People. They rush into elevators without letting the people inside get off first. They finish the milk and put the empty carton back in the fridge. They talk during movies! But aren’t they insanely interesting?
In the third week of Turning Tales, we went people watching. We plucked them right off the street (or, in the case of that one sleep paralysis demon, out of the upper right corner of our childhood bedroom 
) and put them into our writing. The result is an impressive collection of finely drawn portraits!
A grandfather, jittery and frail, at peace after a good day. A stranger beside the road, carrying “a sign with oversized lettering that read, No cash, no food needed, just a hug will do, thanks!” A patient with frontal lobe dementia, “a very tall man, a little heavy”, gentle, almost childlike:
I remember the first time I visited him; I was a little afraid of him, and with reason, I am a little woman, in my seventies, with not too much force left after a heart attack. Soon, I discovered he is a sweet man. He probably has been a sweet man all his life.
It is amazing how just a few details conjure up a whole person, a whole life:
Marilyn Smith never wanted to be a waitress. She wanted to be a movie star. Each night she rolled her bleached blond hair in pink rollers – 1 inch; they had to be one inch. Marlene Dietrich only used one-inch rollers.
It’s almost impossible to describe a person without at least hinting at the relationship between them and the narrator. And just like that, there’s the seed of a plot! In the third week of Turning Tales, we read about fleeting encounters, complex relationships, even the onset of a meet-cute. Each of these scenes leads to a story.
The third week’s Turning Tales thread is now closed.
You can no longer post your own entry. But you still have a whole week to give Likes to the entries you love. 
The submission that gets the most hearts will be celebrated with a full year of Papyrus Autor+. On top, we’ll give away another year of Papyrus Author+ to one of the participants at random.
On Tuesday, November 8th, you will find out if you won.
The fourth week of Turning Tales starts today, and this week … we need to talk. 
How did you like the third week’s topic?
Do you find it easy to watch other people, perhaps strangers, so closely? What were the most significant details you captured? Did you do anything differently compared to your usual writing process? Did you discover anything you can apply to other projects you’re working on?
Going on more subtle observation is my mojo. Thank you for letting me share some of my observations of people. It was a lot of fun.
