To Choose or Not to Choose

Do you prefer reading “classic” mysteries or contemporary mysteries? Why?

by Paul D. Marks

There’s something to be said for both. And sometimes it just depends on my mood. I probably go through periods where I read more classics than contemporary and then vice versa. But overall I probably read more new mysteries these days. And every once in a while I get a strong urge to reread something, particularly by Chandler or Ross MacDonald.


I once heard James Ellroy at a signing, I believe, say he didn’t read his contemporaries in the mystery-crime field because he wanted to do his own thing and not be influenced by them. And also because of the time involved in reading them.

I don’t feel that way. I think it’s good to see what’s going on, what the competition, so to speak, is doing. What they’re talking about, what the trends are, what’s in, etc. But that doesn’t mean I have to, or should, follow those trends or be influenced by them. I like to do my own thing and I guess if there was a report card for this the teacher would check off the box that says “not good at taking direction or following trends.” I’d hope so anyway. I spent many years “taking direction” when doing script rewrites. And one of the reasons I wanted to write fiction is to be my own boss. I understand there are editors and such, but still there’s more freedom here, if not total freedom.

Of my top 3 favorite mystery-crime novelists, two are classics, one is current. Number one with a bullet is Raymond Chandler (big surprise, huh?). Nobody can touch him. It’s like the Beatles for me. As many other rock bands that I love, they are in a class by themselves. Sui generis. I feel that way about Chandler.

My two other faves are Ross MacDonald and James Ellroy. Though I’m not as hot on Ellroy as I was at one time for a variety of reasons. And though he’s not a crime writer, I’m going to include John Fante here because I think his style and tone fit in well with Chandler and Hammett and Cain.

Other current faves are Carol O’Connell, Michael Connelly, Kem Nunn. And other classic faves are David Goodis, James M. Cain, Hammett and Dorothy B. Hughes.

When I read those classics I’m transported to a different time and it satisfies my sense of saudade for times and things that I may not even have experienced. I’ve always had a fantasy of being born in 1920, which would make me old enough for that “film noir” era after the war, as well as the war, of course. The war influenced film noir in many ways, but that’s for another post or maybe a book. And I do remember LA as a kid, when it was still the city that Chandler describes and pieces of which can still be found here and there. So, when I want to visit that time and place I either read books by these classic authors or watch movies set in that era, some filmed then, some filmed today, like LA Confidential.

So why limit yourself to one era or genre? There’s a whole world of great crime fiction out there. More than we’ll ever have time to get to, unfortunately.

***

And now for the usual BSP:

Vortex is on sale in e-form at all the usual places.

And there’s Goodreads Giveaway for Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea running for a few more days. Maybe win a FREE copy. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/161413-coast-to-coast-murder-from-sea-to-shining-sea

So You Wanna Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star

If you weren't a writer, what would you be professionally?

by Paul D. Marks

What would I be doing or what would I want to be doing? Probably two different things.


What I’d probably be doing is teaching or being a lawyer or working in the film biz in one capacity or another, which I did do for many years as a script doctor. But at least it was writing.

What I’d want to be doing, well more on that in a minute.

When I was a young kid, I had a little book called: “The How and Why Wonder Book of: Atomic Energy.”  So I wanted to be a physicist, an atomic scientist.

Then I read a book of my mom’s called “Little People Who Became Great,” (her edition published in 1935, though there are earlier ones—and I did say it was my mom’s book, right?), which tells the story of Helen Keller, Jenny Lind, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie and more. And I wanted to be like Andrew Carnegie. Though today I’d prefer being Edison, even with all his flaws.

Then I read a book called “They Met Danger,” stories about real life Medal of Honor winners, and I wanted to be like Audie Murphy, World War II’s most decorated hero.

Somewhere in the mix I wanted to be an architect, but that actually came later. But at some point, after the three books mentioned above and before wanting to be an architect, everything changed.

Somewhere around February 1964. It was a Sunday night. My dad called me into the den. Wanted me to watch something on TV. What could that be?

Click here to go to a YouTube video of Sullivan/The Beatles.

Ed Sullivan came on. He introduced a rock band from England: Yeah, you know who—or should I say “yeah, yeah, yeah,” The Beatles.

My life changed. The lives of almost everyone I knew changed. Eventually everything changed.

They were fresh and effervescent, and their music was boisterous and happy. They were witty and clever. And those harmonies. It was only about three months after JFK’s assassination. The country needed a shot in the arm—a shot of rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll to help it out of the doldrums after Kennedy’s death.

