Wish I Wrote That
I go through life super-tuned, studying faces, gestures, language, tones – everything I experience, I process and much of it I tuck away in order to use it in my writing.
Now, this is not to say I’m a mentalist where I can read people because I cannot. Not at all. I am one of those people who, fortunately (or unfortunately) thinks the best of folks (until, luckily rarely, they prove me wrong). And this is also not to say everything I experience is tucked into my writing (though my friends often do things or say things then look at me and exclaim, “Oh God, Kristen’s going to use that in one of her books!” and they might, or might not be wrong).
It isn’t about assessing ulterior motives or dissecting personalities. It also isn’t about exposing all my (or my loved ones) experiences.
It is about collecting a vast mental database to use in my work. In fact, I am so tuned into names and endearments, I have a notebook filled with them that I can look through while writing and if a character doesn’t come to me already named (or I have used the name in a previous book), I’ll read through my lists and it’ll pop out at me.
Because I absorb this stuff as a matter of course, I also do it while watching movies and television shows. And recently, for some reason, and that reason I believe is because I’m so tuned in, I witnessed something so moving, it reduced me to tears.
And I wish I wrote it.
Going back to me not being a mentalist, during an episode of The Mentalist I recently viewed a scene where at the end Patrick Jane (The Mentalist) had a colleague make an intense, arguably selfish request. This was that Jane witness his death after he takes pills to commit suicide. The colleague had only a month to live and if Jane did this, his colleague would not be autopsied and, as this person was a coroner and had performed countless procedures in his life, he wished to avoid this in his death.
Jane, who is a character who holds himself distant from all those around him due to intensely tragic personal circumstances, did not wish to grant this last request.
However, being who he is to his core, a man who feels deeply no matter how he struggles not to do so, he is therefore completely unable to hold himself distant from those he respects or cares about. Being thus, it takes little time, in fact, it is during the short walk to the door that Jane changes his mind, turns from the door and asks the coroner if he would like a cup of tea.
In other words, Jane relented.
After the pills were consumed, while drinking tea together on the coroner’s couch and waiting for the coroner to lapse into his final sleep, Jane granted another last wish and that was explaining how he’d tricked the coroner earlier in the episode – a teasing game Jane had played with him through previous programs making the relationship humorously acrimonious. Then, further sharing his magic, Jane repetitively made a quarter appear and disappear with his fingers, repeating quietly, “It’s there, then it’s gone. It’s there, then it’s gone. It’s there, then it’s gone.”
Interrupting him, the coroner said softly, “Jane, thank you.” Unable to accept this gratitude for his extraordinary act of kindness, Jane replied in a harsh whisper, “Keep looking at the coin. It’s there, then it’s gone. It’s there, then it’s gone.”
Then the coroner was there and, slowly closing his eyes as the coin appeared and disappeared, he was gone.
As the selfless beauty of this scene poured over me and all that it exposed in the depth of Patrick Jane’s character, I wondered what the writer of this phenomenally touching scene had witnessed, absorbed and processed in order to share this bounty with us. It must be said, kudos should be given to the actors who performed this breathtaking scene gracefully, drawing the viewer in and guiding us through two men who respected one another sharing one of life’s most personal and profound moments… death. But it was the writer who led the way, building in the viewer a depth of emotion that caused a physical reaction in me of swelled chest, clogged throat and wet eyes.
Although remarkably sad, I am a storyteller and, watching this, I couldn’t help but wish I had the talent to write the same at the same time glad whatever seeded this moving idea in the writers’ brains is not in mine and hoping that whatever it was is pure fiction.
Nevertheless, I wish I wrote that because, after viewing it, I felt I’d received a precious gift – what any writer wishes their audience would feel when they take in our work.
PS: The writers of this episode, The Mentalist, “The Red Mile”, are Bruno Heller and Tom Szentgyorgyi; Patrick Jane is played by Simon Baker (incidentally, a man with a great smile and fabulous hair) and the coroner is played by the fantastic character actor, George Wyner. If you do not already watch this show, catch up – I assure you, you won’t be disappointed.
