Character Development: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I must confess, I am rather fond of my protagonist, Wat Baudin. When I conjured him up, it was important to me to follow one of the golden rules of mystery writing – the detective must be flawed. And so with this in mind, I decided to make Master Baudin an educated man, and a diligent one, but also a man wracked with self-doubt. This, however, does not impede his success in solving crimes. Wat was easy for me to create, because in many ways he reflects certain facets of my own personality.

But what of my other characters? How did they come about?

The Countess, Lady Joan Ridley, is a no-brainer. She is the archetypal noblewoman of the period. Elegant, cool-headed, poised – and she manages her husband very well from behind the scenes.

Yet characters such as Evelyn, the luckless serving girl, are more difficult to develop. Evelyn is interesting to me in that she is an intelligent female, who by virtue of her low birth has little or no control over her own life. That is, until she takes matters into her own hands…

Creating back stories for my characters is one of my favourite aspects of the writing process. I love getting to know their secrets as the story unfolds. And whether they are good, bad or ugly, to me, they all share one thing in common. They are just like us. They simply do what they must, with the cards that they have been dealt.

And for that very reason, they are dear to me.