ROBERTA ISLEIB

Characters from the Inside Out

Clinical psychologist ROBERTA ISLEIB is the author of eight mysteries, including Six Strokes Under and Deadly Advice. Her books and stories have been nominated for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. Her first book in the Key West Food Critic mystery series (written under the name Lucy Burdette) will be published by NAL in January 2012.

 

 

Before I began writing, I worked as a clinical psychologist in private practice. Beginning a course of psychotherapy with a new patient was always an interesting challenge. I often started a session with these questions: How can I help? What brings you in today?

A patient’s answers would tell me a great deal about how they saw themselves in that moment. Had they suffered a crisis for which they needed urgent help, such as a sick child or a spouse asking for divorce? Had they been depressed for years but suddenly couldn’t bear the weight of their sad feelings? Had someone close to them insisted they go for help?

Later on in that first hour, after I’d gotten a sense of the immediate circumstances leading to the appointment, I’d ask about family history. I’d explain that each person’s understanding of relationships is shaped by what they experienced growing up. And I’d tell each patient that we tend to carry these old mental transcripts forward with us and apply them to new relationships where they don’t necessarily fit.

Over time, of course, patients and I would learn together that the picture they had of themselves in the world wasn’t completely accurate. Maybe the wonderful mother the patient remembered subtly preferred an older sibling. Or maybe hidden alcoholism in a family member skewed everyone’s behavior. And we’d figure out how these layers of history had driven the patients’ life choices, and then how their needs might change once they had been able to cut loose the old baggage.

My experience as a psychologist has turned out to be absolutely transferable to mystery writing. First of all, why is this character interested in solving a mystery? This question is easier to answer with a professional sleuth (it’s their job!), but the most effective cop and P.I. characters are also driven by a complex history. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, whose prostitute mother was murdered when he was a boy, is a wonderful example—he’s always looking out for the underdog.

With amateur sleuths, developing the character ’s reasonable and believable stake in solving the mystery is crucial. The writer must build an urgency to solve the crime into the character’s history and psychology. Something that the character dearly wants—and maybe this isn’t conscious—is blocked by the presenting problem.

For example, at the beginning of Deadly Advice, recently divorced psychologist Rebecca Butterman craves a normal, happy life. She wants to move forward, not look back at her failed marriage. After her next-door neighbor commits suicide, the neighbor’s mother begs her to look into the death, which she believes was foul play.

Rebecca agrees. She feels guilty about not getting to know the neighbor, and because of something more subtle—this death taps into her feeling of being alone in the world. And feeling alone triggers a very old abandonment issue from childhood.

Yes, Rebecca Butterman wants to find out what happened to her neighbor, but she also wants to understand why she feels so lonely. And so she digs into a murder case further than any ordinary person might. See how it works?

In my forthcoming Key West Food Critic mystery, A Taste for Murder , the protagonist Hayley Snow is younger than Dr. Butterman, with a less dramatic family history. She moves to Key West to be with a new boyfriend who immediately dumps her for another woman, which leaves her feeling unmoored. So now she’s searching for a way to find the self-esteem that she hoped would come with the new relationship. Then the other woman turns up murdered. Naturally Hayley is a suspect—and the upheaval in her interior life makes her particularly vulnerable to overinvolving herself in the mystery.

Over the course of your story, as with therapy, your character should learn new things about herself, and she should change because of what she learns. She may begin to understand that the things she thought she wanted are not what she really needs to feel fulfilled or loveable, or less lonely. So she can relinquish the old goals and set her sights on something more real.

EXERCISE

Answering these questions should help you develop a more rounded character.

• What brings this character into the story? (How can I help you today? Why now?)

• How would the character describe her goal at the beginning of the book? (The “How can I help?” question becomes “What does this character say she wants?”)

• How will the character change as a result of what she faces, and learns about herself?

• What makes your character different from other people (inside and out)?

• What is this character’s stake for getting involved in the solution of the mystery, both on the surface and inside?

• What about the character’s family history shapes her stake in your story?