confound that dowdy flock with a sharp-honed nerve

the Observation Deck :: "ask a question"
Related to the earlier advice to be specific. The text discusses the value of asking questions, esp. in non-fiction. But it also talks about asking questions as a way to create and define characters in fiction. Starting from general and moving towards more specific.
Related to this, something I saw on boing boing today, an interview with Jaime Hernandez. As you might guess from the sidebar, I'm a huge fan of Love and Rockets and particularly of Jaime's stuff. Interesting stuff about drawing, and Hernandez's fondness for Dennis the Menace but esp. the passage where he's talking about aging his characters and questioning what that means for them and trying to figure out how they're changing.