Sympathy for the Devil

Do characters need to be sympathetic? Why? Why not? Does it make a difference in different genres?

by Paul D. Marks


...get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.
                                                           ―Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli

No. Definitely not. But if you want readers to go along with you they should probably have at least some redeeming qualities. The anti-heroes in many film noirs aren’t good guys, but they have something that puts us on their side anyway. Nor do I think genre makes a difference.

I haven’t read any of the Save the Cat books about storytelling and writing, but I gather that the point of “saving the cat” is to show the reader or viewer a good quality in the character so they’ll root for that character on some level.

Curley and Moe, a couple of cats we actually did save

So let me talk about the people (characters) I know best, the ones I’ve created. Many of my characters are flawed one way or another. Some of them with major flaws like racism, others with everyday flaws like vanity or envy. I think we’re long past the days where the good guys wear white hats, don’t cuss, don’t smoke and don’t throw people off the tops of buildings. And if you look at the examples below I think you’ll see that I’m not “uncomfortable” with much in terms of flaws. Not because I like these traits, but because I think they’re real. And if I want my characters to ring true they have to have real flaws because no one is perfect.

Philip Marlowe, the quintessential knight errant private eye, was misogynistic, racist and more, just as a matter of course. But he was also a product of his times. We notice it today when we read Chandler, but I’m sure many people reading those stories when they first came out wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Nor do I think Chandler would have given it a second thought or consciously put it in his stories. It was just the zeitgeist of the times (if I’m not being redundant). But today, when most of us write characters with these traits we are doing it on purpose to make a point of one kind or another and to round out the character.

In my just-released book The Blues Don’t Care, most of the characters are flawed or less than sympathetic to one degree or another. The main character, Bobby Saxon, is flawed. His goal in life is to play piano with the Booker Taylor band at the famous Club Alabam on Central Avenue in L.A. during World War II. He’s got one obvious major problem to achieving that goal: if he gets the gig he’d be the only white player in the otherwise all-black band. But he’s on a mission. So when Booker offers him a shot with the band…if Bobby will help find the real murderer that James, a band member, is accused of, does Bobby go for it? For selfish reasons? To help the band? To clear an innocent man? Or just to get the gig he’s pining for? All of the above?

Bobby also has other issues to deal with and is a pretty complex character, but I don’t want to give away spoilers. Is he sympathetic? In some ways, he is. He’s also a little selfish. But mostly he’s a young, wet behind the ears guy trying to figure out how to be a man in the world of the World War II home front.

Sam Wilde is someone Bobby comes across in his quest to find the murderer. Wilde is a tough, rough around the edges man who, especially at first, is antagonistic towards Bobby both verbally and physically. But as they get to know each other they both see each other beyond initial impressions.
Bobby also crosses paths with Sgt. Nicolai, of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. Nicolai is also rough around the edges. And he’s corrupt, on the take. He’s given up on the system. He doesn’t believe James is guilty, but the word’s come down from the brass: James is going down for it. So Nicolai’s faith in the system is gone. He’s tired and cynical. He drinks. But he still has a little of the idealism left that brought him to join the force and when Bobby taps into that Nicolai helps Bobby with the case.

Both Wilde and Nicolai have the prejudices of their era, sexist, racist and homophobic, but in the end Bobby appeals to their better angels. The question is who wins, the better angels or the darker ones?

The two main characters in my novels White Heat and Broken Windows are both seriously flawed. Duke, the P.I. main character, is a screw-up in more ways than one, only that’s not the word he uses to describe himself. His partner, Jack, is majorly flawed. He’s a racist—at least on the surface. He says things that maybe other people only think. But a lot of them do think those things. If you only listened to Jack talk you’d think he was a really bad guy, but if you watch his actions, you see that it’s not that simple. Jack is also a good guy. He may say the wrong thing, but he pretty much does the right thing. In Jack’s case actions definitely speak louder than words.

