Creating Characters

Back in 1986, I began envisioning a story about three fifty-something sisters, eccentric triplets named Roxie, Boodie, and Lilly Buys (the surname in honor of my then best friend). Unfortunately, the Buys triplets went nowhere. For some reason, their story failed to gel. Thus, the story quickly fell by the wayside and the triplets settled into the recesses of my mind. Over the years, I thought about the triplets from time to time but their story once again failed to materialize. Then, in the fall of 2005, I was tasked with writing a short play for my playwriting/screenwriting course at Rosemont College. For some reason, the triplets came to mind so I decided to write a play about them as they paid their final respects to their deceased mother. I opted to drop one of the siblings and gave Lilly a new name: Chessie. The play took place at a funeral home as the sisters accompanied their grandmother to their mother's funeral. My professor didn't care much for the play, especially since Boodie and Chessie were depicted as less intelligent than their grandmother. He said that it wasn't realistic because individuals grow smarter with each passing generation...something I vehemently disagreed with. For pity's sake, just look at the past eight years for evidence that not every new generation is more intelligent than its previous ones. Mini-Me aka George W. Bush was hardly more intelligent than his dad. Nonetheless, after 19 years, the Buys sisters (now renamed the Sullivan sisters) had finally made their way into the realm of fiction.

But I wasn't quite done with the sisters. When I started writing my novel Beneath in 2006, I incorporated the Sullivan twins into the plot. They appear as minor characters in chapters that were set behind the scenes at a bingo fundraiser hosted by two brassy drag queens. Boodie (real name: Boudreaux) and Chessie (Cheshire) were seventy-something residents of Provincetown, the location for my novel. The sisters, who happened to be former lawyers and proud virgins, were best buds. Chessie owned a local bookstore while Boodie spent her days growing weed in her garden. Boodie was the more outrageous of the sisters, dressed as a mermaid at the bingo fundraiser, with tassels hanging from her nipples.

It was a delight to flesh out the sisters and to see them come alive on the page. And I'm not quite done with them. They were simply minor characters in Beneath, but they're itching to have the spotlight in their own story, which is starting to gel. The sisters have been inseparable since birth, but will that strong bond continue when a nerdy twenty-something man takes an interest in Chessie? I look forward to finding out myself.