How to keep Austin field notes

Fold a sheet of paper down the middle. On the left, write what a place does: the screen door sticks, the ice machine coughs, the last patch of shade moves off a bench. Leave the right side blank until you have three verbs. This keeps the notebook pointed at the scene instead of at the stranger sitting in it.

Now use the right side to invent somebody who belongs there. Beside the coughing ice machine I wrote a cook who can tell how many tacos are left by the pitch of the ice scoop. That detail gave me a character. A description of the person who actually served lunch would only have given me a receipt.

For the last line, take the character's trick away. What does the cook do on the day the scoop goes missing? Suddenly there's a little plot to carry home. If you turn the note into an atlas entry, keep the invented trick and the broad district. Leave names, exact whereabouts, and overheard private conversations on neither side of the page.