Now, this is not to say I’m a mentalist where I can read people because I cannot. Not at all. I am one of those people who, fortunately (or unfortunately) thinks the best of folks (until, luckily rarely, they prove me wrong). And this is also not to say everything I experience is tucked into my writing (though my friends often do things or say things then look at me and exclaim, “Oh God, Kristen’s going to use that in one of her books!” and they might, or might not be wrong).
It isn’t about assessing ulterior motives or dissecting personalities. It also isn’t about exposing all my (or my loved ones) experiences.
It is about collecting a vast mental database to use in my work. In fact, I am so tuned into names and endearments, I have a notebook filled with them that I can look through while writing and if a character doesn’t come to me already named (or I have used the name in a previous book), I’ll read through my lists and it’ll pop out at me.
Because I absorb this stuff as a matter of course, I also do it while watching movies and television shows. And recently, for some reason, and that reason I believe is because I’m so tuned in, I witnessed something so moving, it reduced me to tears.
And I wish I wrote it.
Going back to me not being a mentalist, during an episode of The Mentalist I recently viewed a scene where at the end Patrick Jane (The Mentalist) had a colleague make an intense, arguably selfish request. This was that Jane witness his death after he takes pills to commit suicide. The colleague had only a month to live and if Jane did this, his colleague would not be autopsied and, as this person was a coroner and had performed countless procedures in his life, he wished to avoid this in his death.
Jane, who is a character who holds himself distant from all those around him due to intensely tragic personal circumstances, did not wish to grant this last request.
However, being who he is to his core, a man who feels deeply no matter how he struggles not to do so, he is therefore completely unable to hold himself distant from those he respects or cares about. Being thus, it takes little time, in fact, it is during the short walk to the door that Jane changes his mind, turns from the door and asks the coroner if he would like a cup of tea.
In other words, Jane relented.
After the pills were consumed, while drinking tea together on the coroner’s couch and waiting for the coroner to lapse into his final sleep, Jane granted another last wish and that was explaining how he’d tricked the coroner earlier in the episode – a teasing game Jane had played with him through previous programs making the relationship humorously acrimonious. Then, further sharing his magic, Jane repetitively made a quarter appear and disappear with his fingers, repeating quietly, “It’s there, then it’s gone. It’s there, then it’s gone. It’s there, then it’s gone.”
Interrupting him, the coroner said softly, “Jane, thank you.” Unable to accept this gratitude for his extraordinary act of kindness, Jane replied in a harsh whisper, “Keep looking at the coin. It’s there, then it’s gone. It’s there, then it’s gone.”
Then the coroner was there and, slowly closing his eyes as the coin appeared and disappeared, he was gone.
As the selfless beauty of this scene poured over me and all that it exposed in the depth of Patrick Jane’s character, I wondered what the writer of this phenomenally touching scene had witnessed, absorbed and processed in order to share this bounty with us. It must be said, kudos should be given to the actors who performed this breathtaking scene gracefully, drawing the viewer in and guiding us through two men who respected one another sharing one of life’s most personal and profound moments… death. But it was the writer who led the way, building in the viewer a depth of emotion that caused a physical reaction in me of swelled chest, clogged throat and wet eyes.
Although remarkably sad, I am a storyteller and, watching this, I couldn’t help but wish I had the talent to write the same at the same time glad whatever seeded this moving idea in the writers’ brains is not in mine and hoping that whatever it was is pure fiction.
Nevertheless, I wish I wrote that because, after viewing it, I felt I’d received a precious gift – what any writer wishes their audience would feel when they take in our work.
PS: The writers of this episode, The Mentalist, “The Red Mile”, are Bruno Heller and Tom Szentgyorgyi; Patrick Jane is played by Simon Baker (incidentally, a man with a great smile and fabulous hair) and the coroner is played by the fantastic character actor, George Wyner. If you do not already watch this show, catch up – I assure you, you won’t be disappointed.
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