RHYS BOWEN: I’m currently writing an article on secondary characters. My examples are all from Harry Potter because I think that JK Rowling has created the most fleshed out, real and rounded subsidiary characters ever. She has peopled a whole world. Think of the Dursleys, Neville Longbottom, Sirius Black, Lucius Malfoy… so vivid, so completely real.
For us lesser mortals it’s sometimes a strain to come up with characters who come across as real when we can only describe them in a few lines. Luckily we’ve all had encounters in our lives with people who are Characters with capital C. The ones that stick with us. I was thinking the other day about my succession of cleaning ladies. Starting with my mother’s house when I was growing up Mrs. Broad was a beefy country woman. She thought nothing of pulling out the clothes wardrobe to clean behind it. She also loved to pun and tell dirty jokes with this big, throaty laugh.
Our first cleaning woman was Marilyn. What a character she was. A middle aged white woman, lpermed hair, lots of make-up, living in a house nicer than mine. She cleaned houses because her husband kept her short of money, AND would not allow her to work. So I was supposed to be a friend she was going to visit. Eventually she divorced him and married someone richer and nicer, in fact they went first class to England at the same time we were flying coach!
She was one of those brassy, tough blondes, having had a rough childhood and then a rougher marriage. She was a terrific cleaner but she loved to talk. I’d be sitting at my typewriter (in those days) and she’d appear in my doorway telling me all the gossip she had acquired during the week. She also had the most wonderful malapropisms. When I said I’d been to a bah mitzvah she said she loved the part where they carried the torah, torah, torah.
And my favorite was when she said, “I told her she was not bringing that illiterate child here.” She meant illegitimate.
Her one fault was she loved doing laundry and when it was dry she’d put it in the drawers where she felt it should go. Usually this was the wrong child’s bedroom, always resulting in raised tempers. “Why are you wearing my shirt?” “It was in my drawer.”
I haven’t put her in a book yet but I still might. But other real life characters I have used: Granddad in the Royal Spyness books, based on my own father. From humble beginnings and a sweet-natured gentle man.
I’ve used my headmistress from school in several books as she was such a mean spirited cow. I’ve made her a butler, a nun and goodness knows what else. I'm wondering if I ever killed her off. I hope so.
So which real life characters have you incorporated into your novels?
LUCY BURDETTE: Oh I love those cleaning lady stories Rhys! Maybe it’s a requirement that a cleaning lady be a big character? Certainly ours have been. They, by nature of the job, have access to personal details that no one else would…
I borrow all kinds of secondary characters from real life in Key West. Lorenzo is based on a real tarot-card reading guy who you can find every night at the sunset celebration on Mallory Square. Eric is based on my real friend, a clinical psychologist who’s since moved away from the island. As you say though, Rhys, it’s hard to develop the secondary characters when new ones must move into the series to keep things fresh. I pay attention to what readers seem to want (more Miss Gloria! More Lorenzo!), but also who hasn’t been seen in an installment lately.
JENN McKINLAY: I killed off the Hub’s odious boss in my very first mystery. That was fun! I made my own stalker the bad guy in one of my books - very cathartic! And I use bits and bobs of people I like to flesh out my protagonists so one character has my friend Diana’s amazing hair and another friend is a gifted children’s librarian so I used her skills for that character., It’s a good thing people are so interesting, yes?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I totally steer away from taking a whole person, but I sneak in their names from time to time. A few of my horrible bosses (with more delight than is probably appropriate and admissible), a few of Jonathan’s court nemesis types, a judge or two. A disappointing boyfriend. It’s my little secret, and I will deny it forever.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I plead the fifth on the real people I have happily killed off in my books! I based the character of Penny in my first book on my lovely grandmother, but I've mostly stayed away from "borrowing" people I know in real life–although if I'd come across characters as eccentric as Rhys's cleaning ladies, I would be tempted!
HALLIE EPHRON: In my five books featuring forensic neuropsychologist Dr. Peter Zak, the character is based on my co-author (Dr. Donald Davidoff) who IS a forensic neuropsychologist. We had plenty of arguments about what the “fictional” Dr. Zak would drive. Eat. Wear.
I bumped off a character based on my father in my standalone NIGHT NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT. Very satisfying. And the “sidekick” character in that book is based on memories of a dear best friend from junior high with whom I’ve sadly lost touch. I’d hoped she’d reach out (and I tried to find her on Facebook) when the book came out, but no success. I hope she’d be okay with what I wrote.
RHYS: I also use real life people in my books--the royal family in the Spyness books, and various historical figures in Molly Murphy. But with these I try to be as accurate as possible. I can't have fun with them... or in the case of Mrs. Simpson, not too much fun!
So who has a good cleaning lady character to share? Another person who belongs in a book
