A Moveable Inspiration

Who do you count as your early-on writing inspirations when you were getting started. Has that changed over time? How? Why? 

by Paul D. Marks

My writing inspirations are all over the place. Initially, I aspired to be a latter-day Hemingway, sitting on the Left Bank, sipping absinthe, chatting with my literary buddies. I wanted to live the romantic, adventurous life that Hemingway describes in A Moveable Feast. Yes, I liked his clipped and concise writing style, and his philosophy of the clean, well-lighted place, as well as the eponymous story, but I also loved the idea of that writer's life and lifestyle – so his influence is, or was, as much about the writer's lifestyle as his writing style. But when I tried it, drinking and writing, I just wanted to play – got no work done. Along with Hemingway comes Fitzgerald. Stylistically different, the two just naturally fit together, at least in my mind. One of my favorites stories is still Hemingway's short story, Soldier's Home, which I read every year or two.

But my writing influences don't only come from books and authors. I've always loved movies, uh, films, since before I could walk. And a lot of my writing has been influenced by them. I saw anything and everything I could, especially on the big screen. And though there's been a lot of influence from the movies in my work, from Frank Capra and screwball comedies to Alfred Hitchcock's suspense tales, and more modern directors like Martin Scorsese and even John Dahl, the thing that's stuck with me the most is film noir. I think I'm addicted, intervention needed.

I'm also one of those people who, while everyone else is leaving the theatre, is standing there, craning my neck around them, to see the credits. I've always been interested in who wrote a movie and, if it was based on a book, who wrote that.


So from this jumping off point, I began reading James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and other writers whose works were turned into noir or mystery movies. One of my favorites is  David Goodis (right), whose novel Dark Passage, was made into a movie with Bogie and Bacall. Having watched and liked that movie, I began reading Goodis, starting with the book that that movie was based on. But my favorite Goodis is Down There, made into the movie Shoot the Piano Player by Francois Truffaut. I have to say, though, that I'm not a fan of the movie, but the original book is terrific if you like down and dirty noir stories. Goodis has been called the "poet of the losers" by Geoffrey O'Brien, and his stories deal with failed lives and people who are definitely on the skids. They're often people who weren't always in this position though and the interesting part is seeing how they deal with their downfall – not always so well.

Along with film noir, the early hardboiled writers (though there is some crossover) have influenced my mystery-noir sensibility: Chandler, Cain, Hammett, Dorothy B. Hughes, etc. Along with these writers comes John Fante, although I'm not sure Fante would fit either the noir or hardboiled categories. Nonetheless his thinly disguised autobiographical tales of a struggling writer's life in early 20^th century L.A. made enough of an impression on me that I wrote to him shortly before he died.

Later on I was drawn to Ross MacDonald with his psychological insights and James Ellroy with his corrupt and sultry grittiness. But for me Chandler, with his elegant descriptions, metaphors, characters, depiction of the mean streets and his ville fatale relationship with Los Angeles, will always be on top, as high above everyone else in his field as the Beatles are in theirs. They are sui generis, in classes by themselves.

What draws me to these writers and the noir and mystery genre in books and films is that they're about the other side of the American Dream. There's an inner core of darkness and corruption in society, a feeling of fear and paranoia. There's a moral ambiguity in the writings of most of these writers and in these films. They are the equivalent of an Edward Hopper painting (another major influence on my writing) with its cold light and shadows, filled with a sense of alienation and angst.

In much of noir and some hardboiled writing (and there is often, though not always a difference between the two) there's no sense of redemption, but much betrayal. No good guys, just bad guys and worse guys. The hero is flawed. People's own flaws and weaknesses create their fallibility and ultimately lead to their downfall. I think this appeals to me in the sense that it's a realistic, though often pessimistic and cynical, view of society. And in my own writing, both in my novel White Heat and many of my short stories, the characters are flawed, the situations ambiguous.

And now to throw a monkey wrench into the works, my two favorite books of all time are not hardboiled or noir, but both have influenced me in many ways. They are The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham and The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. The former because I relate to the character of Larry Darrell on a lot of levels, his disillusionment after the war (WWI), and his search for peace and meaning in life. And the latter because it's the ultimate revenge story and revenge is so satisfying, served cold or otherwise.

As to whether or not my inspirations have changed over time, the answer is not really. The old ones are still there, but new ones get added to the list all the time, everyone and everything from Walter Mosely, Carol O'Connell and Michael Connelly, to movies like Ghost World and Pulp Fiction.

And finally, the other early – and continuing – inspiration for my writing, as much as any writers or movies, is the City of Angels itself. I remember it well enough from when I was a kid that it still resembled Chandler's L.A. And later, my friend Linda and I would drive around the city, heading out in all directions, searching out the old buildings and the ghosts of old L.A.

L.A. is my own ville fatale. She is my mistress and a harsh mistress, indeed. But she is also my muse. But that's a whole 'nother story for the sequel.

(Originally posted on 7 Criminals Minds Blog)

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?

Have you ever killed off a character you loved?

by Paul D. Marks

Well, I've certainly wanted to kill off a lot of 'characters' I've come across in my life, but we're talking fiction here. The answer is yes. Killing off a character that you like is never easy.  We all love killing the bad guys, seeing them get their just desserts. But when you kill off a sympathetic character, a character that you and your readers like and, who is a good guy and good friend to your protagonist, well, that's another story.  But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do for the sake of the plot and the story and a dash of realism.

