Methods that help recognizing and finding experiences from life- Question.

Many times, I'll take those "I shoulda said" or "Imagine if" moments to build scenes or stories.

But as in all tools we use to write, the tool needs to support the story. Detail for detail sake feels like padding. If it builds a character's personality in some way (for example, your character is a stick to the rules type who must throw a banana peel into a bin instead of into the bushes) then include it.

I would look for authors who do "authentic moments" (not sure what they're called, that's my in-head term for them) well, and absorb a lot through reading.

What small things catch your interest in real life? Perhaps go from there.

Oh yeah!

In comedy, that sort of observation and analyzation of the mundane is a career skill. You'll rarely see a comic without a writing pad or a link to their note app on the phone handy at all times. It is about recognizing your reactions when a participant or the reactions of others if you are just the observer. If people are paying close attention to something, that might be worth paying attention to. Does the air feel tense in a certain setting? (A full elevator, maybe) Take that in, try and analyze what that tension does to you and others. Did something make you chuckle? Why? Just things like that.

It is a habit, being willing to stop and take note, regardless if you look awkward of feel awkward.

As Chris P. said though, detail for details sake is a bad thing when writing a story. A lesson I've had to learn over time is to look at a scene, no matter how much I love it and ask the question of "does this actually matter to the plot or character development?" if I love it, I may try to justify why its there, but at the end of the day, if I had to try hard to answer that with a "yes", it is probably time to cut it.

I've hesitated to post on this thread because I didn't want to sound contrite - but what I do is pay attention. It helps that I have good memory.

Sometimes when I'm riding my motorcycle, or sitting in a concert, or hotel room, or a bar - I make a game of describing it to myself. What does it feel like to be in a restaurant kitchen? What's it like to camp deep in the forest at night? How does the experience of standing on a beach on the east coast differ from standing on the west coast? I know what all these things are like because I've been there / done that, and I paid attention.

Until the story is being written and edited it's not very realistic to know what will be useful and what won't, especially at the "noticing stuff" phase at the start of the writing journey. So just hoard "noticed details", and then later choose what's needed.

As time goes by, and skill and technique levels reach a plateau (either the plateau, or the first of say once a decade shifts), a specific individual writing style will have come into shape. After this stylistic stabilization, it should become increasingly apparent what type of details tend to get used, and which don't. From that point onward the stage of noticing will adapt to the mature writerly needs.

...And not unlikely noticing will become an automatic unconscious thing by that point.

creativitytogo said:

Hello Everyone,

I will be thankful for any thought of yours for the following-


I am looking for methods that help recognizing and finding experiences from life, even very little ones, for example-


I was outside, willing to throw a banana peel/skin, and it took me 15 minutes to find a bin.


A tourist asked me today to take a phone picture of him.


Etc.


The goal is to be able to spot and recognize even mundane, but unique/interesting, moments in everyday life(not even stories/anecdotes)


I tried looking for journaling/diary writing advices, but was not able to pin-point effective methods to achieve the above(besides common sense ideas such as to stay alert etc)


Without such methods, I feel that many such life's snippets are forgotten easily.


I will be thankful for any suggestions, and if possible, please direct me to any resources(books etc) that specifically discuss this, and provide methods and techniques to achieve the above(maybe with some kind of prompts etc)


Thanks

Click to expand...

Keep a notebook. Wait a while. The good ideas will stay strong or jump out.

creativitytogo said:

...


Without such methods, I feel that many such life's snippets are forgotten easily.

...

Click to expand...

I don't have anyplace to direct you to, but I'd argue perhaps chasing that down instead of writing, working on the craft, etc. is time wasted.....mostly because by your own admission there's maybe dozens of these events in a single day. So its not like you gotta tap the vein before it goes dry. It also isn't like if you don't write them, or didn't have them happen to you, you can't possibly come up with anything.....

All of these never happened to me, but I came up with them for this answer, in a couple minutes:

A homeless man asked for change for food, and scowled at the burrito I offered, as food wasn't really what he wanted.

I was backing out of the driveway, and nearly hit the neighbor's kitten.

I went trout fishing, and ran into my old English professor on the river, knee-deep in a riffle.

I farted, on the subway, a real cheek-slapping, ass-vibrating, rectum-stretching trumpet call protesting that damn burrito I should have given to the homeless man. I was utterly relieved the last passenger had gotten out. Until I heard a woman clear her throat, directly behind me, and realized I'd missed her while cataloguing the comings and going of my subway car.


I'm not saying you can't do what you're looking to do, I'm just saying I am not sure how much it stands to benefit, vs just become a time-sink for stuff you can wing or create on your own.

I'm certainly not against cataloging life's moments to use, but I'm just terrible at it from a proactive stand-point. I think what connects my own life experience to any character I may write is to look backward at someone else's character that really stood out in that regard to me. Not to copy the attribute, but to evaluate how it elevated the character. Once I identify that, I find that I can assign to my character something from my own experience. And, as Lakey said, they tend to pop into place, even for those of us who have a hard time organizing them.