Everybody loves people watching. 

And for authors, it’s a central part of research. If you want to create realistic characters that leap off the page and live for themselves, then real life is where you’ll find a rich variety of details, ripe for the picking.

So, find yourself a café with an outdoor table, get yourself a coffee / hot chocolate / orange juice and start taking notes about the following aspects of your every-day passer-by, such as:

How do they walk? Speed, bobbing, weaving, with what demeanour?

What fidgets can you see? How do people fidget with different parts of their body?

Speech styles, patterns and tics – listen to people on the phone or chatting to each other. What do their voices sound like, what tics or habits do they have? Do they continually say ‘man’ ‘right’ or something else? Do they use a lot of questions, or say everything as if it’s unarguable fact?

Clothing – there’s lots of aspects here. Obviously, what clothing do people where, and what impressions does it give about their personality, job, wealth level, attitude to being in public, comfort level? But you can dig deeper and look for accessories that tell a little more detail, a little more depth. Badges, jewellery, shoes, bags – what do these things say about this person’s life experiences?

Relationships – what kinds of gatherings are people in, do any look like unusual partnerships of families?

Try making up stories about where each person has come from and where they’re going. Give yourself a limit of 60 seconds for each person.

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This short writing exercise is based on one suggested by Margaret Geraghty in her excellent book – The five-minute Writer, which we highly recommend.

Sometimes the hardest thing about being a writer is just knuckling down and writing. And many writers live in fear of the dreaded blank page.

Writing exercises can help get the juices flowing and will also help hone your writing skills, preparing them for when you want to apply them to short stories, novels, or whatever else it is you write.

Writing about rituals

Rituals are not just all about religion and festivals, we all have all kinds of rituals in everyday life, many of which we’re probably completely unaware of – until they become interrupted and we find ourselves feeling unsettled or irritable.

When we read stories, the worlds and characters described on the page are not built entirely by the words that are supplied by the author, we use our life experience so far to fill out the details. If this didn’t happen, then authors would need to write reams of words in order to build an entire character or setting. As it is, they can use a few broad brushstrokes and know that the reader will apply stereotypes and personal life experience to fill in the rest.

We can use rituals to the same effect, by describing a common ritual that somebody might be familiar with, such as morning ablutions or making a first cup of coffee. It might be gathering all the things required for a yoga class or a dog walk, or preparing for a short or long trip.

The way in which the character carries out a common ritual will provide the reader with impressions of their character, as well as tone and atmosphere of the scene.

For example:

Janice bounds out of bed and splashes refreshing ice cold water on her face. She hums as she brushes her teeth and sweeps a bit of light make-up on, before heading downstairs for a crunchy breakfast of muesli and bananas with skimmed milk.

Nicole drags herself out of bed and swears at the perpetually flickering bare bathroom light bulb that she still hasn’t got round to fixing. She grimaces at herself in the mirror, squeezing spots of blood out of her gums. There’s no time for breakfast, as usual, so she slams the door behind her, stomach grumbling as she jogs down the road, not noticing the stain on the leg of her jeans.

A short writing exercise about rituals:

Think about the rituals you do in your life – this can be anything you do regularly, you don’t have to feel spiritual about it, or particularly attached, it’s just something routine. It may have a calming effect, but it may not. Write for fifteen minutes about your ritual. 

Try to write with specific detail, but there’s no need to over describe. For example, rather than saying ‘the dog lead’ say ‘the steel choker chain’ but don’t write 500 words when 300 will do.

The traditional moleskine notebook has probably largely been replaced by a smartphone app by now, but whatever your media, authors usually love to take notes from every day life and make lists of all kinds of details that may come in handy.

It’s hard to grab inspiration out of the air at the exact moment you need it, so it’s good to get into the habit of making lists that you can refer to and drop into at other times, such as when you need inspiration to make a character or location unique, or when you want a kernel of an idea for a story.

Making lists also helps develop your powers of observation, a vital skill for any writer.

