Guest Post
My characters aren’t imaginary friends
I’m a visual writer, I need to see who I’m writing about and know where the scenes I’m creating are taking place before I start tapping away on my computer. That’s why my characters start out as someone I know or have seen on TV or in films.
Take Sargent Tim Lindsey for example, introduced in The Glass House. In my mind he strongly resembles Eddie Redmayne because the actor has a smattering of freckles like Tim does. He’s nice looking, but not “gorgeous” like the impeccably dressed and coiffed lawyer my protagonist’s best friend Syda Gonzales gushes over when she sees him for the first time. Tim is witty, confident, reliable, intelligent, and loved by Pat’s Dalmatian, Dot, a dog whose character judgement Pat takes seriously. Tim even more or less gains the trust and affection of Pat’s ginger cat, Lord Peter Wimsey, not an easy feat. Tim knows what he wants and methodically works his plan until he gets the outcome he’s after, which is in part why he eventually wins Pat’s heart.
Let’s look at Pat’s best friend Syda Gonzales next. I first came up with her given name after spotting a yard sign endorsing a judicial candidate named Syda. I’d never seen the name before and liked it. It was unusual and a good contrast to my protagonist’s simple name of Pat and, since I didn’t know anyone with that name, I was free to imagine her as I wanted without any nagging biases. I already knew Syda’s husband’s name was Greg Gonzales, and while I knew all about Syda’s artistic misadventures, I wasn’t sure of her ethnicity. Making her Syda Gonzales meant she might be a Latina, or middle eastern, or someone who would check white on medical survey questionnaires, but had learned how to make a mean tamale or a dish with couscous in it from her mother-in-law.
I imagined Syda’s looks changing as regularly as a chameleon changing its colors. She loves to dress up in various disguises and personas as she helps Pat investigate and as she tries out dressing like different artists who have harnessed the muse she’s chasing at the time. For her voice and mannerisms, I see Jacque Miller, friend-of-a-friend who has become a friend of mine, too.
Lord Peter Wimsey and Dot have real origins, too. Dot is patterned after my Dalmatian, Freckles, or Dama Pecosa as it said on her pedigree documents, who was known for behaving just like Pat’s dog does. She was a master refrigerator opener who introduced me to next door neighbors when she got into their refrigerator as they were moving in and stole a string of sausages. I haven’t figured out a way for Dot to help solve a crime by doing that yet, but I’m still working on it.
Wimsey was the name of a ginger cat my husband brought to our marriage and Wimsey’s personality belongs to a stray cat who moved in with us on Christmas Day one year. Wimsey was a gentle, nonplussed cat unless provoked, and then he would fight like a tiger to defend those he loved. He had an opportunity to do just that in The Funeral Murder. He’s also going to provide Pat with the case cracking clue in book four in the series which is still untitled and only in my head.
I love writing scenes with Pats pets. Their real-life counterparts were well loved and are long departed, but I deliberately included them in the PIP Inc. Mysteries series so I could enjoy their company once more.
A prominent character in The Corpse’s Secret Life in Evelyn Evergood. I saw and heard British actress Una Stubbs when I wrote that character. You might remember Una Stubbs from the recent Sherlock series where she played Mrs. Hudson quite differently than earlier versions of the character.
Last, but certainly not least, there’s Pat Pirard, the PIP Inc. Mysteries series heroine. I was a Realtor for many years so I could write my first series, Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries, with authority. But, while I was a librarian in a small community library for a number of years, I was never a law librarian, and I’m certainly not a private investigator. Enter my friend, the real Pat. She is currently a private investigator, a hobby that became her fulltime gig after she retired as the Santa Cruz County Law Librarian.
Pat’s a marvelous story teller and fearless when it comes to confronting potentially dangerous people in the course of her work, possibly because, like my protagonist, she carries a 457 Magnum and is a markswoman. (More likely it’s because she can talk her way out of danger pretty well.) She and her husband moved to another state and I miss her, so when I was ready to start the PIP Inc. Mysteries series, I asked if she was up for being a consultant and if I could use her for my protagonist.
She was thrilled, especially when private investigator Pat was younger and had a figure Pat said she only wished she had. Her one caveat was that Pat Pirard have green eyes, not the blue eyes I planned for my character because she always wished she had green eyes. I was happy to oblige.
About The Corpse's Secret Life
Pat’s fledgling private investigation company, PIP Inc., has a promising new case.
Pat is still wearing a wrist cast after breaking her arm in a confrontation with a killer, so when she’s hired by the City of Watsonville to unearth the identity of an older woman who died in her bed, she’s delighted that her next job promises to be a simple computer-based research project.
Why is it that things are never as simple as she thinks they will be? Pat soon discovers nothing is as it seems, beginning with a corpse who had secret identities, murder, and a post-death ritual thought to have last been performed decades ago.
About Nancy Lynn Jarvis
Nancy Lynn Jarvis left the real estate profession after she started having so much fun writing the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series that she let her license lapse. She’s enjoyed writing about Regan and her husband, Tom, but decided it was time to do a new series.
PIP Inc. introduces protagonist downsized law librarian and not-quite-licensed Private Investigator Pat Pirard. “The Funeral Murder” is the second book in the series.
After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, Nancy worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager for Shakespeare/Santa Cruz at UCSC.
Currently, she’s enjoying being a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Santa Cruz Women of Mystery.
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