OK, what is a relatively common name for a female born 40 years ago?  Do we want a common name or something a bit more esoteric?  40 years ago is the end of the 60s so she could have been the child of hippies and have some really odd name like Moon Beam or Sunshine.

I like that idea, it’s pretty obvious but I think she should be called Flame Blair.

See how the persona develops?  We keep filling the blanks around Flame.  Create a past, create a current life, family life, husband(ex?), lover, child(ren) etc.  Most of these other people will only need a relatively simple persona themselves because they are peripheral to the main story.

The other well-developed personas we will need is the investigators, whoever they’ll be.  Are these from the Fire Department or the Police?  I think that the usual process is for the Fire Department to do the initial investigation and then pass the information they’ve gathered on to the Police if criminal activity can be proved.

So the next main persona is a fireman.  To do fire investigations he will need to be experienced in firefighting, analytical, logical and a whole bunch of other stuff.  As a person he is probably male, 50ish, running to seed a bit since he doesn’t have to fight fires anymore but still keeps reasonably fit by jogging regularly.  He likes jogging for the solitude as much as anything and it gives him thinking time.

He has close contact with the Police but gets frustrated that Lawyers seem hell bent on releasing the arsonists he catches and keep questioning his analysis of a fire ground.  He just has to make sure that he documents everything extremely well so he has taken to wearing a headset and running a personal recorder whenever he is working.  The transcription tapes are proving to be invaluable, paricularly as his memory just doesn’t seem to be quite as good as it used to be.

One of his close friends is a Police Officer and they often meet up to discuss shop.  His friend is also frustrated with the way the law operates but is accepting that he cannot change that and all he can do is make sure that his notes and actions are accurate, cannot be misconstrued and follow Police procedure to the letter.  No getting off on a technicality for the perpetrators he brings in.

Some names for these twp people?  How about George Harris for the Investigator and Jamie Gilcrest for the Police Officer.

How do you think this is panning out so far?  Is the story beginning to pique your interest?  I sure is for me but I’ll keep story boarding it here until it is time to write it out.  Then I’ll put up the first draft for critiquing.  Gather round, this could be a lot of fun.