I was delighted when Inez Lipschitz, Able Editing's forthright office manager in my upcoming novel DEATH OVER EASY, called me to ask if I'd like to chat about character development. Would I! If there's anyone who knows—really knows—the folks in the DOE community, it's Inez. You'd think she's been living in Port Jefferson her whole life, and not just the last five years. Our conversation took place at the Sunny Side Up luncheonette in March 2010.

IL: Not to criticize, hon, but there's a fuzzball on your sweater. I got my lint roller right here.

TS: Thanks.

There you go, hon. Looking at that the whole time would make me meshugah. So I want to talk to you today about character. You got all these people in DEATH OVER EASY—Emma, who does great work for my clients, I'm not kidding. LaRue, a terrific gal and a great waitress here in the diner. Old X-Ray Eyes, not that he scares me. He's got a job to do, you know? And, God help me, the Lizard, not exactly a shining example of humanity. So, how did you do it? Where'd all these people come from?

Well, I didn't come up with them all at once. It was gradual. As I developed the cast, I actually had to get rid of a lot of characters who weren't working out.

You killed them off?

I just discontinued them. Some were boring, and some weren't needed for the plot. I didn't know who would end up in the final cast until I'd rewritten the first half of the book a few times. There was a newspaper reporter for a while, and an older man who was in a book club–they both disappeared.

Why did it take you so long to get them right? If you don't mind my asking.

Not at all. Before I started DEATH OVER EASY I was writing picture books. Character development was on a small scale. I had never constructed such an elaborate story before, with so many layers of action. I'd never done subplots or worried much about back story. Now, all of a sudden, I had to entertain an audience that required more complexity. It was a challenge.

So, Emma came first, right?

Well, Emma--the woman whose story this is--started out as Sherry, then she was Carly, and finally Emma. The first two were too passive. They didn't have much personality and they were letting other characters steal the show.

But my main character wasn't the first character I came up with. I started with the murderer, because that person was very interesting to me. The crime was interesting. Actually I started with one sentence:

An hour before Jennifer Hazzard was found face down in the pancake batter, ruining my life and reputation, LaRue Fusticola and I were hunting for treasure in an alleyway.

I had this image of someone who had drowned in pancake batter. I didn't know who she was. I worked on the murderer first and got the why, who, and how settled for that character. Then I figured out that person's relationship to the victim. Next I had to figure out how their stories intersected with or impacted my main character. Because she needed a really good reason for getting involved, besides curiosity.

I don't remember that sentence. Is that in the book?

Not any more.

Where'd you get LaRue Fusticola?

LaRue evolved from a routine my daughter and I had in the mornings. We’d eat breakfast together, and the coffeemaker was way over there on the counter, and she’d say to me in a heavy, Fran Drescher Nanny-like accent, “You want mawh cawfee, dahling?” And I’d say, “Sure, LaRue, fill ‘er up.” Little by little my daughter became LaRue the waitress. I needed a waitress in the story, and LaRue was perfect for the part.

And you got me from Lucille Ball, right?

You just kind of popped into my head, dress first. I saw you wearing a black and white diagonally striped dress with a big red rose on the shoulder. But I didn’t know much about your background, or why you were so involved with the Village. I knew that you hadn’t lived there very long.

One day I was talking to my friend and fellow author Howard Gimple, who's from Brooklyn. He gave me the idea that you had moved to the Island from Flatbush and that you were half Jewish and half Puerto Rican. That was perfect. The rest of you fell into place after that.

That dress costs a fortune to dry clean. A fortune. What about Detective Zahn? X-Ray Eyes?

Ah. Zahn gave me a lot of trouble for a long time—for years. He had a hard exterior and and an almost impenetrable façade that went beyond any explanation I could think of. He was antagonistic toward Emma. It made me wonder what had happened in his past, and why he had become a cop. In the course of a conversation with Emma, Zahn let on without any prompting from me that he had known her Uncle Ned. What the heck! What other secrets was he harboring? In June 2009 I read a true story in the newspaper about an NYPD police officer, and then I knew. That newspaper story was Zahn’s story. I cut it out so I could have it next to me when I was writing the part about Zahn's secret.

Fascinating. So here’s the million-dollar question. Who’s your favorite character in DEATH OVER EASY?

Inez, that’s not a fair question.

Well, hon, I’ve got something on my mind, and I’m just going to spit it out. I could have solved that murder. I'm good with clues, I'm smart. Why didn't you make me the lady detective?

Because—you’re just not, okay? You have an important part in the book. Don’t you think you have an important part?

Sure, but—

Would you rather have Emma run Able Editing? She wouldn’t be able to handle all those difficult clients as well as you do. She’s not as good at smoothing ruffled feathers, and she gets anxious about things. You’re the best person for the job. You do a great job!

Well, you got a point there, hon.

Can I ask you a question now? What was it like growing up Jewish and Puerto Rican?

Oh, I had the best of both worlds, I genuinely did. You know, a lot of kids on Flatbush Avenue back then were mixed like me. Daddy was an accountant. He went to work every day wearing a hat. Do you remember when men wore hats to work? He brought home bagels and rye bread and chunks of farmer cheese wrapped up in wax paper.

Mama worked for the MTA. No kidding, she sat in a token booth at the Coney Island Stillwell Avenue station five days a week, and she worked very hard, my mama. And then she’d come home and make arroz y habichuelas and aranitas de platano and arroz con dulce and lots of other things. She had a lot of energy. A lot of energy, my mama. You know what her favorite saying was? “What you'd pay a penny to know today, you'll find out tomorrow for nothing.” That was her favorite. She also used to say, “I’m so hungry I could eat the south end of a northbound horse." I don’t know where that came from, but she always said it. We were a very happy family. Very happy.

Well, thanks, Inez! You learn something new every day.

Thanks for chatting, Toby.

Anytime.

Inez Lipschitz, office manager, Able Editing, Inc.