Here are some things you might want to make lists of:

·         Ways that people walk

·         Speech tics and tendencies

·         Hairstyles

·         Types of houses

·         What people have on their living room walls

·         Shapes of clouds

·         Local birds

·         The types of shops that cluster together

·         What’s in people’s fridges

·         Nice words

·         Interesting names

·         Habits

·         What people have in their pockets

·         Children’s toys

·         Types of shoes

·         Types of handbag / briefcase

·         Styles of uniform

·         Local plants

·         Allergies

That should be enough to get you started!

Please let us know if you can think of any other lists we can add to our list of lists!

For more articles about creative writing and novel writing, visit The Novel Factory website.

If you're having trouble coming up with a good idea for plot, or if you're just starting out writing and you're not sure what constitutes a decent plot - one option is to take an existing story that you like, and transpose it.

This gives you a proven working formula for your novel, meaning you can concentrate on learning skills such as character development and writing tight prose. And by using one of the greats, you can learn a lot about the elements that are involved in a good plot on the way.

What do you mean by 'transpose a novel'

When talking about transposing a novel, we usually mean changing the location or era (though there are no laws, so you could switch the genders of all the characters, or turn them into ferret colony). Most commonly, an old classic such as something by Shakespeare will be moved into the modern day.

Transposing a story in this way brings a variety of challenges and opportunities. When using an established plot, you'll still want to make it your own, and to do so, you can take advantage of elements that exist in the new surroundings, that wouldn't have in the original. It can be fun to look for parallels between the two worlds, and if you're really smart, you can make interesting insights about how the world has changed or stayed the same...

For example, the rich feuding families ancient Verona in Romeo and Juliet were morphed into warring gangs in modern day New York in West Side Story (see below for more examples).

Remember that if you chose to follow this route, you're not bound by any rules about what you have to stick to and what you can change - it's completely up to you. You can be as faithful or deviant as you like. You could even change the ending to one you find more satisfying. The main objective is to ensure you breathe new life and flavour into the story, don't simply create a weak copy with only the names of places changed. Be ambitious and create something unique from the ingredients.

Examples of novels and movies that have been transposed:

Probably the most well known story to have been transposed many times is Romeo and Juliet, which has been brought into modern New York Gangland with West Side Story, as well as the Disney movie, High School Musical.


Sherlock Holmes has recently been rebooted by the BBC, who have taken the unusual step of retaining the exact names and characters and simply plopping them down in modern day England. The stories have remained somewhat faithful, but with the addition of modern knwoledge of science technological advancements and some bowing to the local customs (thich less hallucinogenic drugs).


Tess of the D'urbevilles was wrenched out of its rural English home and replanted in modern India, where it flourished as the film, Trishna.

Suggestions for further transpositions:

• Star Wars in a medieval village
• The Hobbit in modern day London
• Les Miserables in futuristic space

What are your favourite modern adaptations of old classics? Do you have any suggestions for transpositions you'd like to read?

If you liked this article, you're love our novel writing software - click here for a free trial.

Unless your characters are floating around in nothingness (and this has been done), you’re going to have to think about settings and locations. Some writers do detailed, cinematic descriptions that paint vivid pictures of their characters’ surroundings, while others use broad brushstrokes and allow the readers’ imagination to fill in the gaps.

Either is fine, but you want to make sure you’re using location to its full advantage. Descriptions of locations are a great opportunity to develop plot and character and set atmosphere and mood.

Environment shapes character

The location will directly affect the personality and behaviour of the characters – for example a black woman in the Deep South in colonial times is going to behave very differently from one in an ancient matriarchy in the amazon, which will be different again to one in a dystopian future.

Locations symbolize themes

A location can also symbolize the theme. If the theme is loss, the location could be stark and hollow – whether it’s the Scottish highlands or a grey city. If the theme is motherly love, the location might be an old mansion that protects against the elements, even as it is neglected, or an artificially intelligent spaceship that advises its crew against their own follies.

Elements can increase tension

Good writing is all about conflict and tension, so you should think about how the setting could impact on that. Clifftop settings beside stormy seas are popular for adding genuine danger to the characters’ personal turmoil, of there could be wild animals in the jungle, a submarine with a leak, a volcano just on the horizon, threatening to erupt.

