How I Develop My Characters and Plan My Mysteries
By nature, I am a people person, so, developing characters is where I begin when planning a story. Once the characters are created, the plot is built around them, not the reverse. So, how do I develop my characters? I have kept a daily journal chronicling all the interesting, difficult, and oddball people I have encountered as well as the crazy situations I’ve gotten myself into and out of during my apparel sales career. The journal entries are the foundation of my mysteries. All my characters are based on people I have encountered in my career as a ladies’ swimwear sales exec. I take the characteristics, quirks, traits, and personalities of these real people as the foundation and then build upon them to create the cast members I want in the tale. Basing my characters on people I know has given my cast a ring of authenticity and that believability has translated into memorable characters readers root for or boo at, but either way, invest in.
To illustrate my character development technique, I’ll detail how I created Holly Schlivnik, the protagonist of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. Holly Schlivnik is based on me. She is the me I always wanted to be and more. She is fearless, loyal to a fault, and smart.
Holly is infused with me in every respect- from her physical description to her personality to her life experiences, career, family, friends, the kind of car she drives, and where she lives.
Physical Description:
Holly is slim as I am and is my height- 4 feet 8 inches to be exact. I have made the consequences of her height lack of it, a key component of the messes she gets herself into and the adjustments she’s had to make in her everyday life to accommodate her height. These situations add to her personality and turn into some of the funniest schticks of the series. She has brown eyes and short brown hair like mine.
Personality:
Like me, she is funny, sarcastic, stubborn, wise-cracking, and irreverent.
Idiosyncrasies, and inherited traits:
I inherited a fear of death from my maternal grandmother that we both overcompensated with the nervous habit of laughing, often inappropriately. I incorporated this idiosyncrasy into Holly’s personality and made it one of the main characteristics that identify her. I also inherited my grandmother’s rapier wit and a love of perfume and jewelry. I blended these into Holly’s personality as well.
Family: My dad was a ladies’ apparel manufacturer’s representative and I started my career working for him and so is Holly’s dad. I got into the rag biz by accident and so did Holly. Holly also started her apparel career working for her father. My parents were complete opposites who had a very successful marriage and so are Holly’s. Holly’s parents, bigger-than-life maternal grandmother, and siblings were all based on my family.
Religion: Like me, Holly is Jewish and the traditions and history are woven throughout the series and add to the richness and authenticity of each story.
Love Life: While I lived in the South, I did have two men in my life one of who I have introduced into Holly’s life. Unlike Holly, I have never had a personal relationship with a police detective.
Pets: Sigmund Freud, Holly’s wildly popular standard poodle/psychiatrist and amateur sleuth, is based on the personalities of my own two springer spaniels. While he can’t talk, like my two hounds, Siggie gets his point across. He shakes his head yes and no, rolls his eyes, barks if he disagrees with Holly, and has been known to pull her in the opposite direction if he doesn’t think Holly is going the right way.
Health and habits: To keep my girlish figure, I am a dedicated walker I walk three miles every day- and have made Holly’s daily walks with Sigmund to the Washington Street Pier an important part of her routine. “Pop,” the senior citizen fisherman she has befriended and shares morning coffee with on the pier has helped her solve several murders.
Hobbies: I have been an avid stamp collector since my pre-teen years. In book number six, which was recently released, it is revealed that Holly is a stamp collector. She encounters someone tangentially involved in a murder while at her stamp dealer’s store.
Car: I have owned convertible cars throughout my driving career. I incorporated my love of convertibles into my stories by having Holly drive a bubblegum pink classic convertible passed down to her by her mother.
Home: I lived on a houseboat in Marina del Rey for ten years. I loved living on the water in a houseboat and amalgamated that into the series by having Holly live on a houseboat in Marina del Rey, California. I have used Holly’s houseboat and marina locale as an integral part of Holly’s personality as well as the site of her adventures and misadventures as an amateur sleuth.
Age: Holly is on the shady side of her twenties when she is promoted from a sales rep to a management position. This is the same age when I made the leap from sales rep to executive management.
Friends and colleagues: Like me, Holly is in a traditionally male-dominated industry and is one of the very few females in a management position. I surrounded her with a group of female professional colleagues and friends who supported her and mentored her like the ones I was fortunate enough to have had to do the same for me. The Yentas are based on that group of wonderful women.
Career:
Holly is the same successful ladies’ swimwear sales exec based in the Los Angeles apparel center as me.
Employment: Ditzy Swimwear and Mermaid Swimwear are based on two swimwear companies I worked for.
I have created a fictionalized me that has been fun to bring to life. Fortunately, unlike Holly Schlivnik, I have never discovered a murdered person or hunted down a killer…at least, not yet!
Death by Jelly Beans
“Brings a whole new meaning to the rabbit died.”
Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik discovers the Bainbridge Department Store Easter Bunny slumped over dead and obnoxious swimwear buyer Sue Ellen Magee is arrested for the crime. Despite her differences with the nasty buyer, Holly is convinced the Queen of Mean didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But the trail has more twists than a pretzel and more turns than a rollercoaster. And nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Jelly-Beans-Swimsuit-Mystery/dp/B0D88FNBSS
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-jelly-beans-susie-black/1145804565?ean=2940186124580
https://www.bookbub.com/books/death-by-jelly-beans-holly-swimsuit-mystery-book-5-by-susie-black
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
Website: www.authorsusieblack.com
E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com
Book Bub: www.bookbub.com/authors/susie-black
Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries
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