I spent the wee hours this morning figuring out what cars my characters all drive. It seems like a silly thing. I almost felt like I was wasting precious writing time, browsing the internet for images of various cars, but the truth is, these little details matter.
This bit of research was prompted by the realization that every time a vehicle comes up in my story I write either “car” or “truck” and leave it at that. The truth is, I don’t care about cars (or trucks) and so any details beyond that seem unnecessary, but really, for most of my characters, what they drive actually says a fair amount about them.
My main character, for example. She lives on a farm. She drives a truck. As of this morning, I know that it’s a white, 1998 Toyota Tacoma truck. It’s a real work horse, but it’s getting older. It’s white because it sits in the desert sun all day – if it were black or blue it would get so hot she would burn herself on it. It’s old because she can’t afford a new one.
Her boyfriend, on the other hand, lives in town. He thinks he’s a tough guy, but really he’s the kind of guy who buys an SUV and then never washes it so that it appears that he takes it off road, but he never does. Ford Escape for him.
My villain gets a red Dodge Ram. A big old thing that looks like it wants to eat other trucks.
I made a word doc and pulled an image off Google for each of my character’s vehicles. I may likely never need to refer to it. Really, it’s not like I’m going to go into all that much detail about the cars, even now that I know what they all look like, but it definitely helps me visualize a scene if the pieces in it are specific and real.
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