Creating Fictional Characters

By Pat Stoltey

This post is adapted from an article I published on my own blog in May 2009.

As I reread my second Sylvia and Willie mystery The Desert Hedge Murders to check the e-book formatting before I publish for Kindle and Nook, I’m reminded how much fun I had creating and writing about The Florida Flippers, a travel club of elderly ladies. One of the ladies, Kristina Grisseljon, is the mother of my protagonists, Sylvia Thorn and Willie Grisseljon. Kristina is a spirited gal who loves to read mysteries (primarily police procedurals), travel, and meddle in her children's affairs. The travel club was formed years ago when all of the ladies lived in the same retirement community and all were enthusiastic fans of the Miami Dolphins.

I needed models for my characters to make it easier to establish individual personalities. Luckily, I just happened to have a few cousins and a much-loved sister-in-law who could provide all of the idiosyncrasies I needed. And just for fun, I used their first names for their characters.

Linda Swayble, for example, was named after my sister-in-law. I added about fifteen years to her age, exaggerated a couple of her most endearing personality traits, and then expanded her bio, description, and speech mannerisms. Then I dumped her into the story to see what she would do. She was full of surprises. Linda of the mystery novel was a first-class worrier and way more timid than I expected. The real Linda, however, was one of the bravest women I've ever known. This is what happens when I give my characters too much freedom.

Three cousins were the models for Marianne, Gail, and Diane. In real life, they're sisters. In my book, they're not related. I've assured the cousins I will let everyone know my Flippers are drawn completely from my imagination and not from real life. For instance, my red-haired cowgirl wannabe Marianne, who line dances with the sexy cowboys at a country bar in Davie, Florida, and plays Blackjack in Laughlin, Nevada, is actually a lovely white-haired grandmother and first-grade schoolteacher in Oklahoma.

Similarly, the real Gail would never kick anyone with her orthopedic boots, unless he truly deserved it, and Diane did not really win the lottery and does not live in The Sanctuary in Boca Raton, Florida.

Using real people to create characters in a novel has certain risks, of course. For instance, did I have someone in mind for the killer(s) and victim(s) in the Sylvia and Willie mysteries? No, definitely not. Really. Although someone who knew me in high school thought I was very tough on old boyfriends in The Prairie Grass Murders, which was set in central Illinois where we grew up. But those were Sylvia Thorn's old boyfriends, not mine. Honest.

The Prairie Grass Murders is already available for Kindle and Nook, and The Desert Hedge Murders is coming soon.

Writing (and Deleting) the Memory Dump in Fiction

By Pat Stoltey

The setting for my first mystery, The Prairie Grass Murders, was central Illinois. A man's body was discovered in a field on a farm that strongly resembled the farm on which my younger brother and I grew up. The protagonists of the Sylvia and Willie mysteries are also brother and sister.

What an opportunity, I thought, to use my memories to help create my story's setting. There are things I could never forget: the oily smell of the wood workbench in the tool shed, the reek of ammonia in the chicken house, the vicious white rooster that guarded the barnyard, the sweet scent of our lilac bush, or biting into a warm tomato fresh from the garden.

In the first writing, two of the chapters were memory dumps, reading more like memoir than mystery. The descriptions were lovely (if I do say so myself). The incidents charming, even amusing. But there were two problems. (1) The memories had nothing to do with the story, and (2) they were plunked into the middle of tension-building scenes, which destroyed the pacing.

You know what that meant. I had to scratch them out. Select and delete. It wasn't easy.

It helps me to save deleted blocks of my writing in a separate file, or retain a copy of the original draft. If I know the wording is not gone forever, that I can retrieve it for a personal essay or a short story, it's less traumatic to kill my darlings.