Doing the laundry seems like the most mundane of chores. But if you are writing about a real person, laundry—and other quotidian responsibilities must be addressed. Even if your character chooses to ignore them

But what might your character find in the laundry? Write a page about a new bride who tackles the laundry on her first week of marriage—what might she find as she empties her new husband’s pockets?

Or how about a veteran cop, whose wife has just vanished? A teenager? The housekeeper? How can you make the ordinary into extraordinary?