I hated my first name, Paul, until February 9th, 1964 (and I didn’t have to look the date up!), the date of the Beatles’ first appearance on Ed Sullivan. I had wanted it to be Jeff, named after the Tommy Rettig character on the original Lassie TV series (before the Timmy/Jon Provost-June Lockhart version). After that day, uh, something changed. I liked the name Paul. Wonder why?

Click here to go to a YouTube link of the Byrds doing this song.

And I wanted to play guitar and bass guitar. Who didn’t after that day? So I wanted to be a rock ‘n’ star. Who didn’t? Who didn’t grow their hair long and buy a guitar and an amp and shoot for the moon?

I was even in a few bands, playing guitar and mostly bass. Singing a little, but something happened to my voice over the years and it’s a nightmare now. Kinda like what Keith Richards talks about with losing his voice.

I had fun, but I knew I didn’t have the talent to really make it. And since I was born in Hollywood and grew up in L.A. I had always wanted to be in the film biz. After driving around the city with my parents, past the Fox backlot in what is now Century City or by all the other studios, it was a natural thing to want to do. And I was lucky enough to have a career as a script doctor. No screen credit, little glory, but still fun and even fulfilling sometimes, even if my dad could never quite figure out what I did since he never saw my name on the silver screen.

But ultimately I’m glad things worked out the way they did. I got out of the film biz because I wanted less chefs over my shoulder. I like writing novels and short stories and I’m having a hell of a good time doing it.

***

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Writer Rooter – Clearing Writer’s Block

We all hit writers’ block at some point in time. What do you do to get out of it and move the story forward?

by Paul D. Marks

Here’s what I do when I get writer’s block:
 
I Write.

And when I have no more to say, here’s what I do then:

I Write.

And when I hit that wall again, this is what I do:

I Write.

This question is similar to one we had awhile back, but I’ll try to be fresh with my response. But not fresh in the way my mom would call me when I was a kid mouthing off.

I don’t really get writer’s block. Only the one time that I mentioned a few weeks ago, where I wound up down in Palm Desert, playing with index cards—what else is there to play with?—while working on a script that wouldn’t come together.

What I do get is time block. That is, I find that while what I want to be doing is writing, everything else seems to get in the way. Taking the dogs out, which I love. Doing edits on an anthology, which I love. Trying to get this or that working around the house, which I—okay, I don’t love that so much. I love when they’re working though. Goofing off on YouTube, watching old bands like the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Dylan (okay, he’s not a band unless he’s with the Band and he’s not always with the Band so it depends what year or era the clip is from as to whether he’s a band or not), which I love. Or watching newer bands on You Tube, like Of Monsters and Men and The Dark Shadows, which I love. Or in between bands, like the Ramones and the Clash, which I love. Hey, it’s better, well easier than writing anyway.


But there are real things that come up that take time away from writing, but what the hell. Life happens and you gotta deal with that too. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”— even plans to write.

On the rare occasions that I might get mild writer’s block there’s a couple things I do. I’d mentioned taking drives before, hanging out, all that stuff. But I also might take a day or a week off from that particular project and work on something else. Or play. And even though I might not be thinking about it in the forefront of my mind, my brain is working in the background so that when I do sit down later I will probably be able to get on with it. Sometimes I’ll take a shower—I get a lot of good ideas in the shower. But taking a shower these days is illegal, or close to it, at least if you live in California. So if you’re planning on visiting bring a rebreather.

And if I’m still stuck, one thing I do is just write. Write anything. Let it flow. Let my characters talk and walk, stream of consciousness, and it doesn’t matter if I use any of this stuff because I’m seeing who they are, what they want, where they’re going, etc. And from that the floodgates open to the point where I’m back on track, having just the swellest of times at the keyboard.

The bottom line is that writing is a job. And just like any other job or a job where you punch a time clock I just have to be there. I have to sit myself down in a chair, stare at the screen and let my fingers do the walking. Eventually something worthwhile (well, hopefully worthwhile) will come out. Try it. I promise you it works. And if it doesn’t work, your money back. Ten times your money back.

***

Happy Fourth of July everyone from the folks here at Criminal Minds:

***

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What If They Gave a Signing and Nobody Came?

