Fell down the research rabbit hole today…learned a lot…but not much else got done.

Oh well. It’ll pay off in the end when I can use all that knowledge to get on a roll writing about it, right?

I also finally got to hang out poolside this week, which of course meant having a book handy. I find poolside is an excellent place for re-reading books. You’re already familiar with the story, so you don’t mind taking breaks every now and then to cool off in the water quite as much as you would with a new read.

This particular re-read gave me a new appreciation for character details. I could really tell where this particular author had gone through and thought about each of her leads’ body language and gave them a few signature moves or way of carrying themselves. One character consistently fidgeted with pent up energy, another tended to avoid eye contact with a certain other character, and third always spoke with a little sarcasm and swagger, so when he dropped it, you knew it meant something. Even as POV shifted from character to character, the same habits were observed, though how much each character noticed and how they interpreted these habits were different, which provided a very three-dimensional sense of each conversation. It also made each character stand out not just for how they acted, but for how they observed as well.

Lesson: Consistent description creates more believable characters.