I don’t love driving the carpool.
I don’t care for stinky cleats or the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack. I’m exhausted by the endless loops to soccer practice and dance lessons, which are cosmically aligned with dinner-time, siblings’ activities, and work calls. I’m also directionally challenged and easily unnerved by drivers who mistake the Garden State Parkway for a Formula 1 racetrack.
But mostly, driving the carpool means countless hours not writing. You can’t make progress on a novel when you’re searching for a turf field your GPS can’t locate. Or can you?
Good news: Driving the carpool is not a detour from your craft, it’s a Master Class in characterization.
Think about it. In what other circumstance would your tween or teen willingly permit you to sit in close proximity to their friends and teammates and eavesdrop?
Next time you’ve got a gaggle of kids climbing into your SUV, listen. Listen to their word choice, tone, and cadence. Study their style of speaking and attempts at humor. Do they repeat what their friends say or phrases they learned from a video game? Stretch their vowels? Abbreviate words? Do they speak in lowercase voices or ALL CAPS? Are they bashful or full of bravado?
Listen to the rhythm of their speech–the patterns, pauses, and punchlines.
Listen to the way they razz each other: “Bro, I found your sister on Snap. She’s cute.”
Or bait each other: “Don’t you think So-and-So is kind of annoying?”
Or offer support: “Girl, you did AH-MAZING.”
Or forget there’s an adult in the car, whisper feverishly so you can’t hear, or stare at their phone.
Silence speaks, too.
Maybe author Judith Viorst was driving the carpool when she wrote her classic picture book, Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day: “I said I was being scrunched. I said I was being smushed. I said, if I don’t get a seat by the window I am going to be carsick. No one even answered.”
Her protagonist didn’t want to sit in the middle seat. What about yours?
Indeed, bad days and good ones can be studied by watching body language and mannerisms in the rearview mirror. Notice the kid sulking or the one talking over everyone else, spilling Gatorade all over your upholstery. The kid who never takes out their earbuds, or the one comforted by the blue light of their device.
Pay attention to the way your kid changes the Spotify playlist to save their peers from your mortifying taste in music, or how they cringe when you dare to make small talk.
Caution: There will be a vibe shift when you speak. “So, how’s school going this year?”
Can you hear your kid’s internal monologue? Ugh, Mom. Puh-lease stop talking.
Does their pal reply with a mumble or full sentence? Talking to grown-ups can be “legit awkward,” but some kids are gifted at it or know the script: “Thank you for the ride!”
At a recent Writers Circle workshop, author Carol Goodman suggested one way busy writers can find time to work, even when not at their desk, is to set an intention to think about the project while doing other tasks – folding laundry, going for a walk, commuting. This seemed doable. So I set my intention to listen during carpool, then translate what I heard to the page.
I took it a step further with a side-writing exercise, putting the characters of my middle grade novel-in-progress into a carpool setting. It was clarifying to think about who sat where, what they would say, how they’d say it, and to whom. This exercise can extend to older characters, too. Put your fictional grown-ups together in an airport van or an Uber, and see what unfolds.
My journalism training taught me to listen for a pull quote, those sentences that pop or distill the heart of someone’s statements. I use that same skill to write quotes for fictional characters (making them up instead of transcribing them). I think deeply about what they’d say in any given situation, then try to give them a voice that’s uniquely their own.
So next time your kid says, “Hey, Mom, can you give some of the guys a ride?” or the TeamSnap app says you’ll be heading to a tournament in Pennsylvania, don’t despair. Buckle up, tune into the words and actions around you, and proceed to the route. Your best writing may be up ahead.
Erin Madigan White has worked for The Associated Press, TIME, Fortune, and for non-profit and arts organizations. She holds an MFA from VCFA, loves writing middle grade, and teaches creative writing for kids at The Writers Circle. She wrote this essay while waiting in a parking lot on her carpool night.
