Where did the characters in your book come from? Are they real people?
Young readers often ask me this. One eighth grade boy even had a crush on Catalina, and wanted to know where he could find her! I had to tell him, as I tell everyone, that these are made-up people ... sorry!
But that doesn't always satisfy kids, who are really curious about fictional characters—especially ones they like. Often they want to know, where did you get the ideas for these characters?
You know, I'm not always sure! But here are my best answers to this question, for each of the key characters in The Revealers.
Russell

But Russell is not like me in other ways — mainly in how he reaches out to two other seventh graders, Elliot and Catalina, who are also isolated and friendless. I didn't do that. I wish I had.
When kids today ask me how they can deal with being bullied, I often encourage them to find a friend. Find someone you can hang out with, and talk with. The most vulnerable kids, I think, are the ones who — like Russell, at first — are the most alone.
Elliot

Elliot is not like I was in that he's small, quick, and birdlike, while I was tall, skinny, and awkward. I'm sure other people I've known influenced my ideas about Elliot, but I'm not sure who they were!
Catalina

Richie

Bethany

The Jock Rots
Everyone has known boys in school who are great at sports, or otherwise cool and popular, and who seem to enjoy making life miserable for less popular kids. They seem to do it for fun. I think Jon Blanchette, in the group that Elliot calls the Jock Rots, is like that. I definitely knew real boys like Jon!As for Burke Brown, he's darker, more angry. Who knows why some people are angry? They may have their reasons, in their lives, but we don't always know what those reasons are. That's how Burke is to me. Basically, I think these boys are cruel to certain kids, like Elliot, not because they're mean by nature but because their kind of cruelty is tolerated in "Darkland" Middle School. They think it's cool.
Big Chris, who is with the Jock Rots at first but then turns against them, grew as a character in the rewriting of the story. At first he was more someone in the background—but my editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux thought he was interesting and should be developed more. As I worked to do that, Big Chris became more interesting to me, too. Along with a couple of other "supporting characters" in the book — Jake and Allison — I really came to like Big Chris. To me, he's a follower who discovers his conscience and decides to stand up for what he feels is right. I think that decision probably changes Big Chris's life.
What do you think?