When I create a character, I first look for someone who would fit the physical characteristics of the person I created in my mind, and then I fill it with the ins and outs of my fertile imagination. Its story, past and future, is all up to what my mind creates but with an added quirk. I tend to go a little beyond that. I need to see the character’s mannerisms, speech, behavior in my mind.

That is where the physical model comes in. By studying someone who fits the bill for the character physically, and adding a pinch of his/her real self, it lends believability to the character as a whole, in my opinion.

When Counter Measure was born, it came out as a frame, a skeleton. Only the bare bones was there waiting to be filled in with substance. Over the span of a few weeks Cecilia and I went into extensive research and character development for the series and came up with two real people who we believed to be the partial incarnation of our characters.

Since then we have developed the characters much further but the hint, the touch, the pinch of those two very real people are still present in them. The funniest thing is that certain personal characteristics we developed in the characters long before we studied the live models turned out to be similar in the real counterparts.

Counter Measure is still a baby and hopefully it will bloom to be as exciting as the first and third books have been. Cecilia and I will enjoy creating new twists and turns for the characters, making their lives go through ups and downs while watching their real counterparts and withdrawing inspiration from them. We hope that to remain true for many years to come.