Oh gods, I just did it. I just wrote the words: “He walked down the hallway with his eyes on the floor.”

That is so disgusting. He’s going to get eye slime on the linoleum, and dust and dirt on those sticky orbs. NASTY! Plus, they’re super hard to put back in, unless your characters are robots, and even then it depends on how well they were wired and whether they were removed carefully so as not to damage the connectors.

And the thing is, I know better. I even teach this rule of writing (Keep your characters’ eyes in their heads) to college students. But it’s so, so easy to make this mistake.

Florida Fish and Wildlife, Mystery Eyeball (Head-on view), FWC photo by Carli Segelson.

I can see why people do it so often—why their characters run their eyes over people, or send their eyes across the room. There are tons of sayings that refer to eyes in that way. For example: “Keep your eyes on the prize,” which is both good advice (as long as not taken literally) and rhyming, which is essential for a good saying. (Not really.)

And there’s “Keep your eyes on the ball,” which is also good advice, if you’re playing a ball-related sport. The phrase “Keep your eyes on me,” which is sometimes used in teaching situations, should absolutely never be taken literally, unless it’s a horror movie—which would be pretty cool, now that I think about it.

Granted, your readers will know what you’re trying to say, but enough of them will stumble over words like “he dropped his eyes to the floor,” thinking of the literal meaning, that it just makes good sense—and good writing—to avoid them. So, instead, have your characters aim their attention, or focus their gaze, or simply look: at the floor, across the room, at the ball, etc. Because if you run your eyes over someone, especially nowadays, you’re gonna get arrested. And that’s fair, because you clearly need help.

Super fun! Getting to the courthouse Friday morning was a little more complicated than usual because of the massive international bike race extravaganza that began with opening ceremonies last night. Roads were closed and people were driving like loonies. Neither of those things are very unusual for Richmond, alas.

We waited in a large holding pen in the basement of the courthouse for a while. We’d been told we could bring books, but no devices, of course. I was amazed at how many people—maybe a quarter of the 28ish people there?—sat and gazed into space rather than read. There was even a table full of magazines, but not many people read them.

There was an orientation video during which the former chief justice of Virginia repeatedly referred to us as jurors, pronouncing it jur-AHRs. Very weird/annoying. (Later, the judge referred to motorcycles as motorsickels. Maybe they were just doing it to mess with us.) The production values and audio quality of the video were atrocious. The commonwealth should be ashamed.

When they did roll call, I was surprised to hear that maybe 20% of the people who were supposed to be there didn’t show up. I wonder what happens to them. Probably not much. Of the names called, I recognized one, but assumed it was a coincidence. A little later, I realized that it wasn’t. I’ve only lived in Richmond for about 4 years total, and I don’t know that many people who live in the city. What are the odds? Anyway, we were able to talk for a while—longer than we ever did when we worked together a few years back. It was really nice. (We were also almost the only people who talked that day. Very quiet crowd.)

Eventually, they herded us upstairs, cramming us into three elevators. We sat and waited in another courtroom until they were ready for us, then moved to the rear of the other courtroom. Thirteen of us were randomly selected to be part of the jury pool. I was number 11. YAY. (I had plans—otherwise I’d have been thrilled.)

We finally learned that it was a civil trial. The judge gave us a summary of the case, which surprised me, and told us the defendant was a John Doe. They didn’t explain it very well, but basically if you want to be anonymous in a civil trial in Virginia, you can be. This is generally done when someone is a public figure. This case involved a man riding on a Harley Davidson motorcycle who claims he was run off the road by a man in an SUV. I have decided that the defendant was Chris Brown (based on no evidence at all) and that he’s guilty. 😉

Anyway, the judge asked a bunch of questions. Then the plaintiff’s lawyer did. Both lawyers agreed to excuse two people at some early stage, and the judge agreed to remove and replace them with extra people from the jury pool. Both people said they had experience with motorcycles and how irresponsible people are when driving around them, and didn’t think they could be impartial, plus they wanted the rest of the day off to screw around. (That last part was unstated, but pretty clear.)

The lawyer asked a bunch more questions, mostly about who’d been in accidents, who had been parties in lawsuits, if any of us had ever used his firm, etc. He also asked about people with medical and legal experience. The friend I spoke with and I both have experience with the legal profession (me as a PI). He asked what kind of work I did—domestic, insurance—and he paused for me to answer. I said: “No domestic, but just about everything else.” He said, “No domestic? Good for you.” “Yes, yes it is,” I said. 🙂

Then the defendant’s attorney asked some questions, though he seemed more interested in talking about the case. Seemed a little over the line a couple of times, but no one objected. They also didn’t say much about the John Doe thing, but he promised they’d explain more later. Two people objected strongly to the dude not being there. I also had issues with it—I imagine most of us did—but with an open mind. (Unless it was Chris Brown.)

Then the lawyers SLOWLY went back and forth, apparently agonizing (I wondered if some of that was theater) over the list of names, and each attorney picked three people (alternating) to excuse. I and my friend, who has a JD, were both excused. I was doing my happy dance on the inside, but managed to avoid high fiving anyone. One of the people who’d objected to the John Doe thing—a man who seemed pretty cantankerous—was also excused.

They had us sit and wait a while longer, and then sent us back downstairs…where we waited a little longer. While we waited, I noticed a woman reading a book in the back that I hadn’t noticed before: Fifty Shades of Gray. Now, setting aside issues of quality (I try not to judge, with varying degrees of success), I truly can’t imagine reading that book in a public place, let alone a courthouse. But hey, at least she was reading.

They finally gave us parking vouchers and sent us on our way—along with instructions to call the following Thursday to see if we need to report. We apparently all have 4 Fridays where we might need to serve. Here’s hoping for something more exciting next time, if they ask us to come in (though I expect being excused will be a matter of course, for me).

Update: I forgot to mention a few things that I found interesting. The plaintiff’s attorney said his only witness would be the plaintiff, and asked us if any of us would be unable (don’t remember the exact wording) to vote in favor of his client. He also noted that the state trooper who did the accident investigation might be testifying for the defense (I assume he was–he was present, though not in the courtroom during jury selection), and asked if we would assume the trooper was necessarily right–or if we’d accept the word of the trooper over that of his client. No one raised their hand at that, which surprised me a bit. Though a lot of people are hostile to law enforcement these days, and especially to troopers (speeding tickets), the trooper has no real horse in the race. (That’s arguable, to some extent, but still…) And troopers are supposedly experts in accident reconstruction. The plaintiff had a pretty tough sell, it looked like to me. Unless it was Chris Brown involved, anyway. 🙂