by admin | Jul 7, 2011 | Uncategorized
“I Child-Proofed My House . . . but they get in anyway.” It’s a well-known fact that I’m not a kid-person. I’m not into them. They’re not my thing. I don’t do kids. Don’t introduce me to your children until they’re ready to discuss quantum mechanics with me. (Diana’s kids are there already!) So how did Maddie Porter get born and invade six of my books (the sixth miniature mystery, “Mix-Up in Miniature,” will be out next spring)? Maddie is now 11, well below the age I can relate to, the discussable age, and she’s also a skinny redhead, the likes of which I never saw growing up in my Italian neighborhood. I’ve always resisted the “characters want to be heard” myth. Creating a character and moving her around 350 pages in a believable way takes a lot of work. I was on a panel once with the great Reginald Hill. Someone asked him, “Do your characters ever take over and write the story?” “If only they would,” he answered. “I’d go and have a spot of tea.” I’m with Sir Reginald on that, but there’s no doubt that Maddie the Kid crept onto my screen before I could think about whether I wanted to deal with a preteen. Maddie is precocious and loves sweets, which helps, because I can imagine manipulating her to talk about string theory, and her computer skills make her a good little sidekick sleuth, but I’ve warned her, she’d better not start acting up like some of the kids I see at the mall. I have ways of eliminating characters I no longer have use...
