Activity

I work with people–helping customers and such–so yes, my job gives me PLENTY of writing help. I basically get to people watch for a living, and interact with all kinds of different people. I think I’ve only had one actual story idea from work in the year or so that I’ve been there, but I definitely look for character quirks, how people interact with others, nervous habits, how different people answer the phone or talk to people, etc. All of which helps me with characterization and writing dialogue, and honestly just a lot of other things about people. It is very easy to write cookie cutter characters, so observing the people around me really helps with that.