Gaby, a character in my story Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne, set around the time of the Zoot Suit Riots during World War II, is missing. He's a friend of Bobby's, the story's main character.  And someone who knows Bobby's deepest secrets. But knowing them, he is sympathetic to Bobby and a friend to him.  So when he goes missing, Bobby wants to find out what happened.  And it isn't pretty. And though Gaby meets an untimely end, I liked the character.  So when I wrote The Blues Don't Care, a novel that "stars" Bobby in the main role, I resurrected Gaby to return in that story, which is set previous to the time of Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne. So, sometimes through the magic of fiction you can bring back a character that you like.  (This novel is not yet available.)

My short story Free Fall starts off with the main character, Rick, free falling to his death from a high-rise apartment in L.A.  So I'm not really giving anything away here. This was an interesting experiment for me as both the writer and reader know the main character, the narrator of the story, is dead from the beginning.  As the ground comes screaming towards him and in those few seconds before hitting, we get his story.  Having started this story off knowing my main character was going to die, I didn’t have time to become too attached to him, at least initially.  But, as I wrote his backstory, I started to like him and empathize with him and I think that gave the story a little more depth and interest as we realize all the events that led up to him taking this ultimate final step.

Spoiler Alert – Don't read this graph if you're planning to read White Heat: Probably the most heartrending death of a character both for me and my readers was the death of a dog in this novel. It's ironic because just a week or two before I got this question I read something that said you never kill a dog in a cozy.  Well, this book is about as far from a cozy as you can get.  Still, it was hard on my audience and I got a lot of feedback on that. Some people couldn't even read those parts.  And it was hard for me to kill him off.  But it did make people hate the bad guy even more – after all, who kills a dog?  I don't like the idea of hurting a dog anymore than anyone else.  But you do what works for the plot.  And in this case I thought it would jolt the reader into connecting with the characters in a more real way.  Suddenly the bad guy is really evil and the hero more sympathetic. Is that manipulative – maybe.  But isn't all writing?  Still, it hurt to write those scenes and you just feel it all well up inside you as you write. It was also hard on me because the real-life dog that the dog-character was based on was a dog I'd had as a kid.  Luckily that rascally dog lived to a ripe old age. End of Spoiler.

Killing off the characters in the three cases that I mention above worked for each particular story.  And you do what you have to do to make the story work.  But that doesn't mean you don't regret it sometimes. In one particular screenplay of mine, that was optioned over and over but never produced, I kill off the main character's sidekick buddy.  But I really liked that character and since it hasn't been produced, well, maybe it's not too late to save his ass.

(originally posted on 7 Criminal Minds blog)

The Writing Process Blog Hop

Thriller Award nominee Michael Sherer tagged me to join the Writing Process Blog Hop. Check out Mike's writing process at michaelwsherer.com . And at the end of this post I will tag four other authors who will post about their writing process on their blogs on June 2nd: Craig Faustus Buck, Stephen Campbell, Mark Danielson, and Dianne Emley.

It's always interesting to see different authors' processes. Everybody does it differently, so here goes:

1. What am I working on?

Since the sequel to White Heat is done and that, along with another novel, are with an agent, I'm working on a couple of different things. Two novellas right now. One for a publisher that specializes in novellas and the other one is just for me, at least for now.

The first is a hardboiled, noirish story of a soldier coming back from the war in Afghanistan. While there he and his buddies pull a fast one and now that they're back they find their scam is catching up to them in more ways than one.

The other novella is a mystery, more of a mainstream mystery than hardboiled or noir. But it does have an unusual angle in that it's all set in one location. And that created some challenges, but half the fun is overcoming those challenges. I guess you could call it "high concept".


2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

We all bring a part of ourselves to whatever we write, so my personal experiences color everything I write, as every other writer's experiences color what they write.

There's really nothing new under the sun if we want to be honest. It might hurt our egos a bit, but it's been said that there are five (or seven, depending on who's talking) basic plots and they were all done by Shakespeare a long time ago. So what makes any of our works different is what we bring to them, the little pieces of ourselves that we insert, the insights, our personal and life experiences.

Even when just doing a work-for-hire rewrite job, I will do it differently than the next person because of who I am. So what makes my story and novel writing different? I think my characters live in a world of grays rather than black and white. Most of my characters are flawed, nobody wears the proverbial white hat, more so they wear a "gray" hat.

Also, several of my lead characters are people out of "time"—not in the sense that time is running out, although maybe that too—but in the sense that time has passed them by. They are "dinosaurs," living in the present in their bodies but their minds are in the past and they look at the world from that perspective. They have to adjust to the way things are today, and sometimes that isn't so easy. Often, my characters are not just "out of time," but also out of place, not quite fitting into the world in which they live.

And in my story Angels Flight, from the collection L.A. Late @ Night, Tom Holland, the main character and an LAPD cop, is definitley out of his element in both time and place when he's assigned to work with a community liason from the mayor's office, who is about as opposite from him as anyone can be.

They are also often haunted by the past. In White Heat, the main character, Duke, is haunted by his past and all the mistakes he has made and continues to make. Bobbie in The Blues Don’t Care, the other novel I mentioned that's with the agent, is out of place in the sense of not fitting in with 1940’s American society.




3. Why do I write what I do?

'Cause I don't know anything about making frappés. The cartoon character Popeye says, "I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam." And it's true, what else can we be, what else can we do? And what else can we write, if not what speaks to us personally?

