Growing up, I went on hikes and walks with my mom. She notices birds and flowers and names them so I started noting them too. Then, I studied archaeology and I started noticing chert fragments used for projectile points and broken glass. Then, I became curious about firehydrants. Then, I started learning about bones and became fascinated by them. As my nephew once said after I found a bone on a hike, "of course you'd be the one to find a bone." Then, I studied geology,
and rocks and geologic features started popping out at me. And now, I've been going on hikes with Jeremy more and I keep noticing bugs. I kind of love how my search parameters keep getting added to, because really it is just more things to appreciate and learn about.
One thing I try to do in my writing, an character building is to make different characters have different search parameters. I think it is a simple way to add a bit of a different feel to the point of views of various characters. For instance one of my characters likes birds, while another likes horses. When I write from the point of view of the one that likes birds I try to mention more birdsong and seeing specific birds while ignoring horses except to notice their presence.
As I concluded in my last post about search parameters though, what makes even more of a difference over specific likes and dislikes or educational biases is attitude. Am I looking for the positive or the negative or perhaps how to be a hero or a victim. Things like that are bit more tricky to add to a written character and probably even trickier to notice in your life but perhaps all the more important because of that.
