Location

I based Jude’s locale loosely on a map of southeastern Arizona.

If you go straight west of Drake, and straight North from Bagdad, where the line intersects, that’s Jude.

Carr County and Drake County are fictitious.  As far as I know there are no counties by those names in Arizona.

I created highway 30 to run from highway 89 to Jude.  All the other highways mentioned are real, though I don’t know if 93 is 70 mph or has 8 lanes.

So once I picked the place it needed….

Characters

There was no set formula to developing the characters.  My goal was to include as many JUers as I could, and all of those from the writing club, which I think I accomplished.  If not I apologize.

There was however a mental process I went through when deciding certain traits.

Jake-Main Character and the story is told mostly from his pov.  I used Shovel as the original inspiration because he works in a jail.  I started to write Jake as an earthy kinda guy, but by the end of the first chapter he was doing his own thing.  I put the Pearl Harbor reference in as a tribute to Dec 7, since I was writing on that date.  And I lived in Marysville Ohio when Honda of America opened its factory there.  Most people were glad to see it come, but some weren’t.  I used some of the conversations I heard then as Jake’s.

Sally Jake’s Wife…wasn’t inspired by anyone at JU.  I wrote more for her character but cut it because it started taking me to new sub plots, which made it all too long.  I left her to the reader’s imagination, and would love to know how each of you thought of her by the end of the story.

Deputy Tracy Adams…sometimes when I hear a story, it sticks with me.  Not exactly the whole of it, but more the impression.  I used Dharma’s accident very loosely as inspiration for this character.  Dharma’s husband is a cop.  These are the things swirling in my mind as Tracy was created.

If you noticed Jake often called the deputy by her first name.  Each time he didn’t, or I the author didn’t, there was a reason.  When I, the author, called her Deputy Adams, or Adams, it was to reflect her detachment from life.

She also calls Jake “Sheriff” until the Viking once again brings her to the world, warming her heart, giving her hope and she calls him Jake.  Corny?  So what.

Cesar is inspired by Whip’s dog.

Kelly’s Café….was inspired by the wonderful KellyW, who has fabulous stories about working in a restaurant.  Of all the characters this one tended to stay pretty true to what I know of the real KellyW.  Guess that makes her better than fiction!

Ike Miller…was inspired by our DrMiler.  As with Deputy Adams this character started out with more of an impression of the JU persona than anything else.  I remember seeing a picture he posted once of himself, confederate flag in the background, sitting on his land.  The image of proud and fierce land owner came to mind.  The weakness of Ike Miller were all my imagination.

John the mechanic…fixes things so I loosely associated him with JustJohn.  OF course his physical description was mine, but in my head, JustJohn fixes problems.  That may or may not be the case…but it is my perception of his JU persona.

Chino…the ambulance driver was inspired by our own San Chino.  Chino is Mormon.  Ted is Mormon.  Ted works an ambulance in real life.  I gave Chino the job and wrote a dialog for Ted as his boss, but ended up cutting it because it slowed things down too much.  (Sorry Ted…heh, if I woulda seen those hottie pictures of you BEFORE… I wouldn’t have wrote such a boring part.)

The x frame being bent on the ambulance was “real.”  In that,  I did it the other day when I drove off an unmarked concrete step thing.  No big deal, and mine was minor compared to the ambulance, but write what ya know and all that.

Rosita Locamama…was inspired by our crazy mother JUer Locamama.  Loca is looking for work, right now she has a home daycare, so I used some of that.  Plus Jake is a hottie so why not a little flirting?

Trident Zoo….inspired loosely by Zoologist.  I like tall men, what can I say?  It’s predictable but invariably my good guys are tall, my not so good guys shorter.  Again, Zoo impresses me as a fun, mature, and smart guy.  So I wrote the character to reflect that.  There was more back and forth between the deputy and Zoo, but I cut it.  Sometimes the reader’s imagination is better than anything I can do.  Did you imagine what he said to her, and she him, after Jake left the office?  I’d love to hear your thoughts if so.

Ester Row……inspired by KFC.  Nothing similar in this really, just the mention of church.

Sheriff Steven Myrr…inspired by Myrrander.  The name is the only thing I used.  The Sheriff is 100% my own creation.  I actually wrote a dialog between a county commissioner, Ben Kingsly, and Sheriff Myrr…the commissioner was inspired by Kingbee.  I cut it for brevity.

Rina McMyers…inspired by Little Whip.  LW’s love of animals and red hair carried over to the character.  But Rina grew on her own…to a vet, to a child advocate.  There was just no stopping her.

Trayleen…inspired by Trudy.  Trudy is a chef, lived in Minn.  Plus I thought it would be a hoot to make best friends in my story of two women who don’t really care for each other on JU.  Heh, at least I didn’t marry Rina and Doc G. hahahaha.

Maso Raila…inspired by Maso.  I think Australia and imagine the outback (Thanks Survivor).  So I made Maso a Native American, (I think of the range, er, thanks history) and good friend of Jake.

DocG…inspired by DocG.   Heh.

Idol…inspired by Icono.  Again, the impression I get when reading Icono, right or wrong, is anger anger anger.  Idol was an angry man.  The child torture thing was fiction of course and tied into the general theme at the end.

Angela Davey….inspired by AngelaMarie.  They actually just share a name.  But, she and LW traded comments on a blog about being a responsible breeder.  It stuck in my head and came out with this character.  She does not reflect my vision of sweet AngelaMarie though.

Elie….inspired by ModerateMan.  In my head MM is a big guy.  Some of his stuff about his younger years and his anger made me think of what would cause a man to be so angry.  So I created a little boy who starts life learning about its mean-ness first.

Baker Street Bar…….inspired by Bakerstreet.  Actually I was going to name the owner, Artie Doyle.  But I never got my characters to the bar.  Maybe next time.

The Wards…..inspired by the Wardall’s…I remember an article once that asked us to describe our dream house.  I described a lot of features of an antebellum home and JillUser said she thought that sounded nice.

Mason…inspired by MasonM.  We discussed a serial killer’s killer once in one of his articles.  I thought it was great idea for a storyline.

Agent Wahine…..inspired by TexasWahine.  This was just something I saw in my head that was funny and intriguing all at the same time.  And if anyone can bring a bit of barefoot beauty to the FBI, well…..

Agent Serenity….inspired by ForeverSerenity.  Again I wanted to make these FBI women real feminine ladies, for contrast to what the reader would take for granted in their head, and to accentuate why Sheriff Myrr was so pissed off.  Heh.

I think that is all the characters.  If your JU persona was not given props I apologize…I did a lot of cutting and I was rushing to get it done.

As you can see, some characters kind of reflect the JU perception, and some have nothing more in common with the character than a name.

Thanks to all those who read it and read this.

Tonya