Guest Post

Guest Chick: GP Gottlieb

Happy Wednesday, my friends! Patricia here. Please give a warm Chicks on the Case welcome to GP Gottlieb, author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery series. GP, thank you for visiting with us today.

Basing Characters on Friends and Adversaries

When I first started writing Battered, the first Whipped and Sipped Mystery, Ruthie Rosin, the character of the protagonist’s best friend and pastry chef, appeared before me almost immediately. She cared about the world and had a strong moral compass. Ruthie bears more than a passing resemblance to a real-life friend I adore in Colorado.

Ruthie, who was Alene’s college roommate, is the one who knows how to listen when Alene is weighed down by life. Like another real-life friend I admire in Illinois, Ruthie calls out Alene when she’s less thoughtful and snarkier than she should be.

And although Ruthie is committed to ancient customs and traditions, she lives in the contemporary world, like yet another dear old friend in New Jersey. She understands that nobody is perfect and tries to assume the best of everyone, like a laughter-filled college roommate who lives in Georgia.

Another character is insensitive, doesn’t listen well, and requires tremendous patience, like several unpleasant people I’ve dealt with in various places I’ve lived. After a murder occurs in her building, Alene can’t stop herself from suspecting lots of those kinds of people, including neighbors, employees, and her ex-husband, the father of her three children.

Ruthie is the voice of reason whose sharp-eyed moral clarity helps Alene get through problems and dilemmas. I have a good friend like that who went to college in Minnesota.

Ruthie observes Saturday as a day of rest, which is convenient for Alene who prefers to take Sundays off. And as someone who does not consume animal products, Ruthie would only work at the café if it were vegan, like a good friend in California. After Alene used her divorce settlement to buy the café, she transformed it for the joy of working with Ruthie.

Ruthie’s and Alene’s families are close, but from the first day they met, Alene understood that one’s friends don’t need to share all the same opinions or customs if their hearts are in the right place. I learned that from a close relative who hails from Maryland.

A novel needs more than just good people and beloved friends. Doesn’t everyone have at least a few people in their lives who are super-critical, impatient, or self-absorbed? Hasn’t everyone had relationships that ended when someone masquerading as a friend spread gossip, let jealousy undermine your bond, or screamed at you for one reason or another? Haven’t we all had to grapple with annoying, rude, or obnoxious people along with the good ones?

The Whipped and Sipped Mysteries are packed with characters who are generous, caring, and sympathetic, but there are also those who are egotistical, irritating, and difficult. Isn’t that like real life? The trick is to find balance, surround yourself with more of the first kind, and learn to avoid the second.

If that’s not possible, at least learn to be emotionally resilient, insulate yourself against unhealthy relationships, and choose to spend more time with the people (and books) you most admire.

Question for authors: Do you base any of your characters on friends or adversaries? Do you give characters good and bad traits you’ve witnessed in people with whom you’ve interacted? And has anyone ever asked, “Why did you give your murderer a tattoo that’s exactly like mine?”

Question for readers: Do you have friends or relatives who’d make great characters in a book?

About the Author

GP Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series. (Battered was re-released by Anam Cara Press in September 2025.) She’s a member of the Blackbird Writers, on the Sisters in Crime Chicagoland Board, and active in SinC Colorado. She likes posting on Facebook, reads voraciously, and has interviewed more than 250 authors for New Books in Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. Her stories have been published in Pure Slush, Another Chicago Magazine, Grande Dame Literary, and other journals and anthologies. More than 250 of her essays on travel, music, culture, writing, and things that annoy her are available in various publications at Medium.Com.

Learn more about GP’s Whipped & Sipped Mysteries:

Website: https://www.gpgottlieb.com/

Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/gpgottlieb.bsky.social

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorgottlieb/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whippedsipped/

Medium: https://medium.com/@gpgottlieb

New Books Network: https://newbooksnetwork.com/search?q=gp%20gottlieb

Substack: https://substack.com/@gpgottlieb

20 thoughts on “Guest Chick: GP Gottlieb”

  1. GP, thank you again for visiting with us. You post is wonderful.

    I have had the pleasure of slipping several friends and relatives into my stories. Sometimes I do it on purpose but usually it just works for the character and their role in the book.

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  2. I borrow traits from people all the time. Even strangers. I once read about a hedge fund billionaire whose heinous business practices so ticked me off that I made him a murder victim in a book.

    Thanks for stopping by, GP!

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  4. I like the way you take bits and pieces from people you know. That’s the way I use personality types for my characters, but only bits and pieces.

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  5. I had a friend who passed a few years ago that would make a fabulous character in a book. She was opinionated to the point of annoying at times, but she was completely comfortable with who she was and what she liked (music, White Sox, old movies and classic mysteries)…and didn’t (vegetables of all kinds and the Chicago Cubs)! Adored her dog and her friends and would do anything for them.

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  6. I had a friend who passed a few years ago that would make a fabulous character in a book. She was opinionated to the point of annoying at times, but she was completely comfortable with who she was and what she liked (music, White Sox, old movies and classic mysteries)…and didn’t (vegetables of all kinds and the Chicago Cubs)! Adored her dog and her friends and would do anything for them.

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    1. I’ve based most of my characters — including the four-legged ones — on various friends . . . and not-friends. Though so far, I haven’t killed off anyone inspired by a real-life acquaintance.

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  7. GP, thanks for visiting Chicks today! I’ll admit I’m guilty of “stealing” a few sprinkles of personality and attributes from real people–but usually not ones I know well. Often I hear snippets from strangers that start me thinking–the other day at Shake Shack, I heard a woman tell her male companion, “Time is the most important thing we all have, you know.” Huh.

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  8. Like Ellen, I steal attributes shamelessly from friends, family, and utter strangers. But I’ve never used any one person whole cloth for a character–they’re always amalgams. (And yes, I’m borrowing heavily from someone I know who’s pretty darn annoying to create the victim in my WIP.)

    Thanks for visiting the Chicks today, GP, and congrats on the new book!

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