Last week, I spent an evening watching a group of women in 18th century costumes drink wine and play cards.
My wife’s big hobby is historical costuming, and one of her friends decided to have friends over for dinner and games…dressed in costumes from the 1700s.
There were more than the four people necessary to play a game of whist at the party. When my wife was asked if she wanted to play, she sat it out, opting instead to watch others play.
In the almost 20 years I’ve been with my wife, this I know: when given the choice, it’s more likely that she’ll watch. It’s not that she’s opposed to taking part — she played whist at the last get together with the group — but she’d rather watch things unfold.
I can’t knock that; I’m guilty of it myself.
The Power in Observation
More than a few times in recent months, I’ve seen this article about introverts circulating. I’m a reluctant extrovert, but even though I’m more comfortable than some being out there, I still prefer to observe.
There’s power in observing. At work, because I listen to people giving me information for the procedures I write, it saves time for all of us. But it’s when writing fiction that observing has served me the best.
I may never hold my own with the prose of Michael Chabon, but people who read what I write tell me they feel something. They care about the characters I create and the situations I put them in. The best compliment I get is that the people I write about seem real — even those deliberately over the top.
I chalk that up to observing.
How I Observe
I’m not one to sit in a café listening in on conversations and writing down what people say to use in stories — anybody can do that. It takes a genuine effort to really listen to the way people talk and treat each other. Observe enough, and you can not only come up with the conversations you hear in cafés…you’ll be able to create better conversations.
The weird guy at work who makes people’s skin crawl? Take time to get to know him. Genuinely embrace all that’s wrong with him; he’s not just a specimen to use and toss aside. Do that, and you’ll probably find things that are right about him — you may even feel ashamed you’ve ignored him all this time. Make readers hate him and then feel for him and you’re on to something.
Listen to and observe those with opposing views. No matter how odious they may be, try to understand where they are coming from and why they are the way they are. There are some views I can never find defensible, but in taking time to see why people look at things a certain way and dropping that in a story is much better than making a stereotype of a stereotype.
Don’t look down on people with different accents or people who talk slow. Living in Texas, I know a lot of people smarter and funnier than me with quite a drawl. There’s a certain pace to some regions that shows in speech and in the way groups even think. Many times, the person you think is slow is just really thinking through what it is they plan to say — much like the “voice” in my head that I hear when I write.
Notice Something?
In all the examples above, there’s some degree of interaction with others. Observing as a writer isn’t just about sitting back and watching from a distance. While my wife sat out the game of whist last week, she was still right there chatting and caught up in the pace of the game. She may not have talked as much as some people at the party, but she was still taking part.
If you spend all your time observing from afar, it will show in your writing. Characters will lack a certain something that can only come from being able to see beyond the surface of others. I’d go as far as saying to be a good writer, one must like people. Maybe not being a social butterfly, but at least fascinated with the reasons why people are the way they are.
An Example
I once knew somebody who was…rather difficult to deal with, for lack of a better term. She had an underlying anger about her that many — myself included — found off putting. She fixated on rules that only mattered to her, and she was angry when others didn’t abide by these rules only she knew. In short, she was a pain in the ass.
I still took the time to treat her decently, even though she often didn’t extend the courtesy to me. I even chatted with her. One day I overheard her talking about how you have to hit a child to earn their respect and give them what they need to be a good adult.
I was never spanked growing up, and I turned out much better than most people I know who were spanked and hit as children. I brought this up, and it angered the woman. We went round and around on the issue, and then she said it:
“Oh, I loved it when Daddy hit me with the brush. It was attention.”
If that’s not a devastating line giving a glimpse into what makes a person tick, I don’t know what is. (And to add to it all, she spent a lot of time slowly brushing her hair with an old hairbrush — more than anybody I ever knew.)
At that point I just let her talk, and while I can’t say I liked the woman any more than before talking to her, I at least knew why she was the way she was.
Some writers observing from far away might have just created a character who was mean and fixated on brushing her hair for no reason. While I don’t use real people in my stories, were I to make an exception and turn her into a character, she’d be much more interesting because I found out why she loved that damn hair brush so much!
A Final Thought about Observing
The world isn’t a slide beneath a microscope.
As writers, yes — we must observe the world around us, often with a critical eye. So many times, though, I read characters spewing dialog that seems sterile, like it was fashioned in a lab.
