I am in Santa Fe visiting my father. I am fascinated by how other people live. When you stay in someone’s home you naturally measure how they do things versus how you do them.
For example, every day at 5:00pm, my father and stepmother watch the news on PBS and have a Dewar’s on the rocks. My father always brings the drinks in and then adds water from a bottle next to where he sits. They eat crackers with the scotch. Why doesn’t he add the water in the kitchen when he first makes the drinks? Why not nuts or pretzels? Why PBS?
My writer’s mind needs the answer to these questions but instead of interrogating my father, I worked on my new project.
What are my main character’s daily habits? What do each of them do at 5:00pm? Do they drink? Why that particular brand? Do they watch the news? Who are they with?
My main character is always having a sugar low and nibbles something sweet while she preps a catering job, while her love interest is making notes for the next day and getting ready to leave his white collar job.
Take a moment to ask yourself what your own characters would be doing at 5pm. Are they at work or home? Do they follow a pattern? What would happen if their daily ritual was disturbed? Is 5 o’clock an important time of their day?
This exercise won’t solve all of your problems but should give you a couple nice layers to make your script really come alive.
Good luck and happy writing.
