Now Write! Mysteries

KATHLEEN GEORGE is the Edgar-nominated author of The Odds, the fourth in the Richard Christie novels set in Pittsburgh. Other titles in the series are Taken, Fallen, Afterimage, and Hideout. She is also the editor of the short fiction collection Pittsburgh Noir. George is a professor of theater and playwriting at the University of Pittsburgh, where she has directed many plays.

Human behavior is wonderfully complex and mysterious. Voices have distinctive prints. We know who is on the phone by the first half-word. And sometimes we recognize a person even from a distance by the way she walks. People have personal rhythms—of thought, of movement, of speech.

There are all kinds of ways of getting at character behaviors. Actors often use a chart that includes some fifty things to be determined. They must decide, among many other things, breathing patterns (shallow or deep, ragged or smooth), the state of digestion in the stomach and intestines, financial condition (how much money is in the character’s pocket, how much in the bank, how much under the mattress), emotional tendencies (inhibitions and exhibitions), religious beliefs.

Writers, like actors, are trying to capture human behavior. And they need to know the same things. Writers of mysteries are especially dependent upon the ways characters move and speak—and pretend and conceal things that cannot be said—because those are the things mysteries are about.

I believe the ideal position of the writer is a changing one—both actor and director to what is on the page’s stage. There are moments when I am my characters, feeling everything from the inside. And other moments when I step back and watch the characters—and help direct the performance. For this second step, I find it very helpful to cast characters, using professional actors from the stage or film or TV to find an image that works. I like to let the image of an existing actor begin to inform the way one of my characters speaks and moves. I love the point at which, with a strong image—a face, a movement, a pattern, a voice—I find the character capable of surprising me.

When I was a theater director and had to cast plays, I would notice that certain actors didn’t make much sense in the secondary position. They had to be the doers, dominant. Other actors were especially right for whimsical humor and in some cases were not credible when the humor was harsh, satiric. There was constantly a need to get the dynamics right in a scene so that two dissimilar types got the action-engines going.

Aesthetic weights was a concept we talked about often. Some actors are naturally aesthetically heavy and others are light. A heavy actor (not in physical weight, but in aesthetic weight) moves less, and is more solid in opinions, while an actor of a lighter aesthetic weight is more changeable, flexible moment by moment.

When I first created my lead character, Richard Christie, I saw him as aesthetically medium to heavy. He looked a good bit like Liam Neeson. But he also had thought patterns that were calling up someone else. I found myself saying in several situations that to me he had a good deal of Gabriel Byrne in him, too. I couldn’t explain easily what I meant, but the image and voice of Byrne kept coming to me, telling me something.

Christie, the character I wrote (and continue to write) is thoughtful, moody, smart, a bit self-effacing, egotistical, religious, guilty. I described him early on as the ultimate father figure. The other characters of each novel are drawn to him, even overly dependent on him; almost everyone falls in love with him. I had seen Gabriel Byrne only in MILLER’S CROSSING and THE USUAL SUSPECTS. What sense did my casting make?

The sense it made came a decade later when Byrne starred in In Treatment for HBO. His Dr. Paul Weston was in the mold of my Richard Christie—paternalistic, moody, introspective, sympathetic, personally unsettled. He showed me the image I’d had all along. It was there, underneath.

My detective Colleen Greer has hair like Meg Ryan’s and she looks a bit like her. She acts like a combination of Melissa George when she’s impish, flirtatious, and Scarlett Johansson when she’s tentative, thoughtful.

I encourage you to cast your characters and to do so from gut feeling. Images of people spark our imaginations, impel us to create. The following is an exercise in allowing known actors to inhabit your characters.

EXERCISE