I write a variety of things, but most would fall into the mystery genre or one of its sub-genres. That said, I've had over 30 short stories published. Some are mainstream, some humorous or satirical and many are noir or hardboiled stories. So to try to come up with a unified field theory that would apply to all of them: I write what I do because I’m trying to understand something or get a question answered. Something that puzzles me or intrigues me or bothers me. Even in my mysteries, at least most of them, I’m trying not just to solve the mystery but to explore some aspect of society and/or the characters. To see where they and we are coming from and where they and we are going. Sometimes the road isn't pretty or has a lot of potholes, but at least I can learn something from the journey.

For example, in my story Dead Man's Curve, from the Last Exit to Murder anthology, there is a mystery and a dead body. But the part that interests me the most is the main character, Ray Hood's, bumpy road to (hopeful and possible) redemption, which occurs in the context of trying to solve the mystery, but to me is the much more interesting aspect of the story.

I also tend to write a lot about, or at least set a lot of stories in, Los Angeles. My family goes back here longer than most and it's a city that intrigues me, both in terms of its reality and its literary and movie heritage. It's a place that lives both in the past and the present and, especially, the future. There are still, though fading fast, remnants of the old L.A. of my grandparents and then there's the new L.A. that's hip and trendy and that dichotomy of the old and new, the "in" and "out" is what intrigues me and inspires much of my writing.


4. How does my writing process work?

I'm what's commonly referred to as a "pantster"—I write by the seat of my pants, at least for the first draft or two. I basically sit down at the computer and let it fly. Whatever comes comes—stream of consciousness and I don't care how good or bad it is or how much will be kept or cut. But I do get to know the characters and story this way. I have a basic idea for a story before I start, maybe even some notes for characters, scenes or other bits in my head or written down. But I hate outlining. I just don't think in those terms. And I usually do my first draft in screenplay format. Like:

EXT. BEACH – DAY

Joe runs from several men dressed in black Ninja outfits. They look out

of place on the beach, but Joe really looks out of place with his black tie

and tails running along the water's edge.

And the above is probably even more detailed than I would get in my first draft. It's mostly just the scene setting, in this case the beach, and dialogue, that goes down the middle of the page, plus maybe a little action. Little to no description.

So, in eseence, that screenplay draft is my outline, but it's also a story with dialogue and as bare as it is it's more fleshed out than a true outline.

And I may or may not keep much, most, any of it. But it's a start. But for me the real writing comes in the rewriting phases. That's where all the fine tuning and polishing and hopefully the magic happens. With each draft you see a clearer picture and everything starts to come into focus.

I've seen other people who labor over each word and sentence as they go along so they probably don't have as much revising to do. But for me, that's where it all really starts to take shape. I pretty much let it fly in the early drafts and the real shaping, honing, fine tuning, polishing, come together in the revising. I might have ten drafts – or more – on a project, but some of them may have only have a handful of changes while others have wholesale changes in plot, character and incidents, all of which need to 'come together' in 'the end'.

The worst part of the revision phase is that it's an endless process, because every time you read the story, even if it's been published, you find holes that need plugging and things that you want to change, from small things like typos, to major things like plot points and characters. And no matter how many times you go over it with the proverbial fine tooth comb, no matter how many times other people go over it, you will always miss something, even after it's published.

And so with this blog I’m sure I’ll find something that I wish I’d said differently, but luckily once I post it it’s done and I have to leave it alone ….or maybe just one more tweak?

~.~.~

And now I’m handing off to four other fine writers (in alphabetical order), who will tell you about their processes next Monday, June 2nd:

Craig Faustus Buck is an L.A.-based journalist, nonfiction book author, TV writer-producer, screenwriter, short-story writer and novelist. Among his six nonfiction books, two were #1 NYT bestsellers. He wrote the Oscar-nominated short film Overnight Sensation. He was one of the writers on the seminal miniseries V: The Final Battle. His first noir mystery novel, Go Down Hard, which his agent is currently shopping, was First Runner Up for Killer Nashville's Claymore Award. His indie feature, Smuggling for Gandhi, is in preproduction. Stark Raving Group published his novella, Psycho Logic in May, and the novella's prequel, his short story "Dead End," is a current Anthony Award nominee.
www.craigfaustusbuck.com

~.~.~

Stephen Campbell was born and raised in Ohio, but after two blizzards in a single winter decided that enough was enough and moved to Florida to pursue his dream of becoming Travis McGee. While failing miserably at living the life of a boat bum doing favors for friends he did manage to graduate from the University of South Florida and stumble his way into the software business. Stephen loves reading fiction of all types, but most enjoys mysteries and thrillers.  His first full-length novel, Hunters Gamble, will be published in 2014.
www.stephenrcampbell.com

~.~.~

Pilot/novelist Mark W. Danielson has been flying and writing most of his life.  Seeing his small article printed in a 1972 newspaper led to his having over one hundred non-fiction articles and five mystery novels published.  Twice-selected as the US Navy’s top aviation safety author while on active duty, he now flies as an international airline pilot, spending much his time away writing.  Spectral Gallows, the latest in his Fort Worth Homicide Detective Maxx Watts series, takes Watts and partner Blaine Spartan into the paranormal world at the haunted Scott Theater to solve a decades-old hanging.  Please visit  Markwdanielson.com

~.~.~

Dianne Emley is a Los Angeles Times bestselling author and has received critical acclaim for her Detective Nan Vining thrillers, including The First Cut and Love Kills, and the Iris Thorne mysteries including Pushover.  Her standalone, paranormal thriller, The Night Visitor, will be published 9/16/14. Her short stories have been published in Literary Pasadena and other anthologies and her books have been translated into six languages.  A Los Angeles native, she lives in the Central California wine country with her husband.  “Emley masterfully twists, turns, and shocks.” —Tess Gerritsen

 Website: www.dianneemley.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DianneEmleyAuthor

Twitter: @DianneEmley

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/83073.Dianne_Emley

G.B. Pool’s Johnny Casino Enters with a Bang!

