowed.
What you're going to do is observe yourself as you go through a day in your life. You'll catalog your morning routine, your breakfast, your commute, and so on. Or, if you don't have a commute, what you do instead. Basically, you're taking inventory of your life and what you do as you go through it during a normal day. Or maybe a not so normal day. But you're going to do it for one full day and keep the notebook close to you. Anything you do, no matter how big or small, should go into the notebook.
Now, at the end of the day, maybe after dinner or the kids are in bed, open the notebook. I want you to star the smaller things, like what you had for breakfast or what you feel is just a small detail in your life, and give an exclamation point to the bigger tasks that you did during the day. You're going to focus on the stars and that will help to give you a background into what a daily life of your character could or couldn't be.
For my second world-ers, I encourage you to do this as well. Maybe, instead of a bowl of cereal, there's something else that you come up with for breakfast. Or maybe it's just going through the motions but not describing what's in the bowl. What's important is to have an idea of how you go through a day, either normal or not so normal, and then you have a bit of background that you can use in your novel.
Mundane? Yep. But sometimes the best way that we, as writers, can make a novel richer is by going through a task like listing what you do during the day.
Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing!).
No comments:
Post a Comment