White Heat takes place in and around the 1992 “Rodney King” riots in Los Angeles. And, though it’s a mystery, it deals with many racial issues and concerns—which are still relevant today. So the book is sort of a prism on today, though set in the not-too-distant past. I was so concerned by the raw nature of some of it that I put an author’s note in the beginning of the book. I put the disclaimer in, but I also left in the raw language and actions of the characters. But I was still nervous about how people would react. Luckily the reaction was pretty positive on all fronts and the book ended up winning a Shamus award.

I also see Jack as the little devil on Duke’s shoulder, like you would see in the old cartoons. Jack is sort of Duke’s alter ego, the bad side of Duke, the nature he must fight. And he does. But why, one might wonder, would Duke even be friends with Jack? Because, besides their personal history, Duke sees beyond Jack’s posturing to the real Jack underneath and maybe that person isn’t quite what the surface person comes off as. We all say things we regret, and sometimes do things we regret. Jack pretty much does the right thing, even if he spouts off the wrong thing. And ultimately we are all flawed and can relate to the flaws in others. It makes the characters more human, more accessible. And more real.

In Vortex, Zach Tanner is on the run—mostly from himself, from his past. In that past he might not have been the most upstanding citizen or the most squared away soldier. He did some bad stuff. But recuperating from wounds received in Afghanistan he has an epiphany about his life and realizes the error of his ways. So when he returns home he wants to go straight. The problem is some of his cohorts in crime don’t want to let him, especially because they think he has something they’re entitled to. So, in a sense it’s a story of Zach’s redemption, but the road to redemption is paved with figurative IEDs and landmines (and real guns) that Zach must circumvent if he wants to come out on the other side.

The main character—a cop—in 51-50, a story first published in Dave Zeltserman’s Hard Luck Stories—Psycho Noir edition (so the edition title alone might tell you something about the character), and now in my LA Late @ Night story collection, shoots a gang banger out of sheer frustration, not because of a life-threatening situation. The cop is unraveling throughout the story, the pressures of life on the street are too much for him to deal with anymore. The story was written and published some years ago, but again is relevant in light of what’s been happening in the country today. The cop is not a bad guy. He wants to do the right thing. But dealing with the stress of the streets and the thugs he has to deal with just wears him down.

Ray Hood in Dead Man’s Curve (Last Exit to Murder anthology) is an aging rocker, his glory days as a road guitarist for Jan and Dean are long behind him. He’s selfish, he does bath salts (not the kind you put in the tub), he doesn’t appreciate what his sister is trying to do for him. Definitely not a model of perfection. And he wants to get back in the game. To that end he will do just about anything.

In Poison Heart (Deadly Ink 2010 anthology), Winger is a crime beat photographer, who can’t adjust to the modern world and has become jaded by all the violence he sees in the real world. So he decides to take things a step further and goes way beyond the bounds of the law to get a good pic, selling his soul (so to speak) in the process. Another desperate character who will do desperate things to stay on top and be a modern-day Weegee. Again, his flaws are the petty flaws we all have, but he takes them to another level. A more personal level of envy and the desire to be on top and what he’s willing to do to be there.

Howling at the Moon (November 2014, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine): This one’s a little different in that the character is not a bad person. Not selfish or suffering from envy or any of the other seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride  But he is disaffected and has separated himself from his American Indian roots, especially after coming home from the war in Iraq. He ultimately does something we might think is immoral, but we empathize with him and understand why he does it. Nonetheless, he becomes a flawed person by the actions that he takes.