Today I have a guest blogger, Gayle Bartos-Pool. Her new novel The Johnny Casino Casebook 1: Past Imperfect has just been released. A hot and hard mystery about a P.I. with a past.

A former private detective and once a reporter for a small weekly newspaper, Gayle Bartos-Pool has other published books, including Media Justice, and several short stories in anthologies, LAndmarked for Murder and Little Sisters Volume 1. The former Speakers Bureau Director for Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles, she is also a member of Mystery Writers of America. Her short story appears in the anthology, Dying in a Winter Wonderland, which was voted one of the Top Ten of Softcover Books as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) of 2008.

Welcome Gayle:

Thanks so much for inviting me to join you on your blog, Paul.

I look forward to your Facebook notices of Noir movies coming on the movie channel. I’m addicted to them, too. Maybe that’s why the main character in my Johnny Casino series is a fan of the genre.

Johnny grew up in a Mob family in New Jersey, so to escape his life he watched old movies on a 13 inch black and white television. Even after he started working for his father, the consigliere for the D’Abruzzo crime family, he still watched those old Noir classics. He took his look from Tyrone Power in the movie Johnny Apollo. That actually isn’t all that odd. Real life gangster “Crazy Joe” Gallo was said to have dressed like George Raft in dark suits, black shirts and white ties because he thought the movie gangster looked cool. And they say movies don’t influence people.

I got that tidbit from the book, Five Families, a terrific read about “the rise and decline and resurgence of America’s most powerful Mafia Empires” by Selwyn Raab. It was a great primer in all things Mafioso. What I didn’t get from that book, I got from a guy whose father was in the Greek Mafia. This guy was a cop. I could see the conflict the former cop had because of his family ties. That was what I tried to put into Johnny Casino’s character.

As I delved into Johnny’s past, I wrote what turned out to be the second story in the first Johnny Casino Casebook. It’s called “The Family Business.” I learned a lot about Johnny from writing that story. It showed me where Johnny came from and why he wanted to get away from that early life.

Another problem came up while writing the first book. My agent wanted Johnny to have a girlfriend. That was another reason I wrote that second story. Johnny likes women, he just can’t trust them. This attitude is very much like the characters in those old Noir movies we love. I prefer either the femme fatal or the lady in distress in most of my stories with Johnny, but he did begin his private detective days working for a woman. And he admires this lady, she just loves somebody else. He did have an affair with a Mafia boss’s wife. Obviously, Johnny likes to live dangerously.

At the beginning of this first book, Johnny Casino states that he is a retired private detective with a past, he just hopes it doesn’t catch up with him. This opens the door for ghosts from his former lives to pop up, both his Mafia past and the time he was a P.I. the first time. I can do stories in flashback when I want to explain how Johnny got to be who he is and I can also have some of those earlier characters appear in the present after Johnny gets back in the detective business.

I basically write The Johnny Casino Casebook stories like a TV series. If you remember the old Magnum, P.I. TV show, they did flashbacks and brought in characters from his past every so often to give the viewer a full spectrum of his life. I do that with Johnny.

The first book in the series is subtitled Past Imperfect. Every story concerns someone with a skeleton or two in his or her closet. One story features a famous Hollywood star and a retired Broadway actress. This particular actress has a deadly secret in her closet and she is being blackmailed. The Hollywood actor wants Johnny to help out, but the actor has a few skeletons in his closet, too.

There is a story about politician with a playmate who has disappeared, and another case where Johnny is asked to return a dead body to the man responsible for the deed. Johnny even helps out the local sheriff whose wife has disappeared. This story takes him across the boarder into Mexico with a redhead you won’t soon forget.

Johnny explains how he met the woman who trained him as a detective in another story. You will see why he likes her so much. And the last story takes Johnny to Miami when his “wife” asks for money to keep her mouth shut. Only thing, Johnny doesn’t have a wife. This tale leaves Johnny with a question: Who the hell am I?

Books two and three are already written, so I know a lot about Johnny Casino. I drop in movie references frequently and Johnny works for various movie stars from time to time. I do change their names, but you might guess who they are. I like these actors too much to associate dead bodies and shenanigans with a real person. It was fun taking their actual time frame and creating a different character around it. I use places where they really lived in some cases and even some of the movies they made, I just changed the titles slightly to keep this fiction. A few come back for guest appearances in other stories later in the series.

Thanks for inviting me to your blog. I hope you enjoy The Johnny Casino Casebook – Past Imperfect. You can find the book on Amazon or link to it through my website: www.gbpool.com.

Thank you, Gayle.   Good luck with the first Johnny Casino and I look forward to the next one!

La Crescenta Library Event – July 2012

Ashley Ream & Paul D. Marks

Join Paul, Sue Ann Jaffarian (author of the Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery series and the Madison Rose Vampire Mystery series, and Michael Mallory (author of The Mural and the Amelia Watson Mystery series) for a panel/discussion on "Things That Go Bump in the Night".

