Listen and Learn
Authors need to be good listeners. When you listen, you learn. And you may just uncover a great line of dialogue or a name for a character. I remember shopping for clothes in a department store. As I was waiting to go into the dressing room to try on a pair of pants, an old man walked out of the dressing room. He looked at his wife and said, “Do you like these pants?”��She said, “Turn around.” He turned around. She said, “I don’t like ’em. They make you look like you got no ass.”
Elmore Leonard was at a book signing. A man walked up to him with one of Elmore’s books. Elmore said, “Who to I make it out to?” The man said, “Chili Palmer.” Elmore asked him if he could use the name. The man told him he could. It became a character in Elmore’s “Get Shorty.”
In addition to being a good listener, you need to retain the information. I always carry a small notebook with me. of course you could dictate the information into your phone. But hey, I’m an analog guy in a digital world.
Click the book covers to learn more about my Yale Larsson PI series.
