Doris Stutley interviewed by Marg McAlister

Doris Stutley has written and published three books of a planned 8-book crime fiction series for young adults.

The first three books of the "Operation" series are Operation Foxtrot Five; Operation Delta Bravo, and Operation Alpha Papa (published by Lothian). Much of the success of the series can be attributed to the well-drawn characters, whose personalities and adventures hold great appeal for the young adult readership. In the following interview, Doris tells you what the series is all about, and how she developed the characters.

Q: Doris, can you give us a quick run-down on the main characters and how you brought them on stage in Book 1?

A: Successful prosecution of the mastermind behind a People-Smuggling ring depends on the crucial evidence supplied by an anonymous female witness. And by the time the Federal Police discover the source of the information, they wonder if she is a witness or part of the smuggling ring.  Now this witness/suspect and her husband are dead, the result of a tragic level-crossing accident in Sydney's south. The only people able to shed light on the situation are the witness/suspect's children, Doug (17), twins - Keryn & Aaron (15) and Kelly (13), and they are missing. Detective Scott Backer is given the task of tracing the children and finding out what they know regarding the case.

Book 1 sees Scott Backer make contact and win the trust of the eldest child, Doug, before becoming the Court Appointed Guardian for all 4 of the Smith children. The following 3 books in the series are all crime related stories, and show Scott getting to know each of Doug's siblings - one child/book at a time. The titles for the books are the names of Scott Backer's case files and how the book is named becomes part of the story.

Q. Perhaps you could now tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea for your popular series?

A. I started writing Operation Foxtrot Five as a stand-alone book. But by the time I was about half way through, I realized that I had really only introduced one of the four Smith children. Knowing that it would get confusing if I tried to include all of the children in the main plot, I decided to write a book on each of the kids.

The idea for Operation Delta Bravo (Book 2) began buzzing around in my head once I'd made the decision to write all four books. So even though Foxtrot Five was not finished, I started working on the second book. This was the most exciting time of my writing career. At times I became so involved with my second book, I wrote for hours at a time - until I reached the point of wondering what would happen next. Then I would switch back to Foxtrot Five and pick up the story line of that one.

I knew my characters so well, that it was never a problem switching from manuscript to manuscript. By the time I had finished Foxtrot Five, book three was actually a couple of chapters underway even though book two was still only half done. When the manuscript for Alpha Papa (book 3) was about half finished, book four was already being formed in my head and started on the computer.

Q. What kind of research did you need to do to make the background so authentic?

A. I wrote about what I knew. The setting of all four books can be identified by anyone who lives in the area. The actual streets exist in an exaggerated and rearranged fashion, and the school is real. There are a few hotels along the highway as mentioned, but they are kilometres apart in real life. When I started writing the Operation series, people-smuggling was big in the news and researching the activities of people-smuggling was as simple as reading the newspapers. By the time I started to develop the story line for the third book, I had become fascinated by the stories coming out of India about the trade of stolen body parts. The trigger for this book was an article in Readers Digest.

Q. Who are the characters in your series? How do they complement each other, or how are they different? How did you decide what drives each character?

A. I think there is a little bit of me (or what I desire to be in me) in all of my characters. 

• Doug (17) is the strong decision maker - the one the whole family turns to for leadership and guidance.
• Keryn is shy, sweet natured, and a bit fragile - someone everyone wants to protect.
• Aaron has red hair and an impulsive nature that gets him into trouble.
• Kelly is a mixture of all of them and is a fun character to write because I can do anything with her and it fits with the story line.
• Scott is the 'big brother' everyone dreams of having.
• And Tori is still a bit of a mystery - quiet strength despite her fragile health… her book is still just an idea. Book 7? Who knows…

Knowing that I was going to write all four books, and hoping that they would all come out within a year of each other, I was conscious of the time frame and reading ages. So if the books were about teenagers, to be read by the same teenagers year after year, I had to make all the characters appealing to those teenagers. By having a set of twins in the family, I was able to keep all four fictional teenagers the same ages as my readers for the 4 years.

Q. Did you invent your characters 'on the fly', or sit down and plan their profiles carefully?

A. All my characters were created 'on the fly'. I would picture them in my head and build their initial personality traits on how I wanted their opening scene to unfold. From there, the character just grew from strength to strength.

I distinctly remember creating Scott. I pictured an aircraft full of people - they all basically blended with each other, so I created a blond head - soft straight hair combed straight back. Then I had him do something out of frustration - he ran a hand through his hair… I had my character! Tall, blond, athletic build, white shirt, red tie, laptop computer on the dropdown tray… and I could pick him out of the plane full of people.

Q. How did your characters grow and change? (In two ways: over the course of each book, and over the series.)
 
A. Since it was a series I was careful not to dwell on too many characters in my fictional family at once. They were there in the background, but each book was dedicated to discovering a particular child - one child/book at a time.

Doug was a strong and independent character to start with, and my challenge was to make him less self-reliant and able to depend on and trust an adult again. Keryn was too reliant on others and I had to build up her confidence through the book. Scott was easy! He was all I imagined in a self confident, do-no-wrong big brother to everyone.

Q.  You have a producer interested in bringing these stories to the screen. Are there any particular challenges in adapting characters for this purpose?

When the time comes for screen adaptation, instead of saying that someone is shy, you have to show it visually, so matching the right actor to the character is crucial. I think it's a lot harder to portray personality through film than it is through the written word. And if some of the actors tend to have the same physical features you may have to change some of the characters visually to keep them distinct.

Q. What tips do you have for writers who have difficulty in creating vivid or realistic characters?

A. If you can't picture your character, or 'see' them on paper, you can't write about them. Give each character something distinctive in your own mind to help you remember him/her. A light dusting of freckles (Kelly)… Jet black hair with a tinge of red (Doug)… Red hair and a quick temper (Aaron)… These examples are all visual, but you can have other traits. Strong body odours/perfume, always grumpy/happy etc.

Q. Can you offer a step-by-step process for character creation?

A. Picture the opening scene. Where are they? What age are they? Then build physical features around that age. If you can't picture it, write it down.

Then create likes/dislikes. By the time you build your character based on using your five senses (touch, taste, sight, sound, smell) you will have a pretty good idea of your character.

We don't know much about Tori, but we know she is softly spoken, smells nice and always looks neat and tidy - even in jeans. She's been like this in all four books and she will stay this way until I reveal her in her own book.