The Person of the Day
By Barbara O'Neal | November 23, 2016 |
I’ve often thought the most satisfying job in the world would have been Charles Kuralt’s On the Road. Head out, find an ordinary person in some ordinary place, get that story. Even as a young reporter, when all my friends were scrambling for places in hard news and political exposes, I leaned toward the interview. Individuals are so….well, personal, right?
For a long time, I’ve scribbled notes in my journal about “the person of the day,” especially when I’m traveling. I chanced across this one recently, from a trip quite some time ago:
Person of the day, Virginia Beach, Friday May 4
Her name is Tasha, and she is my cab driver. She might be 22 or 23, no more, with a high sweet southern voice that seems to smile in my ear. Her cab is a little battered and the air conditioning doesn’t work. She has been a cabbie for a week and a half.
She is a big woman, who says she isn’t exactly swimsuit material. She’s wearing her gently curly hair, “good” hair, in a ponytail. Her skin is elegantly smooth and dark, not cocoa with that reddish undernote, but deeper, richer, like the skin of a seal. Her eyes are dark and luminous and she is very Southern, using words like “Gracious!” and “Sweetie” (to me, which seems funny as I am thirty years her senior).
She chatters all the way to my destination, the Edgar Cayce Center. In that cheery voice she tells me someone died. I didn’t catch who, and it seemed rude to ask after she kept talking about him being in heaven, which she thought would be a good place, but I think it was her boyfriend, and she misses him. Her body flows over the seats and she’s wearing a tank top, so I can see the size of her arms and the flesh spilling over the edge of her shirt at the underarm, but there is such a genuine sweetness and beauty to her that I imagine a boy who is slim and pretty but a little bit off in some way, geeky or gangster or something, who loved her.
On the way back, she tells me she loves to read Nicholas Sparks and loved The Help.
This image sticks with me, her sweet voice. Her loss. What is her story?
Another person of the day is the whippet-thin server at a Thai restaurant in strip mall near my house. She’s Asian and androgynous, with short hair and glasses that should make her geeky, but there’s an air of knowledge and aloof cool about her that takes her way into the land of hipster. She loves my friend Christina, a bereavement counselor with a ready laugh and a Swiss accent, and saves her the best booth by the window. When she suddenly disappeared not long ago, all of her fans were devastated. We can hardly bear to go there anymore.
What’s her story? Where did she go?
On a recent trip to LA (with others of our Writer Unboxed family to help promote the amazing Author in Progress), my person of the day was a very fit young cab driver who took me from the airport to the hotel. He was friendly and chatty, and I guessed from his accent he was from Africa, but I can’t figure out more than that. We started out talking about climate change and then moved on to many other subjects. He’s visited 32 countries. He supports his family, his mother and father and brothers, in Somalia. He just built them a four bedroom house, with a bathroom.
Somalia. That’s a place I know nothing about, but there he was telling me. I asked which countries he’s visited, and I could feel him offering them up like a deck of cards: would I like to hear about the Amazon? India? My eyes lit up over India. He didn’t have the best experience there, which turned out to be less about the place and more about the fact that he had to take his mother there for emergency medical treatment for a heart attack because she couldn’t get care in Somalia. It cost him a fortune, but he proudly said he had earned good credit and now he was paying it back every day, not even once a month. He tells me he is proud to be a citizen, since 2008. He tells me America will be okay. He believes in it.
His name was Zachariah. He doesn’t drink and likes to run. I thought at first he was Muslim, but decided it might instead be Christian, that strict, joyful African brand of Christian, by the end of our ride. He happily let me take his photo.
Making notes of these people does a couple of things. First, it engages me with the world, as it is, not as I imagine it might be. I’m noticing character traits and anomolies that will serve me well later when I develop characters of my own. I’m aware of place and how that influences people. I’m aware of cadence and mannerisms.
It’s also a good practice for a writer to carry around a notebook (or use one of the notebook apps on your phone) and take notes on daily life. Paying attention to human beings means your characters become more lifelike, less clichéd. We love this kind of thing—Humans of New York captures a single New York person. The aforementioned On the Road is another.
Because the recent elections have exposed such a division in our country, I love the idea of finding those stories in the heartland, and in the cities, and in strange, far-flung spots. I am hungry to know what my own people are thinking, all of them, and the only way to know it is one person at a time. I haven’t quite decided what form this will take, but I’m adding it to my blogging/facebooking in the near future. I hope you’ll join me in opening up to those stories, and the ones in your own world, on your travels.
Listen. Take notes. It makes you a better writer. Maybe it makes us better people, too.
Do you have a practice like this one? Do you record notes at the end of a day or scribble descriptions of people or places?
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
Barbara, first of all, it was good to finally meet you in person in Salem. Like many in our WU community, you are even nicer in person than online. I don’t do it the way you do, but I have a habit of eavesdropping on conversations in coffee shops and trying to imagine, based on the little snippets I hear, the life the people who are conversing are leading. I pay attention to their patterns of speech and hope to pick up something I can use in a story. I guess it would be a little creepy if the people knew I was listening. It’s important for writers to be engaged in the world in which we live. It’s hard to write authentically without having a connection to people, places and events. Thank you for another thoughtful post.
I love having your actual face and mannerisms in my mind now, too. It’s such a treat.
I love this idea, Barbara! Sporadically, I’ll write notes on a stranger I’ve encountered. How much better to do it as a daily discipline! As I say about my memoir classes: everyone has a story to tell. Thank you for reminding me to listen, not just today but every day.
One of the things I love about having met you in Salem, Barbara, is that now I can hear your voice as I read your words. It’s made your lovely essay even lovelier.
