HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Where do
you get your ideas? Is it not the BEST question? Yes, yes, it’s complicated,
and sometimes unanswerable. But sometimes, you get to hear the BEST answers.
And here, from the real-life forensic
scientist and CSI (and crime fiction author) Lisa Black, is a “where do you get your ideas” answer I’ve NEVER heard before.
You’d think Lisa would get
them from her everyday real life--after all, she’s analyzed crime scenes and
tracked down real-life criminals.
But nope.
She gets her ideas--and lessons
in point of view, and character development, and motivation—from a place you
might never have predicted.
ANCIENT MOTIVATIONS
We all know that why
our characters do what they do is much more interesting than what they do. It is also much more
difficult to explain, to express to our readers, and yet is absolutely vital to
the proper telling of a story.
A year or two ago, as part of a
self-imposed cultural enrichment program and trying to Be a Better Person and
whatnot, not to mention getting my husband to turn off the television
for a whole half hour, we started reading the Bible. I had heard readings all
my life, of course, and with my husband’s upbringing he had actually had fairly
extensive schooling (I say ‘actually’ because if you met my husband, the
presence of any sort of religious experience in his background would come as a
stunner), but neither had ever read it cover to cover. And,
speaking now strictly as a writer, I’m so glad I did.
I knew, of course, that the western world tends to reference
a Judeo-Christian heritage, but again, speaking strictly as a writer, I had no
idea how much.
There are so many phrases and figures of speech still used
today—by the skin of his teeth, at wit’s end, as old as the hills, the blind
leading the blind—to name the merest fraction. And then
there are the stories. If we thriller writers seek tales of deceit, treachery
and betrayal, as well as passion, love and selflessness, they’re all there.
I often complain to my husband that you can tell the books
were written by men. Moses and Jeremiah note every battle fought and every meal
ate, but leave out the obvious things like why?
And how did he feel about that? I
know many books were written long after events occurred and the writers had to
work with what they had, and I don’t mean to male-bash,
but honestly—isn’t this just like when you come home from a dinner party
and your husband has noted every option of Bob’s new car, but never asked Bob
why he and Janice are divorcing?
For instance, King Solomon
had an older brother, Adonijah. Being the elder, Adonijah, reasonably enough,
thought he should be king and isn’t happy when dad David promoted little
brother Solomon instead. After a scuffle he seems to accept his fate and is a
model citizen for forty years. He
then tries another coup, this one equally unsuccessful.
Why? Did he think he
could handle his lot in life, really tried to be happy being the Fredo of the
David dynasty, did a slow burn for four decades and finally couldn’t stand it
any more? Or did he actually bide his time for half his life, until he figured
(wrongly) he had enough pals in the city to overthrow the palace?
And in a ‘here’s the rest of the
story’ incident, after this second coup
Adonijah knows he’s in deep trouble with his brother and goes to the only
person who can help—Mom. She relays to Solomon that Adonijah knows he did
wrong, he’s sorry, he’ll be a good boy again, but he wants a favor—to marry a
particular woman. Solomon, who’s been surprisingly sanguine about the whole
matter up to this point, not only says no but then
executes Adonijah, apparently not for trying to oust him from the throne
but for having the gall to ask for a wife on top of it.
Why? This woman is not
mentioned before or afterwards so it wasn’t some sort of love triangle. Was
asking for a favor when you’re lucky just to have your life spared simply the
straw that broke the back of fraternal sentiment? Or did Solomon believe that anyone
with that kind of arrogance hadn’t learned a thing and would continue to plot
coups? What? Why?
She had been born a princess and
then, just as every princess up until the last century or so, traded like a live
pawn to a stranger in a foreign land in the name of political expediency. Yet
in no time at all she has her new husband in her hip pocket.
Among other things a kerfluffle with
Elijah ensued when that prophet had a smackdown with her priests of Baal, seeing
who could get whose god to light a fire. The Baal camp failed. Elijah even stacked
the deck against himself, soaking the wood with water to make it really
impossible, then prayed and it burst into flames.
Having thoroughly trounced the other side—and
here is another why? moment to me—he
kills them all. Which, let’s be fair, could be seen as a trifle unnecessary.
Certainly Jezebel thought so, and sent a message to Elijah that essentially said
“what you did to them, I’m going to do to you—by this time tomorrow.” Elijah is so frightened of Jezebel, this female, foreign-born
political pawn, that he hides in the forest for forty days.
As befits a good story, Jezebel comes to a bad end. With
Ahab dead and an army advancing on her city, she does her hair up, puts on her
makeup, and stands in a window. Let me point out that Adolf Hitler crawled into
a bunker and shot himself, and they found Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole.
But Jezebel fixes her hair and stands there and watches them come.
Like Bonnie, maybe like Evita, maybe like Leona Helmsley, I don’t like her, but
I can’t help but note her almost superhuman strength. But where did it come
from? Was she simply playing the hand she’d been dealt, being the best queen
she could be using the Machiavellian training of her parents’ court? Was she
proving to the world that women could rule with a hand more iron than any man?
Did she really think she was Baal’s specially selected sales rep? Or were the
forces in her darker, more deep-seated, swirling and growing since birth?
The whys fascinate
me. So what this writer learned from the Bible
other than phrase origins and some fabulous prose, is that the motivations of our characters are their most captivating,
and difficult, quality. Without a thorough examination of the insides of
their head, their actions and trials and plots are as bones lying scattered on
the desert sands.
HANK: I am sitting here, still picturing Jezebel at
the window. Wow. And it also proves, no matter, what or where, it’s all about
telling a good story.
Did you read Bible stories as a kid? As an
adult? Is there a character in a Bible story
you think about? Job? Lot’s wife? Noah?
*************************
Close to the Bone hits forensic scientist Theresa
MacLean where it hurts, bringing death and destruction to the one place where
she should feel the most safe—the medical examiner’s office in Cleveland, Ohio,
where she has worked for the past fifteen years of her life. Theresa returns in
the wee hours after working a routine crime scene, only to find the body of one
of her deskmen slowly cooling with the word “Confess” written in his blood. His
partner is missing and presumed guilty, but Theresa isn’t so sure. The body
count begins to rise but for once these victims aren’t strangers—they are
Theresa’s friends and colleagues, and everyone in the building, herself
included, has a place on the hit list.
Lisa Black spent the five
happiest years of her life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist in the Cleveland coroner’s office
she analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint,
glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime
scenes. Now she’s a certified latent print examiner and CSI for the Cape Coral
Police Department in Florida. Her books have been translated into six languages
and one reached the NYT mass market bestseller’s list.