When:  Saturday, July 28, 2012, 2:00 PM

Where: La Crescenta Library

            2809 Foothill Blvd.

            La Crescenta, CA, 91214

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A Z IN RENDEZVOUS

As writers should we be concerned about the dumbing down of society? Do we even believe this is occurring?
Some time ago, I had been driving in the car with a friend of mine who was a development exec at one of the studios. Somehow we got onto a discussion of whether or not rendezvous is spelled with a Z ? Try as I might, I could not convince her that there was a Z in that word, until we finally got to my place and I could prove it to her with a dictionary. Of course, this was in ye olden days before iPads and smart phones.
Another time I was in a meeting with a story editor. The question came up, what's the difference between East and West Germany, this when there still was an East and West Germany. She had been reading a script and wasn't sure. So I had to tell her, yet with or without my little history lesson she was going to pass judgment on another writer's screenplay.
A similar thing occurred when another production executive asked me whose side we had been on, the North or South Vietnamese. Another wanted to know who fought on which sides in World War II – things anyone with a high school education should know. All these people had degrees from good colleges. And I could mention so many more similar incidents.
When I was working for a nationally syndicated entertainment radio show the producer/host called another writer and myself into the office and dressed us down for using too many "big" and multisyllabic words. We were trying to raise people up instead of lowering them down and instead we were dressed down. Actually, we weren't even trying to do that. We were just writing the way we thought and we didn't think we were using such big words that people wouldn't know them.
Eventually, I ended up going to pitch meetings or other meetings and dumbing down everything I had to say. After all, I didn't want to insult the hand that was feeding me.
In a different arena, my wife and I have been in our current house eight years now. But one of the significant things I remember when we were looking at houses was how many had few to no books in them. And eight years ago the whole country wasn't wired as it is today. There weren't e-books and iPads on which to store your thousand book library out of sight. And before that, in the mid-90s, when we were looking for our previous house, it was the same. No books in sight.   
I thought this odd at the time. Now I think it's scary. True, people have the internet today for instant reference. But there's something to be said for having a store of basic and shared knowledge in your head that you can recall in an instant, instead of having to look it up here or there. Granted, we cannot know everything about everything, but there should be a rudimentary cultural base that the vast majority of society is tuned into. And why not use bigger words sometimes? I remember sitting and reading books with a dictionary at my side, writing lists of words and looking them up. That's how you learn, how you expand your vocabulary – your knowledge base. So why dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator? Is that really the society we want to live in?
As writers, I would think we'd want a literate customer base of people who will more often than not get our literary and other allusions, our historical references, etc. I think we should challenge people, both our readers and our editors, producers, etc., to uplift rather than pander to the lowest common denominator. And not succumb to the dictates of those who want everything dumbed down.
And yes, Virginia, there is, indeed, a Z in rendezvous –- look it up.

RAISING CAIN: CONVERSATIONS WITH JAMES M. CAIN

Andrew McAleer is the publisher of the venerable Crimestalker Casebook mystery magazine. He's also authored three well-received mystery novels, including "Bait and Switch" and "Appearance of Counsel," as well the non-fiction "Mystery Writing in a Nutshell," written with his father Edgar winner John McAleer, and the number one best seller "101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists: Insider Secrets from Top Writers".

Mr. McAleer, along with Harry Sapienza, has recently ushered a project of his father John McAleer's to fruition: PACKED AND LOADED: CONVERSATIONS WITH JAMES M. CAIN, who as many of you know is the author of "Double Indemnity," "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Mildred Pierce," to name just a few.

Not only does Cain discuss his first notions to be a writer, his newspaper days and his Hollywood years. He also reveals his brutally honest thoughts on everyone from Hammett and Chandler to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller and even Marilyn Monroe. The book is peppered with epigraphs from Elmore Leonard, Sue Grafton, Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane among others.

Q: Welcome, Andy. Before we get to PACKED AND LOADED, maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? I understand that you're a prosecutor in Massachusetts. It seems that your profession has had a definite impact on your novels, can you expand on that a little?

A: Thanks, Paul. I’ve had I think a fairly interesting legal career so far. Right after law school I started a small law practice in the town I grew up in – Lexington. The only legal books I had were my grandfather’s old law books dating back to the 19 teens and 20s including the Mr. Tutt casebooks by Arthur Train, which I devoured and highly recommend. I did a lot of “country” law – real estate, probate, criminal defense. My first book Appearance of Counsel is about a small-town lawyer and my second and third novels Double Endorsement and Bait and Switch about a PI. I prefer the malice domestic formula used by Rex Stout and many of the Golden Age of mystery greats. My latest novel Fatal Deeds (Cherokee McGhee) will be released in August 2011 and is about a retired sheriff Gus Churchill. He hangs his shingle in Concord, Massachusetts. Working as a prosecutor has really helped round off my writing more from an investigative stand point. How things are done from a tactical questioning point of view and in terms of character development. In Fatal Deeds Gus likes to catch bad guys with brain over brawn and a little country charm. I may be old fashioned, but I like to know who the bad guys and good guys are. I would say my entrepreneurial background and legal background have served me well on what it’s really like to survive as a self-employed PI – keeping the wolf off the door can be as challenging as catching bad guys.

Q: You also taught at Boston College. I'm sure that's also had some effect on your writing.

A: I think everyone should teach. It keeps you young and in touch and you definitely learn more from your students than you could ever teach them.

Q: And the third corner of your tri-corner hat is that you're a Sergeant in the Army National Guard. Are you with the JAG? Has your army duty come into play in your writing? And do you plan to do a novel that might specifically revolve around that?

