Where Do My Characters Come From?

People ask me on occassion where my characters come from. Sometimes the answer is as simple as the fact that they show up somewhere inside my brain and grow until they have to come out. When I wrote When The Butterflies Flew Away, a book for younger children meant to be an introduction to the Holocaust, I wanted to tell the story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis who taught art lessons to children in Terezin. I created a fairy tale type of story with Brandeis as The Art Lady. I don't know if the character was in any way like her in real life, but I quite liked how she developed.

When it came to characters inThe Time Of My Life,I wrote the character of Coop from the prospective of some of my former students, and to some extent through the eyes of my oldest son. I did not however want Coop to be a sterotypical African American teenager. I wanted him to be able to look beyond racial boundaries, to speak in proper English, to portray a positive character who was going to overcome adversity.

Evan, on the other hand is one of those characters that wandered around in my subconcious for awhile. He was a very minor character in Moonlight In His Hand (as was his wife, Casey.) I have no idea why I resurrected him and gave him his own story, because he really had no story in his cameo appearance. I needed an influential character with strong convictions. Then he needed to know something about running, so I made him a runner, and not just a runner but an Olympic hopeful. If he had actually gone to the Olympics I don't think the story would have been as convincing. Because he was at risk for becoming larger than life, I gave him a flaw-a tragic accident that had rendered him unable to run...and the story developed from there.

Of all the characters I have written into being, I can honestly say I like these two characters the most.