Observing -Watch the world around you. It's drama in mid-act. Airports, shopping malls, and even sidewalks offer glimpses of private lives put on public display. The ways they dress, they ways they interact with each other, their mannerisms when they know they're among crowds, but feel that nobody's really watching; these all become a show for those of us who train ourselves to focus on them. Clothes, movements, habits, and conversation (discussed separately, below) all give us pictures of characters that we can remember and perhaps include into our scripts.
Listening - Have you ever noticed that people on cell phones tend to talk louder than they would on a payphone? Why is that? On payphones, people take extra measures to ensure the privacy of their conversations. But on cell phones, I've heard people's conversations from 10 or 20 yards away. Is it simply because the technology of cell phones is such that the users have to be loud to be heard? If so, then all playwrights owe a debt of gratitude to those who make cell phone technology so inferior that users have to talk loud. One of my favorite crowd-infested pasttimes is to listen only for snippets of conversation. Hearing a particular line out of context generates a multitude of possibilities for me. For example, if you hear somebody say, "Yes, but only when the plumber is around," there are myriad statements that could have preceded that answer. As a full-time playwright, I'll hear such a statement, and then try to figure out the most entertaining, most outrageous, or most dreadful question that came first.
Noting - With today's technology, such as pocket PCs and PDAs, it is very easy to record thoughts, ideas, snippets of dialogue, and other observations onto a secure and transferable media. Even so, I also carry with me at all times a pen and small pad of paper. Sometimes there isn't time or convenience to put things into digital form. But I can capture the thought on paper and then expound on it later when I'm at my PC. Just as wannabe photographers will see an inspiring moment but lament, "I wish I'd brought my camera," so do wannabe playwrights frequently lament that they're suddenly inspired, but unable to capture the moment.
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