It's the weekend

In the UK it's now early on Sunday morning.  Outside my window the sun is just coming up, and we're promised a fine and sunny day.  After all the rain and floods we've been suffering recently, a sunny weekend has become an endangered species.

How do your characters spend their weekends?  Do they dread weekend, or can they not wait to be released from the bondage of their work to get home on a Friday night?  Or do they work all over the weekend?

Marriage guidance charities tell us that they get their biggest surge in requests for counselling after the extended holiday of Christmas. Weekends can be stressful for your characters too if they're stuck with a fractious parent or grandparent who is becoming impossible to live with.  Many a relationship has foundered on the ultimatum of "It's him or me!"  Is this the weekend he or she finally decides they've had enough and leaves?

Perhaps your character plays sport, and spends all weekend going to matches or meets.  If their partner isn't into sport, that gives you scope for lots of conflict in their relationship.  You might have an  ageing football player who won't admit he's past it pitted against a wife who can't stand football and is emotionally blackmailing him to stop playing.  

Or perhaps your character is a writer who spends her weekends reading her work to other readers, or attending poetry grand slams.  If her partner suspects that she's attracted to someone in these groups you've got the potential for conflict in their relationship.  And if the partner is jealous and threatens to kill your character's friend they might end up being a murder suspect when that friend is killed, forcing your character to make some tough decisions about the relationship.

Or you might have your character do the complete opposite.  Maybe she volunteers to help at the local wildlife rescue centre one day of her weekend because she's lonely.  If she never meets anyone who cares about wildlife as much as she does the rescue might give her the chance to find that perfect partner.

Weekends can stretch out as endless lonely deserts, or be far too short for the amount of things we want to cram into these few precious hours of freedom.  Working out what your characters do with their weekends can help you to write a richer, deeper story.