Most of my characters are flawed because people are flawed. I don’t necessarily set out to write a character with this or that flaw, but the character comes to life in the writing and develops those flaws, just as people do as they go through life. Ultimately, I think the reason most of us like flawed protagonists is that we can relate to them more.  They are more like us. Not perfect, not saints, more like real people, just trying to get by in a flawed world.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

The Blues Don't Care is getting some great reviews:

"It’s the first entry in what promises to be an entertaining and thoughtful series --- mysteries that not only have the requisite twists, turns, surprises and reveals, but also offer a penetrating look into our ubiquitous all-too-human flaws: greed, corruption, fear of the “other” and, especially, racism."
—Jack Kramer, BookReporter.com

"This is a beautifully noirish book, set firmly in the dark days of wartime and offering a sharp insight into the life and times of Los Angeles, 1940s style. Yes, it’s a mystery thriller, but The Blues Don’t Care is so much more than that, with historic detail, chutzpah, a cast of hugely entertaining characters, a really unusual protagonist and, best of all, a cracking soundtrack too."
—DeathBecomesHer, CrimeFictionLover.com

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Never Say Never

If you woke up one day not wanting to write another crime novel, what would you write instead?

by Paul D. Marks

A long time ago an agent asked me if I had a “big book” in me? I told him yes, because what else are you supposed to say? They want to hear yes and you don’t want to turn them off, so you tell them what they want to hear. But the fact of the matter is it was true anyway. I did have an idea for a big book in me. And not only an idea but I had even made notes and a timeline and character chart on a huge piece of paper, something I don’t normally do as a “pantster”.

It’s not a crime book, though there may be some crimes in it. And it is a “big” book in the sense that it spans several decades of the 20th century. It’s also still something I would love to do because I love history and I love the concept.

I don’t want to talk about the specific plot here, but imagine Bleak House meets Ragtime. Okay that’s not really it. But something sort of like that.

The big book is about intertwined families, relationships and the march of history in a fictional context—that sounds pretty ‘big,’ doesn’t it?—going on down through the decades and yes, there might be some crime in it, but it wouldn’t be a crime novel per se. I suppose you could say it was mainstream, maybe even literary. I read all kinds of things, well a lot of different things, and I enjoy the mainstream and literary genres, which sometimes overlap, so I guess that’s what you could call the “big book”. And that’s one of the things I might write if not a crime novel.

Things I probably wouldn’t write would be sci-fi, romance, YA or fantasy. But I also thought I’d never write horror and around Halloween I’ll have my second horror story—The Long Night—coming out in the Simple Things anthology, edited by Franklin E. Wales. My first horror tale—Finders Keepers—appeared in Journals of Horror–Found Fiction, edited by Terry M. West, last Halloween. As I say, I never thought I’d write horror stories but was asked by Terry to do something for Journals of Horror, with no guarantee that it would get in. I saw it as a challenge. And luckily it got in! It was fun to do but really stretched my writing chops. I’ve also written some humor/satire fiction and mainstream/literary, as well as crime. For example, a story called Terminal Island was published in the literary journal Weber: The Contemporary West. Another mainstream/literary story, Endless Vacation, received recognition from Glimmer Train and The Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Competition. But writing horror was really a stretch. So when Frank came to me and asked me to do another one I thought, “I can do this…maybe.” Would lightning strike twice? It did. But it truly is a challenge writing outside of your comfortable genre. And I guess I’m just comfortable with gunshots, stabbings, exsanguination, petechiae eyes and death by a sickly sweet green liquid disguised as Gatorade, a.k.a. anti-freeze. But I am getting more comfortable with the horror genre.

Here's the Simple Things book trailer:

So, who knows, maybe one day I will write a sci-fi or romance or YA book. Never say never. What about you?

***

If you’re in SoCal, I hope you’ll join Laurie Stevens, Connie Archer, Elizabeth Harris and me for Halloween Highjinks...or Lojinks tomorrow (10/29/16), 1:30pm at the Platt Library in Woodland Hills: 23600 Victory Boulevard, Woodland Hills, CA  91367. We’ll be reading from our spooky works, talking writing and having a swell time. And there might even be some Halloween candy. And it’s free and open to the public.

