Valerie Diaz is one of the two Valeries in Astrid Maxxim, and therefore supplies one of the running gags.  Valerie is a shy, pretty girl who has strict parents.  Her father is head of Maxxim Industries Security and her mother is one of the few women in the story who are housewives.

I enjoy writing Valerie’s mother, who is one of the few people in the series who doesn’t think that Astrid is perfect.  Like the parents of all the other kids, I plan to flesh her out a little more with each book.

Christopher Harris is one of the six (or seven) main characters in Astrid Maxxim.  Christopher, who doesn’t like to be called Chris is Astrids friend, but also competitor in most things.  They rank about the same in fencing class, have many of the same academic classes and compete for the highest GPA among the freshmen at Rachel Carson High School.

I knew I wanted one of my main characters to be African American, and I didn’t want him to be stereotypically good at sports.  I’ve had plenty of students with black skin who are very smart and are almost as bad at sports as I am.  There are little bits of them all in Christopher and hopefully others will be able to identify with him too.

I usually enjoy creating characters that have some major flaw in their personalities.  In fact my favorite characters are those who are seriously twisted in some way.  For one character in Astrid Maxxim, I went a completely different way.

In the Tom Swift books I read as a kid, my favorite character was Tom’s best friend Bud Barclay.  Bud was totally reliable and faithful, completely unwavering in his friendship and belief in Tom.  I patterned Toby Bundersmith after Bud in that respect.

Of course Toby has to be different in one way– he’s not just Astrid’s best friend– he’s her boyfriend.  In fact, she often daydreams of one day being Dr. Astrid Bundersmith, so he has to not only be great, but dreamy as well.  Toby is my perfect boy.  He never wavers, he’s always supportive, he’s always reliable, and always responsible.  He can’t save the day, because Astrid is the hero of the story, but he’s always there to back her up.  If someone has to come to Astrid’s aid, it will be Toby.  In truth, he’s pretty boring.  Fortunately, there are enough other characters who can cause chaos, doubt, and trouble for our girl inventor.

When I planned out the characters for Astrid, I knew I wanted a group of core friends.  I also like threes, so I planned the characters in triads.

Astrid has two femaile friends at the start of the story– Valerie and Denise.  So Astrid, Valerie, and Denise form a triad.  Then Astrid has a boyfriend, Toby.  Toby’s best friend is Christopher.  Christopher is also super smart and competes with Astrid at school.  So Astrid Toby and Christoper for a triad.  Austin is the new kid in school and forms the third boy in the group– making a Toby, Christopher, Austin triad.

In addition, each of the characters relate to each other in different ways.  Austin has a special connection to Denise and especially Valerie, who are his first female friends.  Astrid and Toby both take Austin under their wings, in different ways.  And there is the second Valerie, which adds a whole ‘nother layer to the Astrid-Valerie relationship.