A: Actually I’m with the Military History Detachment now. Like my character Gus Churchill I love local history – I mean . . . I have to, right. . . ? I’ve lived in Lexington all my life just a mile from the Battle Green where the “Shot heard ’round the world” was fired. I enjoyed writing my non-fiction works Mystery Writing in a Nutshell and the 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists, so I hope someday to produce a non-fiction book worthy of the men and women who make it all possible for us to write our tales.

Q: I understand that shortly before his death in 1977, James M. Cain commissioned your father, Dr. McAleer, to write his biography? That's a pretty interesting story in itself. Can you tell us a little more about how that came about?

A: Sure. My father was writing Rex Stout’s biography at the time when he and Cain somehow made contact. They began a correspondence where my father would send him questionnaires and Cain would respond. Then, in the fall semester of either 75 or 76, my father’s graduate student Harry Sapienza went down to Cain’s home in Maryland and interviewed him for a couple of hours. Harry did a phenomenal job and really got Cain to open up about all facets of his life. Eventually it came out that Cain had already hired Roy Hoopes to write his bio, so my father put the brakes on things and took up his bio on Emerson. He felt Hoopes had first dibs on the project. I know my father admired Hoopes’ biography on Cain as do I.

Q: Cain responded to Dr. McAleer's questions with the intensity known to him. He gives his thoughts on everyone from Hammett and Chandler, in the mystery genre, to Hemingway and Fitzgerald in literary fiction. Even Arthur Miller. Do you have a favorite story or quote?

A: As a fan of local history one of my favorite chapters in Packed and Loaded is Cain’s vivid description of what a Hollywood “Triangle Girl” is. I mean . . . he talks about Marilyn Monroe and how she was a Triangle Girl and what it really meant to be one. There’s a great story there about this culture perhaps long forgotten by all. Now it’s codified nowhere I think, but in the memories of Cain through Packed and Loaded. These fascinating gals, doing what it takes to survive in the gritty Hollywood of the 40s and 50s, could be the “Mad Men” of their day.

Q: What was your father's impression of Cain?

A: Very high. In one of his letters to Cain he told him he was happy just to be on the same planet with him. My father admired people who were straightforward and by the book. Rex Stout and Cain were very much cut from the same cloth. He was the real McCoy.

Q: Is there anything in particular that you find funny or insightful or unusual that Cain comes up with?

A: I think in his afterword to the book by Shamus Award winner Jeremiah Healy, he summed it up best focusing on how after each question Cain would ask, “What else you got?” Like his works, Cain was the king of “less is more.” You knew where you stood with him.

Q: How did Cain feel about the film versions of his work?

A: Cain wasn’t full of “Cain.” He enjoyed his success because it gave him a platform to write. Above all the story was what mattered. “Why does this story need to be told?” That’s why he preferred the first person POV. It has more of a ring of truth to it. He did not let Hollywood go to his head.

Q: I understand, too, that these interviews were almost lost to us until you found them. Can you tell us a little about that?

A: Good question. Around 2000 a publisher was releasing a new edition of my father’s Rex Stout biography. P.G. Wodehose wrote the original foreword to the Stout bio and when we dug out my father’s Wodehose correspondence to do some research for an updated introduction to the Stout bio, the Cain work – long since thought to be lost – was found!

Q: Your father was a serious literary biographer of people such as Dreiser and Thoreau before tackling Rex Stout in the mystery field. How and why did he make the jump?

A: My father was an eclectic scholar. I think his military training in the Big Two taught him how to adapt and in the old days of education this is what you had to do. In the 40s and 50s Boston College was not the big school it is today. The Jesuits gave him an assignment and it was his job to learn the subject, master it, and disseminate the knowledge to his students. Interestingly, it was his Dreiser bio that landed him the Stout bio. When my father was visiting his cousin in Connecticut back in 1968 or 69, his cousin invited him to meet his neighbor – Rex Stout. When Stout met my father he had just completed my father’s book on Dreiser and admired it very much. Soon after he hired my father to author his bio. They became great friends. A picture of Stout tending to his irises still hangs in my father’s study nearly forty years after Stout’s death and seven years after my father’s. Well . . . I guess my secret as to why I like the malice domestic formula so much is out . . . Rex, Nero, and Archie are alive and well here. Cain, too! There is some more great stuff on Stout and my father on my website www.crimestalkers.com

Thanks, Paul. But I can’t leave without asking you a question or two. You’ve been able to master the short story formula quite well and have appeared in some great anthologies. How are the novels coming and what can we expect?

I feel a little funny since this is an interview about you and your book. I'm just about done with my novel "The Blues Don't Care," a mystery set on the L.A. homefront during World War II. And almost done with another satirical novel about a screenwriter in L.A. – sort of a 21^st Century West Coast "Bright Lights, Big City".

Thank you for stopping by, Andy.

I think anyone who's interested in mystery in general and Cain in particular, would enjoy this book. I know that I love both "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice" both as books and as movies. And, in fact, if I had to show a Martian the ultimate example of film noir it would be "Double Indemnity".

So anyone interested in mystery or Cain or the McAleers or any of the authors mentioned here should check out...

...PACKED AND LOADED:

Also check out www.crimestalkers.com

Buy "Packed and Loaded" at Amazon

The Four Rs – Reading, Writing, Rithmetic and Reckoning

Recently, several of the authors and one of the of the editors of Murder in La-La Land trekked up Highway 126 to the Blanchard Library in Santa Paula, CA. We had a good turnout and everybody there was wonderful. As nice as can be. Interested. Attentive. The library itself, a former supermarket, is a cavernous building – a giant airplane hangar or soundstage with tons of books. The kind of place that I enjoy just wandering around for hours.

