Justified v. Jack Ryan; Show v. Tell

 

In 2016 the Missus and I had a crisis of media overload not to mention a serious case of post-election despair. The Hallmark Channel became part refuge, part detox. Seriously, as much as cozy mysteries are derided, when you’ve had more than your fair-share of reality, a nice/nonviolent cozy can be balm for the over-thinkers’ soul.

We went from cynical-overload to looking forward to new episodes of Garage Sale Mysteries and Murder She Baked and Mystery Woman movies. Soothing plots, above average acting, and a low/no misery index—what’s not to love? But for every Mystery Woman, there is a Hailey Dean. 

*Caveat, I haven’t read Nancy Grace’s Hailey Dean Mystery books, nor do I intend to*

I can’t say how much of the unfortunate writing in the Hailey Dean series is original to Nancy Grace’s novels and how much “credit” goes to screen writers Jonathan Greene and Michelle Ricci. Yet every episode the Hailey Dean Mysteries involves someone (a character we’re supposed to like) telling someone else, (usually a character we’re not supposed to like) how smart, experienced, and/or dedicated Hailey Dean is—every episode. Apropos of nothing, we hear that she was a star prosecutor who won all of her cases or how she graduated at the top of her class or how the ONLY case she has never solved was the murder of her fiance. The constant validation of character bonafides reads like a mash note to a stunningly insecure protagonist. 

Or like a new author too famous for beta readers or editors

However, Hailey Dean has no lock on the ego-stroking. Unlike a lot of dudes my age, (Gen-X) I came late to the Amazon Prime series Jack Ryan. I only just started the first season a couple of weeks ago. But, having read Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October, I have a little more experience with the prose. Still, I held out hope that the folks at Prime might eschew some of Clancy’s more heavy-handed writing. 

There are some good and necessary updates. 

A government employee with a $300 Park Avenue haircut.

Gone is Clancy’s suave, subject-matter ubermensch Jack Ryan. Larry Ferguson (et al) renders an unsteady Ryan still finding his way after a derailed military career and an aborted private-sector gig. He is still the clear-eyed-do-right man on a mission. He just rides a bicycle to work and wears skinny-pants.

I’m gonna need to see your CV to tell you this story…

Sadly, the screen writers don’t trust the viewers any more than Clancy trusted his readers. Both spoon-feed how great Ryan is to us. In the Hunt, it’s an Admiral telling a ship captain all about Ryan’s heroic recovery from a helicopter accident. In the series, it’s Sandrine Arnaud, a French intelligence officer working a joint task force with the CIA. 

*Obviously, spoilers*

In writing the character of Captain Sandrine Arnaud, Ferguson & Co. craft a smart, demonstrably tough, intelligence officer who happens to be a woman, only to employ her as a tell-device. See, after an episode of Jack fighting off two (2) armed terrorists—while wounded—the scripters (and director) really wanted us to know that Jack is a tough guy. To wit they have Sandrine tell Jack, (us) that he’s only acting like a sheep but actually he is a wolf. 

WAY less than a $300 haircut

Yep. Sandrine is a strong, experienced, complex character with demonstrated introspection and national-self-awareness. Aaaaaaand her longest bit of dialogue is squandered on stroking the main-character’s…ego. 

Pro-tip: if the book/show/movie is named after the main character, there isn’t a great need to prop the character up—just let them loose and we will see (read) it in action. 

Who does it right?

When we meet Police Chief Jim Hopper, he has just gotten out of bed to immediately open a can of beer and light off a cigarette. At the crack of dawn. Also, he scarcely acknowledges the woman he left in the bed and seems relieved when she leaves sans conversation. 

This sets our expectations for the chief and they are low.

It's a yes-or-no question, kid. Do you have a light?

When other characters (Joyce and her ex-husband, Lonnie) mention Hopper it is with disdain that reinforces the low-first-impression he has made. But then writing magic happens as Matt and Ross Duffer proceed to unwrap Hopper like a Christmas present. Over the successive four seasons we see that Hopper was married, had a child, and was a detective in the big city. He was a do-right man. And then his child died of cancer.

Murray U.B. Bauman, the “U.B.” stands for “undercover badass”

But like, deep undercover...

Murray Bauman is a former journalist, private investigator, and government watchdog. He’s also mentally brilliant if physically average. Yet he aspires to more. A disciple of martial arts, he carries a copy of Black Belt magazine on his plane trip to Alaska. But we never really trust Murray’s shopping-center karate, especially after he divulges that he’s been repeatedly beaten in sparring matches by a teenage boy. 

Then he’s drugged and kidnapped. He quickly learns one of his only friends is in a gulag and another is set to be sold to Russian security forces. In that moment, Murray’s best karate surges out in a torrent of righteous defense.

Yet his best karate is still inside.

But perhaps the best example of character, demonstrated in action, is Marshal Raylan Givens. Elmore Leonard crafted Givens for his novel, Pronto. And as is the requirement for any Leonard protag, there isn’t an ounce of fat on Givens. Not an ounce of exposition, either.

“You and your hat are famous…”

In the latest iteration, Justified: City Primeval we see Givens just as everyone else sees him. A fish out of water, he is too “hillbilly” for Florida where we meet him. He is certainly too hillbilly for Detroit where the local police treat him like a joke. 

But Givens has talents that no one speaks of. On a hunch, a Detroit judge requests Givens investigate an assassination attempt resulting in the death of the judge’s car. That is immediately after the same judge jails Givens for contempt of court. 

Still, no one tells us (or each other) how strong/smart/fast/do-right Givens is. 

Justified: City Primeval writers, (like Givens’ creator, the late-great Elmore Leonard) trusts us (viewers and readers) to see for ourselves. When Bryl, a Detroit alpha-cop readies a battering ram to knock down a door and show Givens’ “how we do things in Detroit,” Givens turns the door knob and pushes the door open. When Bryls later kills an Albanian gangster, Givens manages to bring his man in, alive and unharmed.

But it is in the dynamic between Givens and the big-bad where Elmore Leonard’s throwback lawman shines. Both Givens and Mansell know how their game of cops and killers will be resolved. Even as both make moves to avoid it. 

Mansell instigates a beat-down with the intention of charging Givens with assault or, at least, having him removed from a hate-crime-turned murder case. After seeing how easily the marshal was provoked, Carolyn Wilder, Mansell's defense attorney sees Givens as a simple tool to use against her murderous client. Yet as simple as Givens presents, there is great depth under his placid surface.

Givens ultimately proves them both wrong. Even as he out-manuevers the killer with the intent of a live arrest, a fair trial, and a righteous verdict, the marshal must contend with uncooperative partners, wild cards, (a questionable cop, Wilder, Albanian gangsters, et al) and outrageous luck. Neither infallable nor a pawn, Givens does what he does—stand up and do-right when everything else fails.

“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” Augustine of Hippo 

The bottom line is if you write actively, your readers won't need a program, notes, or a narrator. Just like the truth, set the characters loose and let them show the reader who they are in action. Everything else is false and a waste of words that the reader is likely to skip over anyway.

Obviously, I don't own any of the images used here. All are used for instructional/educational purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.