For more info click this link:  https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/get-ready-halloween-party 

www.PaulDMarks.com

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Flaws and All

Many readers say that they prefer a protagonist with flaws to a model of perfection. Did you intentionally give your protagonist flaws, and if so, what are they? What flaws are you uncomfortably with (i.e., substance abuse, misogyny, etc.)

by Paul D. Marks

                        ...get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.
                                                           ―Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli

Many of my characters are flawed one way or another. Some of them with major flaws like racism, others with everyday flaws like vanity or envy. I think we’re long past the days where the good guys wear white hats, don’t cuss, don’t smoke and don’t throw people off the tops of buildings. And if you look at the examples below I think you’ll see that I’m not “uncomfortable” with much in terms of flaws. Not because I like these traits, but because I think they’re real. And if I want my characters to ring true they have to have real flaws because no one is perfect.

Phillip Marlowe, the quintessential knight errant private eye, was misogynistic, racist and more, just as a matter of course. But he was also a product of his times. We notice it today when we read Chandler, but I’m sure many people reading those stories when they first came out wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Nor do I think Chandler would have given it a second thought or consciously put it in his stories. It was just the zeitgeist of the times (if I’m not being redundant). But today, when most of us write characters with these traits we are doing it on purpose to make a point of one kind or another and to round out the character.

The two main characters in my novel White Heat are both seriously flawed. Duke, the main character, is a screw-up in more ways than one, only that’s not the word he uses to describe himself. His partner, Jack, is majorly flawed. He a racist – at least on the surface. He says things that maybe other people only think. But a lot of them do think those things. If you only listened to Jack talk you’d think he was a really bad guy, but if you watch his actions, you see that it’s not that simple. Jack is also a good guy. He may say the wrong thing, but he pretty much does the right thing. In Jack’s case actions definitely speak louder than words.

White Heat takes place in and around the 1992 “Rodney King” riots in Los Angeles. And, though it’s a mystery, it deals with many racial issues and concerns – which are still relevant today. So the book is sort of a prism on today, though set in the not-too-distant past. I was so concerned by the raw nature of some of it that I put a disclaimer in the beginning of the book. I put the disclaimer in, but I also left in the raw language and actions of the characters. But I was still nervous about how people would react. Luckily the reaction was pretty positive on all fronts and the book ended up winning a Shamus award.

I also see Jack as the little devil on Duke’s shoulder, like you would see in the old cartoons. Jack is sort of Duke’s alter ego, the bad side of Duke, the nature he must fight. And he does. But why, one might wonder, would Duke even be friends with Jack? Because, besides their personal history, Duke sees beyond Jack’s  posturing to the real Jack underneath and maybe that person isn’t quite what the surface person comes off as. We all say things we regret, and sometimes do things we regret. Jack pretty much does the right thing, even if he spouts off the wrong thing. And ultimately we are all flawed and can relate to the flaws in others. It makes the characters more human, more accessible. And more real.

The main character – a cop – in 51-50, a story first published in Dave Zeltserman’s Hard Luck Stories – Psycho Noir edition (so the edition title alone might tell you something about the character), now in my LA Late @ Night story collection, shoots a gang banger out of sheer frustration, not because of a life-threatening situation. The cop is unraveling throughout the story, the pressures of life on the street are too much for him to deal with anymore. The story was written and published some years ago, but again is relevant in light of what’s been happening in the country today. The cop is not a bad guy. He wants to do the right thing. But dealing with the stress of the streets and the thugs he has to deal with just wears him down.

Ray Hood (Last Exit to Murder anthology) is an aging rocker in Dead Man’s Curve, his glory days as a road guitarist for Jan and Dean are long behind him. He’s selfish, he does bath salts (not the kind you put in the tub), he doesn’t appreciate what his sister is trying to do for him. Definitely not a model of perfection. And he wants to get back in the game. To that end he will do just about anything.

In Poison Heart (Deadly Ink 2010 anthology), Winger is a crime beat photographer, who can’t adjust to the modern world and has become jaded by all the violence he sees in the real world. So he decides to take things a step further and goes way beyond the bounds of the law to get a good pic, selling his soul (so to speak) in the process. Another desperate character who will do desperate things to stay on top and be a modern-day Weegee. Again, his flaws are the petty flaws we all have, but he takes them to another level. A more personal level of envy and the desire to be on top and what he’s willing to do to be there.

My Enemies Have Sweet Voices features the “typical” noir-guy flaw – he falls under the spell of a woman who convinces him to kill for her. But his real fatal flaw is that he betrays the trust of his best friend by asking him to help him hide the body.  His weakness is that he picks lust over loyalty to his friend, while his friend is loyal and helps him with the body, no questions asked. But there is a bigger price he has to pay for it later. (Coming later this year in the Coast to Coast: Murder From Sea to Shining Sea anthology from Down and Out Books. Anthology title is tentative.)

Howling at the Moon (November 2014, Ellery Queen): This one’s a little different in that the character is not a bad person. Not selfish or suffering from envy or any of the other seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride  But he is disaffected and has separated himself from his American Indian roots, especially after coming home from the war in Iraq. He ultimately does something we might think is immoral, but we empathize with him and understand why he does it. Nonetheless, he becomes a flawed person by the actions that he takes.

Most of my characters are flawed because people are flawed. I don’t necessarily set out to write a character with this or that flaw, but the character comes to life in the writing and develops those flaws, just as people do as they go through life. Ultimately, I think the reason most of us like flawed protagonists is that we can relate to them more.  They are more like us. Not perfect, not saints, more like real people, just trying to get by in a flawed world.

Pick Your Poison: Short Stories, Series Novel or Standalone

Which do you prefer writing; short stories, standalone novels or series? Why?

by Paul D. Marks

Each form comes with its own set of challenges. But with each there’s the thrill of starting something new. And then with each you reach a point where you just wish it was done and you were on to the next thing.  It’s sort of like starting a project around the house. At first you’re all eager and pumped. You can’t wait to see the results. But about halfway through you wish you’d never started it and just want to be on the couch watching an old black and white movie like Double Indemnity or Out of the Past, eating pizza and wishing you could write something like that.

Short stories have the challenge of doing it all in a short time.  You have to weave everything together in a small amount of space.  And in some ways this is the most challenging thing to do. As a “pantster,” I find myself writing way too much and then spending most of my time editing and cutting out the fat. Short stories have to be pithy and get to the point without a lot of extraneous details. But at the same time you need to make the little details pack an extra punch, so you have to be meticulous in picking the right words, actions and characters.

Series novels present their own challenges. What comes to mind first is the task of keeping the series character/s interesting and growing.  In the first book you’re setting everything up and intro’ing everyone so everything is new and fresh to you, the writer, as well as the reader. But by book nine what do you do? Check out some of your favorite series where the plots and characters seem to have grown tired.  Or is it just the author who’s grown tired? And though I only have one novel published, I do have the sequel written (the reason that it hasn’t been published yet is a long, winding and torturous road, best left for another time).  But in the sequel it was a challenge to be consistent with what had taken place in the first novel. Sort of like being the continuity person on a movie set and having to make sure the vase of flowers is in the same position as before when you change camera angles in a scene. Plus you have to backfill a little on the plot and characters in the previous novel/s for people who missed earlier entries in the series. And there is an art to doing that without it reading like a laundry list or boring the reader with exposition.

Standalone novels can be fun because, unlike a short story, you have the freedom to develop plot and characters, the way you did with the first book in your series.  You’re inventing a new world from the ground up and that’s always exciting. Whereas in a series you sort of already have some things worked out for you – you know the character and the setting and you have a starting point (usually the end of the previous book) so you have something to work with.

As to which I prefer, basically whatever I’m working on at the moment...until I get tired of it and then I prefer what’s next at bat and start working it up in my head, and go after that one with all my enthusiasm...until...

*          *          *

And for a little BSP. I’ll be at Bouchercon next week. Here’s my sked:

Thursday: 4pm, Regency D. “Short But Mighty––The Power and Freedom of the Short Story.” With fellow Criminal Mind Art Taylor.  And Travis Richardson (M), Craig Faustus Buck, Barb Goffman, Robert Lopresti.

Friday: 6:30pm: The Shamus Awards banquet, where I’ll be a presenter.