We all have tales to tell from book events. What is your best experience and what is your worst?

by Paul D. Marks

Since I pretty much answered this question some time ago when we were asked about best and worst convention experiences...because it amounts to the same thing as book events, I’m going to give a short response to the “worst” experience here.  And just quickly mention that the best – and worst – was winning the Shamus, from the Private Eye Writers of America, at last year’s (2013) Shamus Awards. (If interested in that whole story and to see why it’s both best and worst, see What is your best experience at a mystery convention?  Your worst? posted on Criminal Minds, I believe, on 4/11/14). But after my brief other worst experience below, I have some reflections on the past year.

The other worst: though one that didn’t actually happen...’cause I was too chicken to try. Some of you might remember the old expression “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” Well, when White Heat came out I adamantly did not want to do signings in bookstores because I thought...“What if I gave a signing and nobody came.”

Vampires and zombies don’t scare me, though when I was a kid I did pull the blankets over my neck so if Dracula happened to fly in my window he couldn’t bite me (as if the blankets would stop him).  But one hears horror stories of writers going to signings and nobody showing up.  And I figured that’s what would happen to me as an unknown.  So I did most of my promotion via the web or going to mass signings like the LA Times Festival of Books with Sisters in Crime, etc.  And, all in all, it worked out pretty good.

 *          *          *

And now, since this is the last official post of the year, I thought I’d reflect a bit before signing off.

As some of you may know, my mom died in September.  I don’t have anything particularly profound to say about it, but I thought I’d offer some end-of-the-year thoughts about that and some other things.

It’s hard losing a parent or anyone who’s close to you. And I was pretty close to my mom.  I might not have seen her a lot, though I did see her, but we talked on the phone frequently.  Sometimes we didn’t have much to say to each other because we talked so much. But I guess she liked to hear my voice—her words, not mine. There was a time years ago when I didn’t want to talk to her so frequently and told her we shouldn’t talk more than once a week or even less than that. But then I realized she wouldn’t be here forever, so I gave in and we talked several times a week. She would ask me about the stuff I was bidding on on eBay (I collect toys, Beatles stuff and other “junk”), or about our animals (most of the time 2 dogs and 2 cats, but now down to 1 dog and 2 cats) or other things. Usually nothing of heavy import. And I don’t regret all those conversations at all. I guess you could say I was “stocking up” for that time—now—when she wouldn’t be here anymore.

Her last year was not a good one. She had breast cancer that spread throughout her body. She was in a lot of pain, but still thought she’d beat it. She’d beaten it before. But I guess none of us can stave death off forever unless you’re a better chess player than he is.

There was a time when she was younger that she had wanted to be a writer. And maybe that’s where I got the bug from. I tried to encourage her to write throughout the years, but she never did. But she did read to me as a child, and not just children’s books. Two pieces that I very distinctly remember her reading me as a young child were Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandius,” and Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory.” Two of my favorite poems to this day. (Simon and Garfunkel doing their version of Richard Cory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euuCiSY0qYs ):

We had our share of disagreements, even full blown arguments about one thing or another.  She didn’t always agree with my choices as a teenager or an adult, but she always stood by me, no matter what. Of course, I didn’t always agree with her choices either.  But if you can’t disagree with someone and still have a relationship, then maybe you don’t really have a relationship.  The closest human beings can be is when we can accept the other person and accept their differences.

            L to R: My wife Amy and my mom. My mom’s high school pic. Somewhere in the 80s/90s, I’m  guessing.  And her and I at a book signing a couple of years ago:

And she truly loved and accepted my wife, Amy, and that always made me very happy. On the other hand, I don’t think she loved our last house as much as we did—too modern.  But did love our current house and would comment on that all the time.

I suppose I could reflect on this for pages, but I’ll wind it down. So summing up the year, like most years, 2014 had some good and some bad. Some frustrating luck with projects falling through, not happening and one big media project biting the dust. So it’s been tough. But like Gene Autry says in “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” “I know when night has gone that a new world's born at dawn.” And the New Year is coming and hopefully a clean slate with it.

So Happy Holidays and a Good New Year to Everyone!  And look for the holiday greeting from the Criminal Minds going up this Sunday.

Gene Autry: Tumbling Tumbleweeds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96XDEMh4Kis

THE NAME GAME REDUX

What’s in a name? Do you give careful thought to the names of your characters or do you draw them out of a hat?


By Paul D. Marks

As Art can attest, it’s hard to come on Fridays since people have sometimes stolen your thunder earlier in the week. My post was called The Name Game, but now it’s redux – great minds and all of that.

