Several years ago I sat in on an RWA workshop on character building, led by romance author Susan Elizabeth Philips. I’ve attended her workshops before and she’s always been entertaining and informative.

She gave a tip (and did an exercise) that I’ve tried before:

List the contents of your character’s purse.

This has never worked for me since my fantasy characters don’t usually have purses, but she added the phrase “or their backpack or pockets” to it. That broadened it some, and I realized that ultimately, what she was saying was: