Welcome back!

I’m on a temporary assignment where I work swing shift. I start work at the customary lunch hour which gives me time to get some freelance work done in the morning and again at night.

However, you’d never quite anticipate the difficulty in deciding what to eat when you work the noon to eight shift. I tend to do more snacking during that shift than the actual eating of a meal. It was during one of my mindless snacking incidents that I thought about how our senses play such a big part in how we enjoy things. From foods that are addictively flavorful to words that feel good rolling off our tongues when we say them. Our most enjoyable moments begin with how they impact the senses. Our favorite songs have strong beats and catchy choruses that stick in our heads, aromas make our stomachs rumble and our minds transport back to favorite memories, even vibrant color or rich contrasts make us stop and take notice. Certain fabrics are even sought for their touch ability factor.

Now, I was in search of food that had that nibble factor. It’s not messy and it’s small enough to fit within the grasp of my thumb and two first fingers. It brought me to think about writing. Certain home grown phrases definitely have that nibble factor or sticky hook that catches everyone’s attention. How do translate the nibble factor to your writing? Think about words that involve the senses–not just the five we learned about in kindergarten up the sense of our intellect as well. The next time you write a sentence or begin a story ask yourself, does it bounce of the walls of my ear canal? Do the words feel good rolling off my tongue? It’s hard to describe, but you know when a word or phrase tickles your intellect just right. It makes you say “hmmm” or “I want to know more”.  Strive to achieve this every time you pound the keys or put pen to paper and your writing will be better for it.

As writers, we take the slightest detail to make our character’s lives more authentic. I mentioned in the Details of Writing post how researching an element within your character’s home environment can tell the reader something about the character and his or her lifestyle.  In that instance we were talking about pools for stories set in warm-climate settings.

Still focusing on that warm setting, additional research of the Shasta Pools website or blog maybe required when describing the type of pool or the current technology of the pool for the time period in which your story is set.

For example, Shasta Pools has been in existence since 1968.  Since that time company has been responsible for many different pool designs. However, if you are modeling your character’s pool after a negative-edge pool or a self-cleaning pool you researched on the Shasta Pools website, but your story is based in the 1980’s, your character’s pool will stick out like a prickly cactus in your story.   

Keeping up with the evolution of companies and their products is a great way to keep your stories accurate.

Sometimes the best way to capture the multiculturalism of your characters is to incorporate the food of the culture in your writing. If your character is Irish, you don’t have to go into the vast history of Ireland, you could just mention some uncommon Irish meal or dish as being a favorite of your character’s.

For example, if I was writing about Kenyan journalist Wangethi Mwangi, to make him appear as a more human figure instead of just a journalist, I could talk about his hobby of Kenyan cooking. This would explain why many people list hobbies on resumes. It is a way to make an employment candidate appear more human. Not everyone is familiar with the food of a given culture. So with Wangethi Mwangi as my example, exploring the food of your character’s ethnic origin is a way to expand your reader’s horizon and round out your characters at the same time. Like Wangethi Mwangi and his love for Kenyan cooking, the love of food is universal, something that we all understand and can build a common ground around.

The next time you want to incorporate the details of your character’s culture, instead of referencing hair color or complexion, you can mention the favorite dish of their ethnic culture. It accomplishes the same thing in a more interesting way.

When writing your stories in a given time period and setting it is important to consider the details of your story. For example, if you are writing a story based in the 1980’s, your characters probably didn’t listen to CDs or watch DVDs. Your readers will pick up on such errors. Again this makes research that much more important. Or something that is less obvious would be the use of cabs. Since the setting for much of my writing takes place in New York and New Jersey it is important that I understand about the mode of transportation. So I might research Amos Tamam, an engineer who contributed 30 years of innovation in the taxi industry. One innovation we take for granted is the recent ability for taxi’s to accept credit cards. Amos Tamam’s involvement in the various improvements within the taxi industry requires me to be more considerate when I have my characters utilize a taxi given the setting and time period of my stories.

Additionally, Amos Tamam was educated at Tel Aviv University in Israel. His story alone brings about an interesting twist to how multiculturalism can bring change and improvements to US society. Not every great idea or improvement is American-bred. The next time your character takes a cab, that detail may not be as simply or mundane as you originally thought