This could be sub-titled ‘People talk to me’.
Never underestimate the benefits of ‘people watching’ as a tool for the building blocks of character creation. At the front of all novels it says ‘All characters are entirely fictitious, etc, etc.’ A wise legal disclaimer, but you can collect ‘templates’ to build your fictional characters around.
Doing this deliberately will sharpen your observational skills until it becomes instinctive. A part of your brain will take notes as you walk through a crowd or sit in a cafe, railway carriage, or wherever.
Sometimes it’s worth talking to them as well,
Here’s an example.
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Stranger on the train.
One day, on a train out of Plymouth, a girl shoved her bulging backpack onto the seat opposite me and squeezed herself into the space alongside it.
She was a stocky and solid wench, with short bobbed black hair and a straight fringe. A no-nonsense low-maintenance cut. Wearing shorts and a blouse, and scuffed trainers. Obviously flushed from a dash to catch the train she took a while to settle down and breathe normally.
I said hello, made some comment about only just making it, and went back to writing on the pad in front of me. A companionable enough silence fell as she relaxed, took a drink carton from her bag, and settled in,
A little later she took out a bunch of typed pages, with inked-in additions, from her pack and started to study it. I’m not bad at surreptitiously getting the gist of a thing even upside down, but this was notation which made no sense to me. Although there was something almost familiar about it.
After studying the first couple of pages she started tapping her fingers on the table. It was an irritating unsynchronised rhythm, just with the first two fingers of one hand, but skittering around more than most ordinary finger tapping. After a minute or so the rhythm smoothed out and developed a proper pattern of staccato beats with different lengths of pause.
She noticed I was watching and stopped. “Sorry. Am I annoying you?”
“No. I’m fascinated.” A possible explanation had just flashed up in my mind. “Are you a dancer?”
Yes!" A surprised note in her voice and a far more searching glance. “But you’re not. How did you know?”
“Is that dance notation?” Waving at the pages in her other hand.
“Yeah.” A beaming grin on her face.
“So you’re tapping out the steps to imprint the pattern into your mind. I’ve read about it but never seen it being done.”
I pointed at her pages. “It’s a bit like theatrical combat notation. But a different dialect of a common language.”
The drink trolley passed by and she accepted my offer of a coffee. She explained that she was a last minute replacement for an injured member of a troupe performing at Bournemouth. “If they’d phoned five minutes later I’d not have made the train. The pay’s good and they faxed the routine through. I’ll be on stage just after eight. I’d have preferred more notice, but I’m not turning down good work.”
We chatted for a bit longer and she discovered I was writer. A people watcher.
She leaned back, spread her arms and asked “What other clues did you pick up on then?” I guessed this was reference to her not being a slim and willowy type.
“I thought you might be an ice skater, but they tend to hang their skates outside their bag, like a badge of office. Plus you’ve got calf muscles a bodybuilder would envy.”
“Yeah.” A wide urchin grin. “No hiding them.”
I never did find out her name, or if she was famous.
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