But there was (is) one problem: Except for the people who came to see us, this huge building was empty. Empty! Not a single person there wandering the stacks. Nobody at the tables bent over books. Nobody on the computers. Nobody even talking loud so the librarian had to shush them. Granted, we live in the age of the internet, but people still go to libraries, don't they? And isn't the library still a place to go for socializing, if not for learning? Where I live they are going to be opening a new library and I can't wait, even though I'm addicted to the internet as much as anybody else.

I fear that this is merely a symptom of a post-literate society. After all, what are people looking up on the net, Shakespeare? Or is it only Much Ado About Poontang? Or spending endless hours on Facebook, just diddling around with the all important updates about what they had for breakfast and, even more importantly, if they had a good bowel movement.

Maybe because it was summer. Maybe because it was a weekend afternoon. But something tells me that's the not the case. We all know that reading and readership is declining and ageing. Out of a crowd of about twenty-five people, maybe three were under the age of fifty. That is scary.

It seems to me that the more info we have the less people seem to be interested in it – at least in info that means anything.

And how many people in our society are functionally illiterate? I've seen figures of up to a third of the population cannot read a medicine bottle. How many lawyers can't name the Supreme Court justices? How many teachers don't know even the basics of their subjects and can't teach? How many people are dropping out of school or graduating, but still barely functional? How many people can barely see beyond the tip of their typing fingers?

Hell yes, I want readers. And I want a country where people are literate, which doesn't mean they have to read Proust or Joyce or, God forbid, "Gravity's Rainbow". I'm no snob, hell I write mysteries for the most part, with some serious fiction thrown in for good measure.

The Blanchard Library is a veritable supermarket of books, but still the audience is going hungry, filling their minds with Facebook and Four Square updates, living Second Lives instead of their first (and real) lives.

This does not bode well for us as authors or the country as a whole. Frankly, it scares the shit out of me! Important Facebook update to come.

 

Technorati Tags: literacy,reading,writing,libraries,Paul Marks,Paul D. Marks,Santa Paula,Murder in La La Land,mystery,Continental Tilt

MURDER IN LA-LA LAND

Makes Its Debut at Los Angeles Times Book Festival in April

As noted author Sue Ann Jaffarian says: "In Los Angeles even murder can be trendy. So settle in and enjoy your trip through La La Land. You may never want to visit us again–"

The bright orange cover hides the book's heart of darkness and murder in the City of the Angels.

Diversity is the name of the game in L.A. Diversity in population. Diversity in food. Even diversity in murder as in "Murder in La-La Land".

This anthology, with twelve stories by a variety of authors, made its debut at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival at UCLA at the end of April:

Its next appearance was at the May SinC-LA meeting where Gabriella Vasquez and I read from our stories. But the official release of the book is on May 22nd at the launch party at the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood:

Saturday, May 22, 2010

5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The Mystery Bookstore

1036-C Broxton Avenue

Westwood, California

The book, edited by well-known mystery writers Naomi Hirahara, Eric Stone and Juliet Blackwell, with a forward by Michael Mallory, features twelve stories of murder, mayhem and transitive vampires – whatever the hell they are – in the loony city that we call La La Land.

From the book's cover: "Los Angeles, the City of Angels, home to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Where everyone is auditioning for a part, and where lies and deceit come veiled as glitz and glamour. Join us, if you dare: view a vampire movie in our Forever Hollywood Cemetery, or take a walk along the concrete banks of the L.A. River. But watch your step. Murder brews within the micro-cosmic homeless communes that call it home and sometimes riffs on melodic waves from the jazz street musicians just down the block. Twelve stories of mystery, murder, and mayhem, from the authors of Sisters In Crime/Los Angeles, that will send you scrambling for a bus ticket home. But watch your back. As they say, nobody leaves LA."

The call went out for stories of Murder in La-La Land. I tried hard to give them what they wanted. My story, CONTINENTAL TILT takes its title from Frank Lloyd Wright's theory that if you stand the country on its edge, all the loose nuts will roll into California: Two strait-laced detectives, who maybe should be strait-jacketed, are called to a murder in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. A vampire movie has been playing on the mausoleum wall and hundreds of, uh, guests have been picnicking and watching the movie from their graveside seats. The ironic thing about this is it really happens. People go to the cemetery dressed as various characters, in this case vampires, werewolves, etc., sit on the graves and "Spread out on beach chairs and blankets, with bottles of wine and beer, Boba tea, doing wheatgrass shooters and eating catered Mexasian sushi, fusion food for the Millennial-iPod generation. " (quoted from "Continental Tilt")

A man is murdered at the cemetery, with two vampire sized pin pricks in his neck, while the vampire movie is playing. Only in L.A.  Only in CONTINENTAL TILT.

A sample from the story is below.  The setup is that the two chagrinned Hollywood Division detectives arrive and start separating the crowd into like groups to start their investigation of the strangest murder mystery of their careers:

"Okay, all vampires over here. Werewolves on the south side of the mausoleum. Frankensteins the north side. Charlie Mansons there, Marilyn Mansons over there." What was I saying?

"What the hell's the difference?" Mari said.

I shouted through a bullhorn. This was the new, kinder and gentler LAPD, but sometimes you still gotta use a bullhorn. "People dressed up as Kiss by the pavilion."

"What about Transitive Vampires?" a voice came out of the blue.

