The man in the dark suit stands stiffly as the small white dog sniffs around the grass, searching for the right place to pee. He sighs with impatience and scowls. He has better things to do than to walk his girlfriend's dog. He has work piling up, papers that need reviewing, bills to pay, anything but this. But no, his girlfriend just had to get this little white mutt, this so-called "lovable" thing that she decided to buy without consulting him. The dog had caused no small number of 'discussions' between them. He knew there would be another one that night.

The dog finally finds the right place, and lifts its leg to pee. The man deliberately looks away, and a momentary flicker of embarssment passes swiftly across his face as he hopes that nobody looks at him. He knows that a dog piddling on the grass is no cause to be uncomfortable, not really, but he always feels annoyed at having to be seen around a creature urinating in public. His parents raised him to have dignity, to respect privacy.

The dog finishes its business, and looks up happily at the man, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. He doesn't look down at it. He just wants to be home, to relieve himself of his burden before going back to work. Hopefully before his lunch break ends. His stomach doesn't growl, but he can feel that gnawing tension inside that tells him he should have eaten already.

Almost accidentally he glances down, and surpresses a wince. The dog's pee has dribbled down and pooled around his shoe. He doesn't react. He just tugs on the dog's leash and starts walking in the direction of home. He has another pair of shoes there, at least. Not as nice as the ones he's wearing now, but they'll suffice until he can get these professionally cleaned. Clothes make the man, he knows, and a person's appearance in public is vital to their advancement in life. That's why he doesn't speed up, doesn't shake off his foot, doesn't scold the dog. He acts as though everything is normal, that nothing is wrong.

Yes, there will definitely be another 'discussion' tonight.

What I just wrote came from observing a man in the park uptown the other day. I decided to try out a little writing exercise I'd heard about. It's very simple to dog, fun, and is good for getting the creative juices flowing. All you do is go somewhere, anywhere, and observe people. Pick someobody who seems interesting, watch what they do, how they act, and make up a story about them. Explain their mannerisms. Give them a background. Turn them from some random guy off the street to a real 3-D living breathing character.

A lot of writers seem to have trouble with characterization. It can be difficult to get inside a complete stranger's head, to see what makes them tick. How a person thinks, how they feel, ways they react to things, these are all influenced by events in their past, their upbringing, their social surroundings, innate personality, so many things.

This can make it seem very daunting when it comes to writing people. Some people wonder how they can ever write a realistic person without knowing every detail of their life up to the start of the story.

But it doesn't need to be that complicated. The short description I wrote above came from me seeing a man in a suit walking a dog, and looking annoyed while doing it. He seemed interesting. So I kept watching. I began to ask myself questions. Why was he annoyed? Was walking the dog a chore for him? if it was, then why does he have a dog in the first place? Maybe the dog is somebody else's, and they asked him to walk the dog. If he was so annoyed by the dog, likely that person would have to be pretty close to him, physically and/or emotionally, for him to consent to that favour. Hence the girlfriend.

Why was he dressed in a suit? Did he just come from work? What kind of work did he do? Does he like that work? Does he like wearing a suit? His tie wasn't loosened even in the heat, so it followedthat he must have been used to wearing them, and so found them relatively comfortable. He looked well-groomed, so it seemed to make sense that he took some pride in his appearance, especially in public.

Simple questions from simple observations, and all of a sudden I've got the basics of a character. I didn't need to know that his parents sent him to private school and dressed him in miniature suits on the weekends to see that he was well-groomed.

A character doesn't need to be built from the bottom up. Sometimes they appear fully formed, and the details -- and more specifically, the reasons behind the details -- can be discovered later.

This really is a good exercise to try, even if you are good at characterization. Looking at a random person and trying to get inside their head to see how they think, and why, can be a lot of fun, and sometimes can give you enough information and inspiration to perhaps add an entirely new character to something you're writing.

If you don't feel like going out and doing this (because staring at people and writing in a notebook can get you some stares of your own sometimes), it can be done just as easily with characters from TV or movies. Pick an extra, any extra. Somebody with few lines and no real characterization. Look at how they're dressed, the expressions on their face, their reactions to the events in the scene or scenes that they appear in. Now build backward. Ask yourself questions about them, and then guess. Make up a backstory that fits with how they react now, with what you know about them. It's amazing how much can be discovered -- or at least reasonably supposed -- by people this way.