splitting up a string

I am very lost on this one...

problem:

I need to convert a string to lists of characters, split them based on delimiters, and convert back. I also need locally defined functions

the function call would look like
(split string-here delimiters)
(split "Blah, Blah blah!" " ,!")
the function should return ("Blah" "" "Blah" "blah" "")


Being that I'm having trouble with practically every aspect of this function, I figure I can start from the top and hopefully by the end I will have everything figured out. First, Ill start with trying to iterate through a string, converting each character into a list. I actually have something thats somewhat close here, but youll see why its not right.

(defun toList (str number)
;(toList(cons(char str (+ number 1))(char str (+ number 2)))))

(if (or (null str) (= number (length str))) nil (cons(char str number)(toList str (+ 1 number)) ))
);end

[52]> (toList "hello" 0)
(#\h #\e #\l #\l #\o)

how do I get rid of the #\




next, i'll try and make this a locally defined function

(defun split (str delim)

(labels toList (str number)


(if (or (null str) (= number (length str))) nil (cons(char str number)(toList str (+ 1 number)) ))
);end



);end