If you’re going to view the world like a specimen on a slide or pinned to a board, at least get your hands dirty in the process.
It’s that dirt on your hands and how it got there that is often where the story lies.
I enjoyed reading this. Your observations are right on the mark. I’m was part a group whose main function is decision-making. A number of years back when I first joined the group, I noticed that while most of us were going back and forth about why a point was good or bad, why it should be put in place or let go, one woman was saying nothing. I didn’t exactly judge her but I wondered why she didn’t jump into the fray and speak up; I thought perhaps she really wasn’t paying attention. After we had kicked a subject to death, she quietly offered her opinion, one that was filled with wisdom and clearly took into account points that concerned each individual while offering her own. She was, and is, an observer. Observers are paying attention all the time. This I’ve learned. And I can’t imagine a better way to build a character, make him or her come alive, than observing people. The brush incident may have been lost on some who haven’t yet learned the art of tuning in.
Sometimes I think about the attitudes and beliefs which are at the core of my personality and way of life, and then think about somebody who holds the opposite attitudes and beliefs, and holds them quite strongly. The realization that they think their attitudes and beliefs are true and right and justified at least as much as I think my beliefs are true chills me to the bone. I “know,” deep down, and without a doubt, I am right. They “know,” deep down, and without a doubt, they are right. It’s a frightening realization, and one I work to integrate into my writing.
That’s one of the few things I took away from my Jornalism degree (which is not unlike a degree in Hamburger Contruction from McDonald’s) — the skill of active observation. Engaging people, trying to see if you can suss out their motivations.
Of course, some people just turn out to be boring. But some don’t.
Mary: I like the example you used; I’ve been that quiet person in meetings. Sometimes it’s observing; other times, it’s because it’s been previously established that any input will be ignored. And I think there’s a bit of that ignored factor when observing as a writer, too.
I sometimes think about back when I was an introvert, and how in school and other places, when I tried taking part, I was ignored or the things I said were dispelled as not having as much merit as the things others said. So I started watching and thinking. I know I tried tackling more involved stories than others in classes, but the first time I remember really trying to write was in 6th grade, when I was in a new school in a new state and all I really had was observation.
And yes, the brush incident…it was lost on some who just seemed to not even hear it, or just wandered off and said, “That was uncomfortable…”
And even in seeing those kinds of reactions, the incident revealed even more to me…
CMS: There were quite a few people on my father’s side of the family who were bigoted. Some, outright racist. (There’s a reason I had little to do with that side of the family.) And yes, they would all argue to the end that they were right, even though they weren’t. Even as a kid, I watched, shook my head…and tried to understand why they were the way they were.
The answer was simple: they were angry people who felt life didn’t deal them a fair hand. It’s, in part, why I write — I’ve seen what happens when you have dreams you let die. I’ve seen people with potential turn angry and instead of address their own issues, attack others. In one case, a relative who spent much of their life on welfare fumed about black people who were on welfare…even though, in that relative’s neighborhood, it really seemed most of the people receiving aid were white.
In observing these relatives, I saw the effects of anger and the huge steps people will take to justify blaming others for doing the same things they are doing. Not that racism is something I’ve ever really written about, but that mechanism in justifying things transfers to other situations.
For me, that’s where observing has real power: when you see how similar things seemingly unrelated sometimes can be. Also, when you just get something and can write about it from multiple sides. None of my relatives could ever justify their anger and sometimes seething hatred, but in understanding why they were that way, were it something I ever wrote about, I like to think that I’d be able to write something that made at least some people think.
Shawn: Good point about the boring thing. I know people say, “We all have our stories,” but the stories of some people really aren’t worth telling. At most, maybe a facet of a boring person holds something — and it’s through observing and piecing things together that you can create something new that makes that boring person something more when combined with other observations.
Christopher: Yes, anger and fear seems to be what drives people with intolerant attitudes. And this anger and fear leads them to seek out like-minded individuals and “news” sources to further confirm their anger and fear, and further justify their beliefs and attitudes.
CMS: Definitely. In the case of my dad, depending who he was around, he could get very bigoted. When it was just the two of us — or around other friends of his who didn’t harbor those kinds of feelings — you’d never know he had it in him.
Anger and fear definitely feed the situation and make it worse.