Get out of the office. Stand on street corners, visit coffee shops, go to a bar. The world is full of characters. Believable? Hey, I believe anything. Doesn’t the juiciest gossip begin with You won’t believe this, but . . . ? 

Weird-ass quirky character material is as close as my family tree. I don’t have to leave the house to find it. Change the sex, give them an entire make-over. Use mannerisms and physical descriptions from people you observe. They will never know.

Eavesdropping should be tax deductible for writers. Master the art. Use your imagination. A Facebook follower overheard a neighbor tell a friend, “My fingerprints are on the knife.” My imagination kicked in so fast, I forgot to read the rest of the post.

After all, the people writing contemporary fiction are authors. Writers come with imagination and a weirdness of its own.