How To Add a Productive Element To People-Watching
Writers can hone their observational skills and pluck material.
A woman I know who lost most of her sight once told me that everyone has what she called a “giveaway.” A tip-off to clue her in that they were there before they’d announced themselves. One person has a heavy walker, another is always doused in cologne, some people just have big mouths, she said, and they’re always yapping. They reveal themselves before too long.
It’s a useful character exercise to think about people you know or encounter in daily life with that lens in mind. Is someone always brushing their hair back with a finger comb? Someone else idly buttoning and unbuttoning the top of their shirt? I remember a guy from college who always had big headphones around his neck but seemingly never up to his ears, as though they were just a prop.
People-watching is typically a fun and light pastime (as is eavesdropping), but it can also be useful, too, for writers, when employed in daily life. I once met a butcher who was invariably prying flecks of meat from between his teeth with a toothpick. Spearing, chiseling, scraping. Always cleaning, even during conversations. It must’ve been so habitual, the constant tasting and flossing throughout this days, he no longer even realized he was doing it. It was…
