Details, details...

It is amazing what can stick in your head from childhood. When I'm writing or illustrating I pull from those odd little memories to deepen a character. Details make a difference in whether your character is dimensional or flat as the paper you are using. Details give subtle clue s to the characters personality and can foreshadow events. Details are the 'showing' not the 'telling' that is so important to a good story.

Any thing well remembered from childhood or adolescence works.  I remember a little Halloween song I learned in 3rd grade - that's about 48 years ago now. The words go like this:

Halloween...
The witch is riding high.
Have you seen

her shadow in the sky?
So beware, don't you dare

to even boast or a ghost

to your dismay

will hear you say

you don't care to say a prayer.
Or it may come and
Pull your hair!

The song still gives me goose bumps when I sing it on Halloween night...and I still sing it! I think it might appear in one of my stories someday. What Halloween memory keeps haunting you?