Saturday: 2:30-3:30, signing books for Down and Out Books in the book room.

Come by and say hello.

Who, What, Why, When and Where Dunit?

When you start a new book do you know whodunit from the get-go? If so, how do you ensure you don't unconsciously give it away? And if not, when do you decide whodunit?

by Paul D. Marks

I have to start off sort of like I started the last blog post two weeks ago. Then it was 'yes' and 'no' to the question. Now it's 'it depends'. Because there is no right or wrong way to do anything most of the time. So sometimes you know who the badguy is from the get-go, and sometimes you don't.

Different stories generate from different ideas and sometimes those ideas are more "complete" than other times. Sometimes you might come up with a good villain and build the story around them, so you know whodunit right off and work up to that.

Sometimes you start with the main character or a peripheral character, so you might not know whodunit. And if you work like me, a "pantster," you just start writing and see where it goes—and can even be surprised by whodunit. And sometimes (there's that iffy word again) you have a plot idea or a hook or some notes or thoughts in your head about incidents or actions, character bits, dialogue, maybe an opening line or scene, etc., and you weave those into the story as you go and see whodunit from there.

And sometimes you might think you know whodunit...but your characters come to life and have lives of their own, take you in a different direction and surprise you. So the second part of the question—when do you decide whodunit?—works itself out one way or another, depending on which route mentioned here or above you take. At least if you're a pantster. Obviously, people who outline might have all of this worked out ahead of time.

As to how not to unconsciously giveaway who done it – that's where having other people read your story can come in handy. They can see the stuff that the writer is too close to notice. So you read and re-read and write and rewrite, and as you do, you try to catch and fix those kinds of things. And this is where it can be an advantage to be a pantster—since you don’t know who the bad guy is, you end up writing it in a way that doesn’t reveal too much and later, when you’ve figured out who the bad guy is, you can go back and add little hints earlier.

In my novel White Heat, not only do I know who the badguy is from the beginning, but so does the reader (sort of). Because he goes into the main character's office, private detective Duke Rogers, and hires Duke to find a "long lost friend." It's such an easy gig that Duke doesn't even do the paperwork, just tells the guy to come back in a couple of days. Duke gets the info for him, the guy pays for it and splits. Duke doesn't even know his name, or at least his real name. A short time later he's reading the paper, finds the "long lost friend" has been murdered and Duke knows he inadvertently helped the bad guy find her. Feeling guilty, he determines to track the badguy down on his own time. But where to start? As I say, we meet the badguy right away, but we don't really know who he is, where he's from, etc. And that's the main plot of the book, Duke trying to figure out who he is and find him and bring him to justice.

One Amazon reviewer complained that we "know" who the killer is too early on. But, as I say, we do and we don't. We see him, but we don't know who he is or anything substantive about him. This reader had a problem with that, and that's fine. But I knew who the killer was and Duke knew who he was (sort of) and that's the story. Sometimes the mystery is not in ‘who done it’ but in the why, where and how? What I'm trying to say is that for me the story and characters are often more interesting than the whodunit, though that's fun too.

In another example, in my short story Dead Man's Curve, from the anthology Last Exit to Murder, the main character, Ray Hood, is a guy on his uppers. He's old, he's a druggie and his glory days as a backup guitarist for Jan and Dean are behind him. So when he gets a chance to do an illegal favor for a friend that might lead to his eventually getting another shot at the spotlight he jumps at it. But what interests me is Ray's story, more than the overarching plot or whodunit, as we know who dun it early on. I was even concerned that the editors might want to take out a couple of "quiet" scenes that didn't necessarily advance the plot, but they didn't and I was glad. Especially because those were my favorite scenes in the story. The scenes where we get to know Ray, see what happened to him, see his day to day life. The rest of the story moves ahead at a quick pace, those scenes slow it down a bit, but in a good way, I think. I guess what I’m saying here is that even though I write mystery and noir stuff I tend to focus more on characters and the why rather than the who done it.

