People/Customs: Exercise for Real World Settings

You know how, yesterday, I talked about the idea of Christmas and how you might or might not have a tradition around that? We're going to focus on that idea for this exercise into people and customs today. Just because we're dealing with the real world doesn't mean that we can ignore the little customs or the bigger ones of daily life. Or the random people in our daily lives, like the very nice baristas at Starbucks who make our coffee.

Bonus points if you can guess where I'm writing this right now. Thank everything for PSL and salted caramel season.

So, for today, take one of your customs, either big or small, and think how you could fit it into your novel (if you want to). Maybe you celebrate the first day of fall by having your first PSL of the season. Maybe you celebrate something that mainstream America doesn't and, even though your characters are not of your nationally or religion, they could observe someone going through it. But try to break down one of your customs today and see if it can fit within the vision of the world you're portraying in your novel. It might send you in a different direction than you thought you were going in or it might make you realize that your own reality plays into your novel's reality more than you know.

Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing!).

Setting: Exercise for Real World Settings

Today is a very simple exercise that can be done whenever you have time or want to play around on Google. It's also advice that has been said again and again, so this is me just signal boosting the advice. Most don't suggest using Google but this is for us that cannot get to where our setting is.

Take yourself to where you're going to be setting your novel and walk around for a bit. If there's public transportation, take it so you get a feel for how the city runs. If you can't do that, Google the city and see if you can find real person advice via a travel site about the city you want to use. See if there are people on Twitter who might be open to answering your questions about the city they live in. We live in a digital age and we should use it to the best of our ability if we cannot physically get to the setting we want to use.

So that's your exercise for today. Feel free to share your experience in the comments below and have a great day.