I can see how useful this can be, as a tool for writing. No matter how much pre-writing I do, my characters tend to unfold for me on the page. And it’s always in the little things – a reaction, a surprising thought, an unusual gesture. These are almost certainly little things I’ve noticed in the real people I’ve met or observed.
I can also see how it could be a useful tool in the pursuit of self-betterment. I have to admit to feeling pretty disappointed in humanity at the moment. And certainly disappointment is only a step away from resentment. And I believe resentment is often at the crux of divisiveness. So adding to it is no way forward. Noticing others in this way, and seeking understanding of their circumstance, is a good step toward gaining empathy. And empathy is the renouncement of resentment.
Thank you for offering such a clear, positive step, so easily taken. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Barbara!
Yes, I hear myself building up resentment sometimes, and then I remember–oh, yeah. Let me listen for a minute.
SO good to meet you, too, Vaughn. I was so happy to hang out with all of our gang.
This is a beautiful idea, Barbara. Really beautiful. Thank you.
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth
It was great to meet you in Salem, Barbara, and your column this morning is great. I once was in a bar when a loud-mouthed braggart entered and begin regaling his family with story after story. I took out my small Moleskin journal and was taking notes when he suddenly strode over to me and inquired what I was writing. I mumbled something about being an author, things just came to me and I had to take notes to remember. “Okay,” he said, “Just making sure you weren’t writing about me.” Ah, but I was, baby. I was.
Could he be a writer too? Lurking here on our site? Recognizing himself in your portrayal? Hey, anything can be fiction fodder.
Barb, I enjoyed your observations so much. My sister and I made up stories about people we meet or observe ever since we were kids. It was much, much later, after I became a writer that I started writing down my observations. I always have a catch all notebook with me and a variety of pens so it’s easy.
A happy Thanksgiving to you.
I love this. I’m going to take up this habit myself. I used to journal and record my impressions of life all the time but lately I’ve been too caught up in my “real” writing to do so. But I could manage a Person of the Day entry. Thanks!
I love that you write down your observations. I have them–when I’m not so focused on myself I forget there are other people with stories of their own–but I’ve never thought to write them down. Thank you for the inspiration. Happy Thanksgiving!
Barbara, I was captivated by this process of yours when you spoke about it at the LA novel conference. It’s not only a great exercise as a writer, but it’s such an open gesture of inquiry and communication, trying to get to the other side of a stranger. I love it as a writer, and as a reminder to make the effort, see the details, and see the real person behind the details.
It was your comment that led me to writing this blog, Tom. :)
Well jeepers, that is starting out my day with a cookie for sure!
Hi Barbara,
First, I want to say again what a joy it was to finally meet you in Salem!
I do something similar to this, but not in any formal way. I remember the names of waitstaff and checkers at the places I usually go and engage in conversation with them when I can. Cab drivers have been especially chatty and fun, and have the added perk of often being from other countries. They have often reminded me that as bad as things seem here at times, life in other places can be exponentially worse.
I’ve also seen firsthand, having lived in other countries, that our way is not the only way, and sometimes it is not even the best way. (Hello free medical care in Thailand and Finland!)
One person who sticks out in my mind was a 7-11 cashier named Omar, whom I met on September 12th, 2001, when I filled up my gas tank on the way to work. Omar admired the earrings I wore that day – sun and moon dangles which, at first glance, appeared to be Muslim symbols. They were actually Mexican, and I said so, belatedly realizing the clarification may have wounded him. His face fell a bit and he looked me in the eye and said “we aren’t all bad, you know. Those men were not true Muslims. I am not like them. I would hurt no one.” I told him I would never make that assumption, and that I would stand up to the hate.
I have not forgotten what he said, or the promise that I made that day. My children have been raised to love, not fear.
That’s beautiful, Kim. It was such a treat to meet you, too. Happy Thanksgiving!
Truly “hearing” another person is something I always strive for, and your person of the day can have an amazing ripple effect. Reject fear and use a warm smile. Each one of us wants to be acknowledged and doing it in even the smallest way makes us more human. Happy Thanksgiving, Barbara, and thank you for this.
Barbara, I’ve been reading your novels and loving them, and your post today helps me understand how you create such warm and real characters, not to mention story-worlds that I’m reluctant to leave. I’ve always been an eavesdropper and a notetaker. I love accents and dialects and the way people are so willing to tell you stories if you ask them to. Your post today is not only brilliant advice for writers, but also a beautiful example of finding real connection in disconnected times. Many thanks!!
I loved it too — especially “a voice like a smile.” What a cheerful image.
These are wonderful portraits, Barbara, and I can sense your enthusiasm for each person in the details. I am sitting at my gate at the airport right now, so will resume my own people watching in a moment. As solitary as we can be, as writers, I am continually reminded of how important (and healthy) it is to stay connected to others. Thank you for another lovely post!
(And so glad we got to chat over French toast in Salem…it was a bright spot in a very tricky morning!)
That was quite the morning. It was good to share it with you.
What a great idea! I have always kept a journal and will occasionally jot down specific people met along life’s way. But a regular habit is a fab idea!
I loved your workshop in Salem. Who knew lists could be so telling? This post definitely makes me want to look more closely at strangers like the security guard in my co-working space. You’ve also reminded me that everyday life can be rich and inspiring. The line “like the skin of a seal” is amazing. Happy Thanksgiving!
Taking down notes is one of the best tool in writing effectively.
Everyday, we get to meet people whom may become a part of our life. Making memories is never difficult specially when you have something that will remind of you that.
I remember writing my daily activity in a diary.
This could be one great habit.
Barbara, what a wonderful and interesting idea, to have a Person of the Day. Not only one person,but several. When I discovered Photo of the Day, I thought that was a great tool for my blog. But with this idea of having a Person of the Day, I just can’t wait to try it out. You did a great job describing each character.