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A bottle of wine sat between them on the high, stainless steel table; her fingers circled the stem of her glass, lifting it to glossed lips at regular intervals. The level in his glass dropped at a quicker but more erratic rate as he rattled on, dropping “Napa” and “San Fran” into the conversation eleven times in five minutes.
A first date? Perhaps a second, though her crossed legs and the slight glaze under her expertly lined lids suggested there wouldn’t be a third.
“Stop.” My husband’s eyes flashed in a combination of irritation and affection, our own high-top holding individual glasses of white and red wines.
“I can’t help it,” I shrugged, leaning forward into our table, not even attempting to pretend I hadn’t been listening and sneaking glances at the conversation unfolding at the table angling ours.
“It’s eavesdropping,” he said.
“It’s research,” I insisted, sipping Prosecco still beautifully chilled in my glass.
It is.
My characters waltz into my head in bits and pieces, shadows and ideas fleshed out from real world experiences. Some of those experiences aren’t my own but ones I observe and analyze in restaurants and bars, malls and doctor’s offices, gleaning bits of conversations and projecting stories onto those fragments with my imagination.
Defending my habit to my intensely private husband proves a difficult task, but there are 5 definite ways I use my covert observations to improve my writing.
Body Language
I can use my conversations with my husband as inspiration for casual banter between couples, but my visual perspective is limited. Watching other people allows me to watch body language cues between two people. Do their smiles conflict with their crossed arms? Does she lean into the arm he casually throws over her shoulder? Do his shoulders tense as she looks down at his phone, again, during their conversation?
Speech Patterns
Listening to people speak is crucial to improving dialogue. Listening to the way people talk helps frame various types of character conversations. In an argument, does one person carry the conversation, edging out the other voice? Are they talking over each other? An unbalanced conversation can imply a lack of interest, but it can also signal someone with a heightened interest level, soaking up anything the other party says. Those aforementioned body language cues will let you show your readers which conversation type you’re developing.
Talking Points
Not all conversations are based on life-changing subjects. Listening to conversations around you can give you an idea of what subjects arise during casual conversations. The group of people at the bar for happy hour will be discussing something different than the nervous couple on their first date. Casual conversation can help develop your characters by showing what they talk about for fun.
Realistic Settings
An argument happening at a park may involve raised voices, where the same conversation in a dim restaurant may take place in tense whispers. A meeting between women at odds with each other is more awkward at the static school pick-up, where there’s nowhere to escape, than a grocery store. Observing where people talk about certain things will help you create a realistic environment for your characters.
Intangibles
What happens between the silences in a conversation can move your plot forward. I’ve seen a woman glance at her partner’s phone when he leaves the table and heard heartfelt questions answered with silence or eyes filled with tears.
Small nuances in conversation and interaction allow my imagination to take over, filling in background and future stories to flow from what I’ve seen or heard.
And my husband just thinks I’m being nosy.
Do you listen to conversations in public places or are you on Team Husband and think I’m crossing a privacy line?
I definitely listen to other people’s conversations! I don’t mean to, I just can’t help myself.
People are interesting, really. I think that’s part of being a writer, finding people interesting and figuring out what motivates and moves them.
I’m with you. I notice scenes, conversations, appearances everywhere, and have panicked when I couldn’t find a pen and paper to jot down notes. Pure research. Agreed.
You just never know where inspiration will hit. Sometimes I see things that strike me, and they take my characters in a whole new direction! I love that part.
Yes! Definitely a listener…. and my husband says he knows when I’m listening because I get a “certain look” on my face. He actually now is as snoopy, I mean interested in collecting research info. as I am!
Yes! That look
I know what you’re talking about exactly.
Good post
You should ride in the car with me while my teenage daughter and her friend that lives across the street are in the back seat talking. It’s where I get my ear for teen dialogue. I’m around so many women that I get used to how females express themselves. There’s tone, ticks, inflexions, and body language that most guys are clue less about. The biggest thing is what’s not said or not expressed between people when they’re communicating. There’s novels of words in those moments.
That’s perfect, though. There are so many nuances about conversation that change in little ways depending on who’s speaking, too. I’m sure the girls speak differently with their friends than they do at home. My husband claims I talk differently, in terms of inflection and speech patterns, when I’m with my college friends.
Great post. Thanks for validating my observations and making me realize I need to do a lot more of it.
It really can help me. I don’t know if it’s the “right” thing to do, but I’m glad to see I’m not alone.
Both.
Yes, listening to conversations and observing others can help you write more realistic stories.
Yes, you’re invading their privacy by doing do. Especially if you lift these real-life scenarios and plop them straight into your work.
I think you can balance the two. Careful people-watching coupled with your own powers of inference can give you what you need without you having to explicitly listen to their personal conversations.
And remember: anytime you’re eavesdropping on the conversations of others, you’re missing out on something right in front of you. We can’t ignore the person across the table in favor of the couple across the aisle! Real life is more important than any story
Oh, I would never just lift conversations. I am more interested in the way people converse than the actual nuts and bolts of their conversations.
And I do try to be present in my life and appreciate the inspiration I can find in my own interactions. However, there are certain situations I can’t experience on my own, like a first date, so it can be helpful to jog my memory by observing what I see happening while I’m out and about.
I definitely listen in. (Frankly, I think anyone who says they don’t listen at some point is probably lying…)
The eavesdropping probably happens more now that I work from home and my day is spent surrounded by cats instead of people. I have to take my dialogue-training where I can get it.
I think it’s true that I listen in a little more now that I’m hope with my kids all day. There are a lot of interactions that I don’t get to observe on a regular basis anymore, like those between coworkers. I take what I can get
People fascinate me, they really do! I love to watch them wherever I am, and make up little stories in my head about them. I think pretty much anyone who writes observes people and the way the interact and react. Jimmy Buffett has a line in one of his songs that I think describes it quite well – he calls it a “Novelist’s Eye.”
If you don’t study the ebb and flow of humanity, then I would think that the only characters in your writing would be the people in your own life? That might work at first, but sooner or later you’re going to run out of characters…and just renaming them doesn’t change who they are. (BTW, I have read some published authors who seem to have this problem. Protagonist may have a different name, but it’s the same person from 3 books ago. Blech!)
I picked up a habit I heard about from Cornelia Funke. When I overhear snatches of extremely interesting conversations or ideas, I jot the gist of the subject down on a Bierdeckel or a paper napkin. Then I take them home and put them in shoebox, to sort later when I want to recall a particular piece of conversation or idea. Keep a pen in your purse.
Public place, public conversation! I think it’s wonderful you glean so much from public interaction. Study on!
p.s. Thanks for sharing this great post and reminding me to be present (and shut up once in a while)! I’m a very observant person and love studying people, but I’m also a talker which causes me to miss a lot!
I think that’s a fabulous way to capture real life. I love it!
I’m a confirmed people watcher/eavesdropper. Its fascinating. Drives my husband crazy, but gives me all sorts of fodder for character building and story lines that I tuck away for future use.
Study on!!!
I’ve always suggested to writers that they need to eavesdrop to study in order to create believable dialogue and to also “stop and smell the roses”, namely take the time to observe the little details to set the scene. Thanks for sharing such great advice.
I’m a total eavesdropper. Whenever I get stuck, I go sit at Starbucks for an hour or so. This is particularly lucrative during the week when all the stay at moms are there talking about their fancy lives.
I totally listen to other people’s conversations all the time. My friends get annoyed, because they think I’m not paying attention to them when I really am, but I’m taking in so much more too.
I never thought about this perspective before, but you’re so right about it being research!
Thank you for giving me an argument to make next time I get “scolded” for “eavesdropping”!