"Transvestite vampires?"

"Trans-i-tive Vampire – don't you know anything?"

"I don't get it. What the hell are you dressed up as?"

"A dangling participle," the trans-whatever vampire sneered. His disdainful tone said he thought he was a notch above the other vampires. As opposed to the normal vampires he wore all white, top hat, tails and cape. I was going snow-blind looking at him.

"Something's dangling. I'm not sure if it's your, uh, participle," Mari said.

"I really should be dressed as a verb. Transitives are verbs, but then I'd need a direct object, you know."

I didn't know. I didn't think I cared. But in ferreting out a case you have to have all the information. Okay, he was a dangling participle but he should have been a verb.

"Why don't you tell us a little about yourself? What are you doing here?"

"I came to watch the film, of course."

"You like to watch movies in a graveyard?"

"It sort of sets the mood, don't you think?"

"Did you see anything?"

"You mean like the deceased becoming deceased?"

"Yeah, like that."

"Certainly not. I was watching the film."

"Film, they all call it film. When did movies become film...or cin-e-mah?" Mari said. "What do you do for a living, besides sucking blood, of course?"

"Are you implying I'm the killer?"

"No, just a bloodsucker."

"I'm a writer. Agents are the real bloodsuckers."

"What do you write?"

"Novels."

"Have I read any of them?"

"Can you read?"

I stepped between him and Mari and turned him over to a D-I to get his stats.

"You still haven't told me where to go, Detective," he called to me, probably 'cause he knew I had weight. I was sorry we were still in earshot.

"I'd like to tell you where to go–" Mari said.

The transitive vampire stared at Mari. "You, dear lady, are an indefinite pronoun."

"Did he just insult me?" Mari glared.

"Just go with the other vampires," I said, stepping in front of her. I didn't want her to tarnish the rep of the kindergentlerLAPD.

"Good Lord, don't you know I'm not like the other vampires. I'm a transitive vampire."

"Aren't all vampires from Transylvania?" I said.

"It's trans-i-tive, not Tran-syl-vania," he said. "Don't you people know the difference?"

"Fine, find all the other transitive vampires and start your own group."

It was going to be a long night.

                    *      *      *

The editors tried to select stories with diverse locations and subjects and it's fun to see how everyone came up with their different takes on La-La Land. So get off of your yoga mats and skip the spinning for today, let your fingers do the walking across your keyboard to your favorite bookseller and order the damn book.

MURDER IN LA-LA LAND

With stories by (and in order of appearance):

Paul D. Marks – "Continental Tilt"

Terri Nolan – "Hobo Joe"

Pam Ripling – "Just Like Jay"

Jack Maeby – "Beethoven's Last Chorus"

Jane DiLucchio – "Blondes Have More Fun"

Gabriela Vazquez – "Average Monster"

Jude McGee – "Death is Golden"

Patricia Morin – "Rap Sheet"

Kathy Kingston – "This I Know"

Donna May – "The Acquisition"

Kathleen Piche – "Board and Care"

Lenore Carlson – "Mrs. Spacek"

Murder in La-La Land authors and editors:

Technorati Tags: Paul Marks,Paul D. Marks,Continental Tilt,Murder in La-La Land,Sisters in Crime,mystery,satire,short story,vampires,Hollywood Forever Cemetery,noir,Naomi Hirahara,Eric Stone,Julet Blackwell,Michael Mallory

What do writers and actors have in common?

They're both searching for their characters.

I once had a producer tell me that character is "picking your nose with a .38." He meant the pistol, of course, unless he had something else in mind, which I'd rather not know about. But character is not "picking your nose with a .38;" it's not wearing a fedora or a handlebar moustache, driving a tricked out Mini or even carrying a .44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world". Though many people, like this producer, seem to confuse superficial attributes with character.

Character is the decisions and choices the character makes. But to get to that you have to ask yourself and your character some basic questions. What does your character want and/or need? And why? To what lengths are they willing to go to get it? Will she choose X over Y? What is he willing to sacrifice to get what he wants? Plus other questions such as these and the usual basic backstory questions about everything from their background to their eye color.
Even in Dirty Harry's case the Magnum is only a character attribute or "tic," if you will. But it isn't Harry's character. Harry's character comes out of the choices Harry makes, choices to defy the system, do things his own way and get justice at any cost, not giving a damn about the legal niceties.

But how do you get to know your character? One way is to get to know your character's backstory. And that backstory will guide you to your character's decisions and make him consistent. Actors, like writers, want to know their character's backstory so they can know how and why the character reacts this way or that in a certain situation and thus how to play the part. Writers and actors have a lot in common. The main thing is that they both have to find the heart and soul of their characters.

And even though actors are handed a script most scripts are like a blueprint for a building. The basis for the building is there but right now it's just lines on a piece of paper or a computer screen. In this sense writers and actors have a lot in common and they can learn from one another. Not too long ago I did a review of "The Right Questions for Actors" by acting coach Jeanne Hartman. In it she asks fifteen questions that actors should ask themselves when considering their character. Some of these can help us writers see our character's secrets, while others will help in seeing the power relationships (who's dominant and submissive) between characters, etc. Most, if not all, of these questions are good things for writers to consider when writing our characters. Spiral bound and with worksheet pages, it's not a bad guide for writers as well as actors. And it might also be good if we put ourselves in the heads of our characters the way an actor might.

The bottom line is that we can both learn from each other's crafts. Even if we're not writing for the visual arts, stage, screen, television, the art of the actor can help us get into the heads of our characters.