I am often asked whether the characters in my books are real people.
The answer is: yes and no.
For example, the main characters in The Steaming Porridge, Mats and Tõnn, have real people’s names. And here I have to apologize to my former neighbors – I “borrowed” their sons’ names for my book. They were simply such great names!
But the person behind a name is never just one person, because characters are created layer by layer. One of the layers in Mats and Tõnn’s story comes from my childhood.
My grandmother Valli and her sister Ilme were arguing about where to put something. I was still a child at the time and no longer remember what the object was. I only remember the argument.
“Let’s put it here.”
“No, there.”
“To the right.”
“No, to the left.”
And then something funny happened. At one point, my great-aunt Ilme decided to give in, in a very Christian spirit. But then my grandmother wanted to be Christian and give in too. So they started arguing about which one of them would get to give in more.
Even as a child, I understood that there was something wonderfully funny about the situation. Years later, that little memory became the inspiration for one of the scenes in my book.
The second layer came from a friendship during my own childhood. My best friend was taller, stronger, and more confident than I was. To be honest, everyone is taller than me. She was usually the one who made the decisions, but every now and then my stubborn side came out. Not because I had a better idea, but simply because I didn’t want things to always go her way.
We would say unpleasant things to each other and then go home, offended, each in our own direction – only to meet again the next day as if nothing had ever happened.
That is how my characters are born.
One person’s name.
Another person’s personality.
A sentence spoken by someone else.
And finally, imagination adds something that never happened in real life.
So my characters are not real people – and at the same time, they are completely real.