Settings provide drama

Think about what dramatic events happen in that location that could provide a climactic setting for the final scene in your novel. Good stories generally increase in tension, velocity and size towards their climax, and it’s good if you can find a setting that reflects that. Large crowds and extreme weather conditions are both good options for this.

Everything changes

A final useful technique is to revisit the same location at the beginning and end of the novel in order to show change, which reflects the protagonists personal growth or destruction. The park that was once filled with laughing children is now overgrown with weeds and rust (or vice versa), the brand new ship is dashed to splinters, the abandoned house is restored to its former glory.

Have you tried The Novel Factory? Novel writing softwarewritten for writers, by writers.

Thanks to Gail Gaymer Martin for the inspiration for this post, which you can read here: http://www.gailgaymermartin.com/2013/02/finding-a-setting-for-your-novel/#respond

Picking the right names for your characters can make a big difference to the feel of your story.

There are some names from literature which are unique and feel imprinted on our memories, such as Heathcliff, Hannibal, Simba and even Cinderella. Would these names immediately bring to mind a single entity if they were Jack, Peter, Mohammed or Claire?

Here are a few tips to help you find the perfect fit name:

Reflect the character's personality in the name

You can be obvious about this (surnames like Moody, Love, Nice and Right all exist in real life), but you may want to be a bit more subtle. This is a lot easier if your character is from a foreign country. It's great fun to use a meaning of name website (these are often in the guise of baby name websites, even though adults have names too) and search for a trait you feel is strong in your character. This is much harder when it comes to villains, because there are far fewer names around that deliberately invoke negative characteristics. If there aren't any real names, then make one up.

Make sure they aren't too similar

There's nothing more frustrating for a reader than getting mixed up between characters and having to go back and reread to check who really did what. Use first letters, length and contours to make sure the names are instantly visibly distinguishable.

Research the era and location

If your book is set in a particular time or place, then make sure you do your research and not accidentally use an innappropriate name - for example a Chinese name instead of a Japanese one, or a name that didn't exist in that period.

Or, if you're really not having any luck, then give up and use a character name generator.

If you want more help in developing characters, seeing the story from their point of view and general novel writing advice - then click here.

When you're creating characters for a novel, it's a good idea to pin down their history in as much detail as possible.

For the most part none of this information will actually be directly shared with your readers, but the very knowing of it will make your character seem much more solid when you write about their actions and dialogue.

Personally, I like to push myself into going into as much detail as possible by breaking it down into the following sections:

• Baby
• Toddler
• Child
• Teenager
• 20 - 30
• 30 - 40
• 40 -50
• 50 - 60
• Etc - up the age that they are, obviously.

You may feel this is overkill, but creating characters that feel like real people is one of the hardest parts of writing a novel, and when you take the time to get to know your characters in this much depth, they begin to take on a life of their own.

For example, when thinking about the childhood of your main character, you note down that they once fell into a bush of stinging nettles, and now they hate walking through the woods. The stinging nettle story may never come up, but if your character is forced to walk through a forest, they might react nervously. On the other hand, another main character, who spent their childhood climbing trees and being active, relishes the walk through the woods.

Of course, you could have created this conflict and contrast from thin air - i.e. just decided with your godlike powers that one of them likes the woods and the other doesn't - but knowing why just makes it feel more solid, and that will show in subtle ways in the prose.

Furthermore, as you're forced to think about each stage, you'll get a better grip of their career trajectory (or whatever) and you'll get to know more about the peripheral people and influences in their lives, such as their first boss, the guy that sits next to them in the office, their first crush on that Russian. It forces us to justify the elements of their lives - such as why they live in a two bedroom apartment. Does that actually fit with their parentage and current earnings?

Another advantage of this is that you'll find incidents occur to you that really will end up informing their behaviour throughout your book, and some of them may even make it as scenes - but be careful of including a scene from their childhood just because you've become emotionally attached to how awesome is.

Even worse, don't even think about giving a low down of the history of the character in chapter one.

Knowing your character's history is your business, just like knowing your own. Elements of it will naturally come up in conversation with people at appropriate moments, but you wouldn't meet someone and immediately tell them your life story. Keep it subtle and your characters will come across as real people with full lives independent of this particular story that they're currently taking part in.