I do give careful thought to my characters' names. Neither the first nor last name is chosen at random. Sometimes characters are named after friends or enemies or in homage to someone or something. Sometimes I want a “plain Jane” type of name and sometimes I want something more symbolic or allegorical. Sometimes the name just comes to me. Other times I’ll look in baby naming books or other research sources to help me figure out an appropriate name.

Even when the characters have simple names like “Johnny Jones” from one of my current works-in-progress, the name was still given a fair amount of thought. On the one hand, it’s a common, clichéd name. But that’s how it’s meant, as we don’t know the character’s real name and this is simply how the narrator refers to him. It could just as easily have been John Doe, Joe Smith, Bill Johnson or any of a hundred other common names.

Naming characters is sort of like naming children or pets. You visualize the kid’s first day of school and how the teacher will call role and mispronounce the name or what cruel nicknames the other kids will twist it into. And then pick a name you hope the kid will live up to and won’t get teased about too much. Actually this is how I ended up naming my character Duke in White Heat. Duke’s relationship with his dad is not the greatest father-son relationship. His father cruelly named him “Marion,” after John Wayne’s real first name. Not a nice thing to do to a boy and maybe that’s one of the reasons they don’t get along and certainly why Duke chose that as a nickname.

Also, when naming pets, I like to pick names that are unique and mean something to me and my wife. Something that captures their personality, but that also won’t be too hard or too embarrassing to yell out when calling them to come. You don’t want to be yelling “Here Mr. Snuggles” when your neighbor walks by. So our Rottweiler was called Bogie. And our black cats Curley and Moe. Our mostly Rottweiler, but who looked nothing like one, was Audie, after Audie Murphy. and our German Shepherd is Pepper, full name Sgt. Pepper, after the Beatles album.



There are several “rules” I try to follow when naming characters:

They shouldn’t be too hard to pronounce – you don’t want readers stumbling over them.
Don’t try too hard to be unique – like soap opera characters that always have names like Raven Snow or Chastity Chamberfield, unless going for humor or irony.

Names can be symbolic, foreshadow or can be ironic. In my story 51-50, the cop character, Cleaver, is purposely named after Ward Cleaver, the all-American father on Leave it to Beaver. I wanted to play against the all-American image of Ward Cleaver with a tough cop about to lose his sanity.

Names can be revenge for someone you don’t like – but be careful when doing this and disguise it well.


Names can be an homage. In my short story Free Fall, the femme fatale is named Gloria, after film noir icon and femme fatale Gloria Grahame. In Broken Windows, the sequel to White Heat and not yet published, there is a character named Chandler – a woman cop – but we all know who that name pays homage to. And in my story L.A. Late @ Night and my noir story Born Under a Bad Sign, there is a cop named Larry Darrell – which pays homage to Somerset Maugham’s character in The Razor’s Edge. Not that he’s much like Maugham’s Larry Darrell, but still.

Names can give insight into the character – who they are and where they’re from – sometimes the story behind the name can give you a little extra info about the character – for example Michael Connelly’s Harry “Hieronymus” Bosch – a unique name and an interesting story behind it.

Sometimes names should break stereo types: In White Heat there is an African-American character named Warren. Someone who read the book said Warren wasn’t a black name. But I named the character after a black Marine friend I’d had. Just because a character is black or Hispanic, or any other ethnicity, doesn’t mean they have to have an ethnic-sounding name.

And character names often change in later drafts. Sometimes I just use “placeholder” names until after I get to know the characters better. Then, if I think of the perfect name later on, I can use search and replace to change it later.

Names are important and can be fun. Like the old song, The Name Game (written by Shirley Ellis – and ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jfVpizj1Uk

The name game!
Shirley!
Shirley, Shirley bo Birley Bonana fanna fo Firley
Fee fy mo Mirley, Shirley!

Lincoln!
Lincoln, Lincoln bo Bincoln Bonana fanna fo Fincoln
Fee fy mo Mincoln, Lincoln!

Come on everybody!
I say now let's play a game
I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody's name
The first letter of the name, I treat it like it wasn't there
But a B or an F or an M will appear
And then I say bo add a B then I say the name and Bonana fanna and a fo
And then I say the name again with an F very plain and a fee fy and a mo
And then I say the name again with an M this time
And there isn't any name that I can't rhyme.

The Long and Winding Road

How did your first novel/story come about and how long did it take to get it published?

by Paul D. Marks
 

Since I love using Beatle song titles, the path to my first fiction publication was a long and winding road.

