- Rachel Abbott
- Apr 11
- 6 min read
What Lies Beneath the Story - Building Belief
Whatever It Takes - a Tom Douglas thriller
Part 2
If you have already read Part 1 of this blog series, you will know that I start with a single idea and build from there. Part 1 of this series looked at the structure of the story, but sometimes – more often than not – the first thing I do is develop my characters.
Characters: How they emerge and evolve.
Whatever It Takes required a slightly different approach, because the story focuses on Tom and Jack – two characters I know almost as well as my own family! So in this case, I had to begin to pull the story together before I knew who else I might need to imagine.
In some of my stories the characters are part of a family, and relationships between them become important. In No More Lies, for example, there is a group of old friends who interact with each other, and when developing their profiles I had to consider how each of them felt about the other, so I developed a matrix of relationships so I would know how each of them would react to the others. That was fun!
In Whatever It Takes, the most significant of the personalities I had to develop was that of Tia Rukavina. She is crucial to writing a believable story, and to define and understand her I had to go deep beneath the surface. I needed to know not just who she is, but how she became that person, and what drives her in every moment of the story.
When I build a character profile, I break it into clear sections to make sure I understand every aspect of the person I’m imagining. In Tia’s case, that included:
Basic Information – name, age, nationality, occupation, education
Physical Appearance – height, build, eye colour, clothing style, how she moves, how others read her.
Background – where and how she grew up, what shaped her values, what she learned early.
Psychological Profile – how she thinks, how she handles pressure, what she avoids, what she suppresses, what excites her, what scares her, what has hurt her.
Skills and Expertise – professional knowledge, skill sets, and how she acquired them.
Relationships – allies, enemies, people she’s loyal to, people she’s betrayed.
Role in the Story – why she’s in the book, what purpose she serves, what her presence forces others to confront.
Key Motivations and Fears – what drives her forward, what holds her back.
Character Arc – how she changes in the story, what she has to lose or confront to survive.
Traits and Tics – behaviours, habits, physical reactions under stress — anything that leaks truth.
Dialogue and Voice – her rhythm, her choice of words, how she speaks when she’s lying versus when she isn’t.
Secrets – what she hides from others, and what she hides from herself.
These aren’t just boxes to fill in. They’re ways of making sure I know her — before she ever appears on the page. Each section helps me understand not just what Tia does, but why - and how her past shapes her future. It can take me days to develop a comprehensive understanding of an important character, but by the time I sit down to write the first scene, I know how she walks into a room, how she weighs people up, what she hides, and what she’s willing to fight for.
I even know exactly what she looks like. I scour images of people of the right age, right hair colour, until I find someone who is close enough to my vision. If I can’t find the right person, I feed details into an AI graphics programme and give a description to see what they come up with. I then ask it to make changes until I have the person I imagined.
Once I know a character well enough, the shape of the story starts to shift. Plot points that felt solid become flexible. Other moments I hadn’t planned become inevitable.
With Tia, it wasn’t just a case of putting her into a situation and seeing how she handled it. It was knowing, with certainty, what she would do — even if that made the scene more difficult to write, or pushed the story in a direction I hadn’t anticipated. She’s not reckless, but she doesn’t back down. That one trait alone changed the structure of several chapters.
This is the point where the characters start to take control - not in a mystical sense, but in a practical one. Once their motivations are fully embedded, they start to shape the narrative. It’s no longer about what should happen. It’s about what has to happen because of who they are.
The research – How facts and dark corners shape the story.
Once the characters are in place and the structure has started to come together, I begin to dig into the detail. Not all at once - and not everything straight away - but enough to make sure each scene is grounded in reality.
Some of the research is based on the logical flow of the story, such as working out how long it would take Tom to drive from his home to the Welsh village where he believes Jack has been living, and which route he’d realistically take. I might want to consider what he would see along the way, and I need to keep an eye on the time of day, remember what month we are in, so I know when it might be dark or light.
At other times it’s about understanding a place — getting a feel for Venice, where (for those who haven’t read the book) some of the action takes place. I need to go beyond the postcards, knowing how sound carries across the water, the shouts and voices from open windows, the smells from the restaurants and homes along the routes Tom takes. Fortunately, I’ve been to Venice twice, and the memories for me are vivid, but it was a while since I visited the Rialto market - a key location in the story.
Then there’s the background work which is essential and detailed. For this book, this included understanding how drugs move from South America into Europe, the ports used, the trafficking routes, the risks at each stage. I needed to learn about the mafia — specifically the ‘Ndrangheta - their structure, codes of conduct, and the way power is handed down. It’s not just about getting the facts right. It’s about understanding the psychology behind the system, so that when a character makes a choice, it fits the world they’re operating in.
Research for Tia’s character was critical and is a classic example of extensive fact-finding that never reaches the page. It is mentioned (briefly) that she was brought up in Croatia during the troubles:
War-Torn Childhood: Tia was born in Croatia during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. The constant threat of violence, displacement, and loss were everyday realities. Her family frequently had to move to avoid conflict zones, instilling a strong sense of survival and adaptability.
Family Struggles: Her family’s business was destroyed during the war, leading to financial instability. Her parents worked various jobs to make ends meet, emphasising the importance of hard work and resilience.
These were the final background notes I included in her personality profile, but the actual research was pages long as I felt I needed to understand more about the war, what her life might have been like, and how that shaped her character.
On the left is a list of some of the documents and web links that formed part of the research, and layered throughout is the technical side - some of it tied to Tia’s background: forensic accounting, cyber-tracking, digital manipulation; some of it connected to Jack: encryption, surveillance, hacking. Every element had to feel plausible.
I genuinely love doing the research, and feel that everything I learn is valuable, whether it makes it into the book or not. At least I know that my story is plausible!
By the time I’m ready to write, the research can stretch to hundreds of pages - covering everything from criminal hierarchy to real-world travel routes, from drug trafficking networks to the soundscape of a Venetian alleyway at night.
With the groundwork in place, it’s then time to start pulling all the threads together, and that means timelines, mind maps, structured writing programmes. More about that in Part 3.
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