One Shot at Jack Reacher

I think I'm as willing as the next person to willfully suspend disbelief when it comes to literature and the arts, but  I've decided to draw my line in the sand with the casting of Tom Cruise as Lee Childs' protagonist, Jack Reacher.

I like Tom Cruise and bear him no malice. After all, he was the unabashed hero of Top Gun, a movie I still like to watch, and it's hard to picture anyone else with that swagger and great s**t-eating grin.  But fans of Lee Childs' novels know that Reacher is a larger-than-life character who is 6'6” * (not to mention a blond) while Cruise at 5'7” is shorter than his previous two wives (Nicole Kidman is 5'10” and Katie Holmes is 5'9”).

So, being fond of research, I decided to have some fun and see what I could come up with through the wonders of the Internet.  Here's what I found out.  Many of the old-time leading men, adventurers, and dare-doers were well within Reacher's height.  These include John Wayne (6'4.5”), Rock Hudson (6'4'), James Stewart (6'3.5”), Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck (6'3”), Errol Flynn (6'2”),  and Cary Grant and Burt Lancaster (6'1”), just to name a few.  The closest contenders today would be Nicholas Cage, Christian Bale, and Leonardo DiCaprio, all at 6 feet.  (I should hasten to add that none of these actors would probably have been good casting for Jack Reacher.)  Brad Pitt and George Clooney are both 5'11”, while Robert Downey Jr. is 5'9”.

By the way, my own personal favorite for the role of Jack Reacher would have been Jim Caviezel (6'2”), who plays Reese on the CBS television series Person of Interest.

The first Jack Reacher movie, based on One Shot, has grossed $150 million thus far.  For a sequel to be considered, it would probably need to gross at least $250 million (according to industry insiders). Meanwhile, Cruise has bought the rights to all seventeen Jack Reacher novels (groan).  So we'll have to wait and see if Cruise will spin a franchise out of it.

* For those, unlike me, who prefer metric measurements, 6 feet equals 1.8288 meters.

A Writer"s Methods: Reference Photos

In a recent interview featured on The Character Connection I mentioned that while designing the character Karen Stainer for Blood Passage, the first in the Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel series, I used a reference photo to help visualize the person I was creating. The photo helped to bring together all the various elements of the character into a round, three-dimensional fictional entity. As I said in the interview, when I saw the photo I understood who Karen Stainer was going to be.

Many other writers use this technique when developing characters, and celebrity actors often serve as models. It’s well known, for example, that John Grisham wrote The Pelican Brief with Julia Roberts in mind and that he visualized Paul Newman and Brad Pitt as his central characters while writing The Chamber. In his case he was obviously thinking ahead to the movie versions of his novels, but for some of us it’s merely a matter of having a useful visual reference point.

Reference photos are also very helpful for setting. Thriller writer John Mefford, author of  COMMITTED, recently posted a series of photos on his website that are intended to “provide a pictorial representation” of the locales featured in his novel. They include a curtain stirring in the window of a brick building, a fire escape behind a drab motel, and an old shed with a rusted tin roof. His photos help set the mood for his story and pique the interest of readers.

I’ve used Google Earth to explore neighborhoods and landscapes while visualizing the settings of my stories, particularly for places in Maryland and Virginia I haven’t yet been fortunate enough to visit. I use reference photos for other creative prompts as well. For example, when I’m writing a scene involving characters sitting in a particular type of car I’ll look for a photo of the interior to make sure I have the details correct. It would be embarrassing for Hank Donaghue to put his cup of coffee into a cup holder in Karen’s 1979 Firebird, for example, if it didn’t actually have cup holders.

I’ve also looked at photos of restaurant kitchens, hotel lobbies, elevator interiors, and other places before I write a scene if the image in my head needs a little tweaking while I’m mentally walking through it. This approach is similar to that of a graphic designer or illustrator who consults reference photos while researching a new illustration.

Do I do this with every scene I write? No, thank goodness. Most of the time I can imagine exactly where I am when I’m writing and I don’t need any assistance.

Do I want my readers to “see” these things, people and places the same way I see them? Absolutely not. I tend to minimize description whenever I can, in large part because I want readers to do much of the heavy lifting themselves. When they can visualize my story themselves in their own mind’s eye, I know I’ve successfully engaged them in the fiction-making process!