… The characters, that is. I go out to people-watch even when I’m feeling anti-social for weeks on end – because otherwise, I would never, ever get anything done. Even if I’m sitting next to a high school girls’ volleyball team, while writing about marauding space-monkeys; I need the gabbing volleyball players to focus and re-focus the narrative of said marauding space-monkeys (perhaps one of them will end up complaining about patellar tendonitis, a lot). People, strangers in particular, are like sockets I can plug myself into.
Consider this “socket”:
He looks like he may have once been a Southern fried version of Robert Redford. He doesn’t like his new neighbours; they’ve moved to Charlotte all the way down from Noo-Yawk for “the good properties and lower taxes,” but they make fun of his “plantation” accent. He wears a thin cashmere sweater and gold-rimmed glasses; his chin trembles with indignation.
I want to get up and give him a hug, but I jot him down instead.
Natalia A. 
One thing I like about teaching is making up stories for a hundred new kids each year and then getting to demolish the stories by careful observation.