There's really no simple or easy answer to the question of how my first story came about because it's so long ago who really remembers? I know who doesn't: me. I don't even remember what my first story was. What I do remember is that I was always writing something. I think I started off writing poems and song lyrics. One time I even wrote some lyrics in the margins of a science test. And the science teacher also happened to have a music publishing biz on the side – which I didn't know. He liked the lyrics so much he wanted to publish the song. Unfortunately, the lyrics I wrote were for the Beatles' I'm Only Sleeping.

But one of my early novels, a satire about a screenwriter trying to make it in Hollywood, was almost published way back in the 80s. Almost. It was accepted for publication (if that's the right terminology) by a major publisher. But then there was a "housecleaning" at that publisher: the old team of editors and assistant editors got swept out. And the new team didn't want most of the old team's slate of projects, so I got swept out with the "new broom". So that one almost got published. But by the time it was put into "turnaround" it was too late for it as a lot of the humor was dated. Remember Fawn Hall, Jessica Hahn, Donna Rice and Gary Hart – see what I mean, dated. 'Cause even though it was about a guy trying to make it in Hollywood, it had a lot of topical and satirical humor of the day. I work on it every once in a while to remove the dated satirical elements and make it more neutral in terms of topicality. So one of these days it might see the light.

The first writing that I got paid for was a piece in one of the L.A. papers about John Lennon on, I believe, the one year anniversary of his murder. It wasn't fiction, but it felt awfully good to actually get paid for writing something. But even though it felt good to be paid, there were mixed emotions because of the subject matter.

My first published fiction was a story called Angels Flight (before Michael Connelly borrowed the title from me 😉). It was published in the Murder by Thirteen anthology and recently republished in L.A. Late @ Night, a collection of five of my stories. A new review of L.A. Late @ Night in the current issue of All Due Respect calls Angels Flight the reviewer's favorite story in the collection and says this about the two main characters, "They're a dynamic pair, and I'd like to see them together in more stories," so I might just have to oblige him.

The title for Angels Flight was inspired by the famous funicular railway in downtown L.A. and my love for old Los Angeles. I think the story was inspired when they drained one of the lakes in L.A. and found all kinds of junk there. So in my story they drain Echo Park Lake, finding a dead body and the story takes off from there. And even though it was originally published in 1997, it's still one of my favorites. I think it's (hopefully) surprise ending brings to mind Shakespeare's quote, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

After Angels Flight, I had more stories published and eventually my novel White Heat. And all I can do to end is quote another rock band, the Grateful Dead, "What a long strange trip it's been."

Paperback Writer

What stage in your writing process causes the most angst? Draft, revising, plotting...?

By Paul D. Marks

Hard Day's Night

Every stage of writing causes angst, anxiety and nerves, which is why I used to like eating Red Vines while I wrote. Just chomping on one after another while writing helped with the nerves. But the doctor finally convinced me that three boxes of Red Vines every day while writing maybe wasn't the best plan.


Here Comes the Sun

Coming up with Ideas is pretty easy for me. I have an idea file that's about 65 pages long and has over 700 ideas in it. I don't think I'm gonna run out any time soon. People who want to write often ask me where I get my ideas, as if they're baffled where they come from. It's the kind of thing that if you don't see them there, at every turn, you shouldn't be writing 'cause they're everywhere just floating by in the air.


We Can Work It Out

The First Draft is also pretty easy...because I'm one of those "pantsters" who just writes stream-of-consciousness and whatever comes out comes out – I can always fix it later in the "editing room". I hate outlining, so I just let it all flow and then hone it and polish it in later drafts.


Help!

Plotting, characters, conflict, suspense, description, can all be difficult because you want them to be right and work and play off each other (you know, plays well with others), but again that can be fixed in the "editing room" and during the revision process. But with each draft you see a clearer picture and everything starts to come into focus.


I Should Have Known Better

And that leads to revising, which is where I start yelling "what did I get into this for – I should have known better". Revising is the most angst-producing phase of writing because this is where it all really starts to come together. And because it's all in the rewriting for me. 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'.


Fixing a Hole

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.

Good Night

But at some point you just have to say goodbye and good night and close the door, like they do on Diane Keaton at the end of Godfather I. And then you move on to the next phase.


No Reply

You send your baby out into the world and hope that everyone thinks you have a beautiful baby, but, like those people in Casablanca, you wait...and wait and wait for a reply. And then you just have to:


Let It Be


And now for some reason I have this desire to listen to some Beatles music. See you next time.