The Characters

I have been reading the Alice books since I was a little girl and I love how unlike some authors you gave each and every character their own traits, backgrounds, and personalities. I wanted to ask you, how did you come up with these characters? Especially Alice’s close friends and family? Were they based off of people you know?

Some were based on people I know.  Mostly I just picked a characteristic here, a voice there, a personality somewhere else.  Just hearing them talk in my head gave me an idea of what the character was really like.