Dear Reader,
For me, the writing process starts always with the characters. Only after they take control of the stage does the plot of the book start coming together.
In satire the characters must be both extreme and believable at the same time, which is tricky. One of my favorites is Chemo, who appears in Skin Tight and Star Island. He’s a hit man with serious dermatological challenges. He lost one of his arms to a barracuda in Biscayne Bay, and for some strange reason I decided to give him a Weed Whacker as a prosthesis. Story-wise, it actually worked.
Readers usually remember the characters in a novel long after they’ve forgotten all the twists and turns of the plot. That’s true in real life, as well.
—Carl Hiaasen
Merry Mansfield
from Razor Girl
Merry Mansfield, the eponymous Razor Girl, is a “well groomed” redhead who masterminds a unique traffic scam involving some personal hygiene while driving. Carl’s said, “I’ve always liked strong female characters who were smarter than the men in their lives. But I’d have to say Merry Mansfield is my new favorite. She’s cool, very clever and totally unflappable. As I was writing Razor Girl she did all kinds of wild things to surprise me, which made it fun.” The best part is that Merry’s always two steps ahead of the men in the book, and even though she’s a scam artist, she has a heart of gold.
Earl Edward O’Toole
(aka Tool) from Skinny Dip
While Hiaasen is well-known for his quirky characters, there are few as memorable as Tool. In Skinny Dip, one of the first things we learn about Tool is that he enjoys filching highway-fatality markers and replanting them outside his trailer in a manner which he finds “pleasing to the eye.” On top of being a formidably sized individual with a thick pelt of hair covering his upper half, Tool has been walking around with a slug between his butt cheeks — a souvenir from an unfortunate encounter with a poacher who mistook him for a bear. Add to that a questionable moral code and an unlikely friendship with an ailing old woman and you get one unforgettable character.
Clinton Tyree (aka Skink)
Clinton Tyree, aka Skink, is one of the favorite characters in Carl’s novels and has appeared in six books. He was governor of Florida in the 1970s, but after getting fed up with corruption in the capitol, he’s ran off to find refuge deep in the woods, where he lives on roadkill. Yes, roadkill. He’s tall and broad, has a glass eye, wears his hair long, and sometimes accentuates his beard with buzzard’s beaks or other trinkets. All of Carl’s books weave in themes of environmentalism, overdevelopment, and corruption, and Skink perfectly embodies the character that helps get the bad guys their comeuppance. He most recently appeared in the YA novel (that adults love, too!), Skink — No Surrender.