“I fear that there’s not enough danger in everyday life. I’m not talking about gang-related violence and how the ease of buying handguns in America causes everyday danger. I’m talking about public restrooms. In the old days, there weren’t fast-food restaurants at every intersection on the highway. In the old days, if a traveler had to use the restroom, he had to go into grimy, strange Texaco and Gulf stations or roadside rest areas. There was always graffiti in these places that read something like “Want to have a good time? Meet me here at 4:30.” Then the traveler would look at his watch and see that it was 4:28 or thereabouts. 

Such anxiety and tension causes good fiction. It’s a different kind of tension than when the automatic hand dryer is broken. So my advice for beginning writers is to pee in dangerous places, always. Then give your characters that feeling of eminent danger.”

-George Singleton, “Pep Talks, Warnings & Screeds”