Characters

I have been haranguing my writing students about finding and developing characters. I am trying to impress upon them that there are characters everywhere you look. And that writers need to have a continual curiosity about the world. I think they are beginning to believe me. Maybe. Sometimes they still look skeptical, though.
Really, what I want to say is that to be human and happy you need to have a continual curiosity about the world around you. Especially the people around you. Including yourself. You have the potential to be a character. Your spouse does, your mother, your baby, the spotty teenage boy working at the 7/11 where you buy your fuel, and the old guy who is always in there buying scratch tickets. All you have to do is observe. There are stories all around you, waiting to be seen, waiting to be cared for like a stray animal. And like a rescued dog, they may bite you, but mostly they will be grateful and love you and enrich your life. Especially when you write them down, which is the best way to care for them.
Mostly, good stories spring from characters, like Athena from the head of Zeus. So you want to watch people, listen to them, love the stories they tell. Even when they're mute stories. The big guy with tattoos on every discernible inch of his body, mowing the lawn for his tiny mother who is watering the flowers in her house dress as he plods behind the lawnmower. The old guy wearing a different jaunty Hawaiian shirt every day, shelving books in the library, always and forever, every time you are there thinking there couldn't be that many books in the world to shelve. They are everywhere. There are stories wherever there are characters.
So the exercise of the day is to find one or two Characters. You can find them anywhere. At work, at the supermarket, walking down the street, at home. Observe them for a bit. Notice what they wear, how they look, what they tell if you overhear them speaking. Then write/draw their story, or what you think their story may be. Make it up from their physical characteristics, their setting, their mannerisms. Or if you're brave, just ask. Sometimes that works, too.