MICROTRENDS
STATUS: I missed the second episode of Battlestar Galactica last night, but that’s why there’s hulu (see below).
FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Hulu.com, where you can watch everything. New episodes of BSG, old episodes of the Golden Girls, it’s all there.
My friend Ellen and I once discussed which is more the heart of a book, plot or characters. I’m decent with plot, worse at characters, so I said plot; Ellen is good with both, but she’s definitely a character-driven writer, so she said characters. Ultimately, they both matter and we of course agreed you can’t really have one without having the other.
Since I struggle more with building compelling characters, I always have my eye out for anything that might help. And that’s where a little book called Microtrends comes in. I should say first that the author, Mark J. Penn, is an adviser to Hillary Clinton and has been in the news lately for a ruckus involving Columbia and some money. It’s totally more Clinstones drama and is yet another case for why I no longer crush on Bill. So, yeah, Penn is smarmy, but his book is really good and it provides some good launching points for character work.
For example, one of the Microtrends that Penn cites (a microtrend being something that 1% of the population is doing) is having kids later in life, especially men. So he says there’s this growing niche of older dads out there. How cool would it be to have a character who has a dad who’s like Larry King’s age? Okay, not that old, but still — an older parent could be a rich detail if you worked it right.
Here are a few more microtrends to sink your teeth into:
- More kids are being home-schooled, eating vegan diets, and starting their own businesses.
- Lots of grown-ups play video games, don’t have time to clean (and are labeled slobs in the book) and are hiring live-in nannies.
- Some people hate the sun and avoid it like the plague; others met on the Internet and later got married (that last microtrend I can relate to!).
Anyway, these are just a few microtrends that, if explored and fleshed out, I think could make for some really interesting characters. And if you’re like me, you can take all the character help you can get!
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