Look Around by Mary Boone

Look away from your computer screen. Turn off the television. Put down your phone. Life is happening all around you; don’t miss it.
         
Observation is a powerful tool for writers. Details make stories come alive and those details will be more vivid, more believable if you call upon your real-life observations as a reference. The way leaves flutter in the wind, for example, can be better described by someone who has actually seen it happen than by someone who’s only seen YouTube videos of trees.
         
Take your notebook everywhere you go. If you’re not a practiced observer, your first observations may be more general. You’ll make notes about sounds and colors. But as you fine-tune your observation skills, you’ll begin to notice smaller details:

• The way the butcher deftly wraps and ties up your order, always cutting exactly the right amount of twine.
• The uneven gait of an elderly kerchiefed woman as she wheels her cart of groceries down the street.
• The way a wailing toddler’s sobs morph into gasps as she wipes her face on her mother’s blouse.

These very real sensory details can add life to any sort of writing, even for those creating fantastical worlds. The lessons you learn by observing and recording sights, sounds, and smells will provide a foundation for any settings or characters you can imagine. Sunsets won’t simply be golden. Your observational skills, instead, will allow you to paint them in swaths of yellow and orange that melt into the hillside and steal the warmth from the summer sky.

When beginning your own observation habits – or encouraging them in your students – start small. I generally walk or run the same four-mile loop every day. I started by challenging myself to note new details on that route every time I traveled it. I began to pay closer attention to the houses I passed, the people I encountered. Today, nearly three years later, I’m still finding new details along that path to add to my daily observation notebook.

Look around. What you need to become a better writer really is out there.


Mary Boone has written more than 40 nonfiction books for young readers. She leads writing workshops at several community colleges in Washington state’s Puget Sound region. Visit her website at www.boonewrites.com or follow her on Twitter at @boonewrites.