How to Be an Author: JUST AN OBSERVATION

One of the most important lessons I learned during my thirty years of teaching was while it was important to have a solid knowledge of the content some instructional skills may prove just as important, if not more so. Among these skills I rank observation near the top. Without keen observation skills the teacher will miss the ah-hah! moment (otherwise known as when the light bulb goes off inside the student’s head), or the oh-this-crap-is-boring moment, or the I-just-don’t-get-it moment. A lot of valuable time and knowledge is lost when the teacher fails to notice.

Writers, too, have to be keen observers. Painting a world readers can relate to, whether in a New York apartment, a British castle or in a cavern on a distant planet in another galaxy, requires a careful look at the similarities and differences in each of these settings. Taking note of the lighting, the furniture, plumbing, spatial arrangements, and decorations common to these environments aid the reader in getting comfortable with her surroundings as she settles into your story.

Of course, if you’ve never been to one of these places–distant planets are often difficult to get to–then a vicarious visit via books, movies or stories from reliable sources–again, it’s difficult to find friends who’ve visited distant planets–provide valuable information for observing. A note of caution: if the original source of your observation is a work of fiction, then it is prudent to check a non-fiction source for corroboration.

While constructing a setting for a story is important, the key to engaging most readers is developing a believable set of characters. This is true whether they are geeky teenagers, masterful surgeons, gritty soldiers, or Klingons, Wookiees, or Zombies. Same rules apply. An effective author doesn’t tell his audience about the character he reveals the unique features of the individual with broad strokes and pencil thin details that he’s observed out in the world.

Instead of writing, “he was a six-foot, blond hair, blue eyed twenty-something,” an observable image might look like, “his nimble fingers swept through his bleached-out locks as his squint reflected the azure sky.” Giving distinctive attributes, such as scars, blemishes, overbites, lisps, limps, twitches, body odor, as well as an assortment of familiar to peculiar behaviors and traits illustrate key elements of a character, which lend believability and cue the reader into the observations the author wants to be taken into account.

The one area every author must observe carefully if they want to create relevant characters is dialogue. It’s not enough to include impediments such as lisps or stutters where they exist, but more subtle affectations like over enunciation or nasal speech build an auditory track. Careful observation allows the author to move beyond regional accents to cadence and pacing. Anyone who has spent time in conversation with groups of people in different age groups recognizes not only does word selection change from childhood to teenagers to adulthood to elderly, but so does grammar, sentence structure and pacing.

If you want to be an author start by observing the world around you. Let me know some of the observations you’ve noticed great authors make. Leave your thoughts and ideas in the comment section.