We all read mysteries for different reasons, but a lot of the time it is because we want a sense of justice and good triumphing over evil, as well as for character and the actual "mystery". Even in noir and hardboiled there is ultimately some kind of justice, though it is usually a little muddied and unclear. In real life murders go unsolved for years, sometimes never to be solved. The Black Dahlia murder is still unsolved, but in fiction it has been solved dozens of times. So the who-dunit is obviously important to us. We want resolution, but we also want to learn and experience something more than just whodunit. We want to know the characters on a deeper level and the why of it and that's important too.

And Happy Fourth of July to everyone:

The Answer, My Friend, is Waitin' on the Web (w/ apologies to Bob Dylan)

How important is research in your stories, and has an error ever made it into print?

By Paul D. Marks

How important is research:

They say "write what you know," but we can't know everything we write about. Hemingway may have experienced bullfights and African safaris, but we often write about things that either we haven't experienced directly or, if we're writing sci-fi, things that might not even exist yet. Or we might be writing about the past – a past we never personally experienced.

I'm not 100% sure, but I doubt George Lucas has ever left this planet, and if he ever has, I again doubt that he went to a place called Tatooine. Still, he managed to come up with Star Wars and created a whole universe around it. How did he do that without ever leaving Earth?

Of course, that's where research comes in. Research is both fun and necessary to much of what we write. Without it how could we ever write about anything that we never directly experienced? So in answer to the question, research is monumentally important to writers.

It gives our stories verisimilitude, a sense of time, place and character that rings true.

Even though I lived through the "Rodney King" riots I couldn't see everything, be everywhere, experience every experience, nor was I a cop or rioter. So in writing my novel White Heat I turned to newspapers, magazines and the net, and since people are still alive who were there in the thick of it, I talked to them too, cops, and others.

I have a new novel I'm shopping now, a World War II homefront mystery set in L.A., based on a character that's been in three published stories. But that era is before my time, before any personal memories of mine. Still, I think I captured it pretty well because of all the research I did. On the internet, via old magazines, articles, movies, music, and maps. Maps are a great research tool and can be used in a lot of ways. But I also turned to first person resources. People who were there. My family goes back in Los Angeles well before the war, so I talked to relatives and friends of theirs. Plus I do have memories from after the war when things hadn't changed all that much, unlike today, so I could draw on them too.


Has an error ever made it into print:

There's always errors that make it into print. Some are innocuous, like typos or an out of place comma, some are big and make you feel stupid, especially when they're things you know but just got away from you. And then someone reads it and points it out and you feel like an idiot and think they think you're an idiot and will share your idiocy with the world. Makes you want to duck and cover.

But sometimes you might make a calculated choice to put something in that isn't quite right because it works dramatically – poetic license. For example, I might fudge it with a song that came out a year after an event took place, but that just works so well for a scene. But then there's always that know-it-all who sat in the front of the class and knows that that song came out three days after the date of your scene. So sometimes you just have to throw a slapstick pie in their face and fudge things a little.

So research is extremely important to just about anything we write. But it does have one major drawback: it's just too much fun. Especially in the internet age when you can just bounce from hyperlink to hyperlink and spend all day researching instead of writing. In the ye olde olden days you had to go to libraries or have tons of research books, which are fine, but today it's so much easier. And it's not only educational and important for your story, but it's the best procrastination tool ever invented because you can pretend to be doing work while you're really just having fun.

The Good, The Bad and The Bookly!

Is it true that bad books make good movies and good books make bad ones?

There's no hard and fast rule about whether good books make bad movies or bad books make good ones. There's only about a million factors involved, from the screenwriters to the director, the producer, cast and probably even down to the crafts services personnel. And let's not forget the source material.

Books and movies by their natures are very different beasts and require different aesthetics and elements. Movies have to convey a lot of information in a small amount of time, so overly complicated story lines can drag a movie down. Books can handle information in a more leisurely manner, description of places and people are more important, and you can get more into the heads of the characters, examine their thoughts and feelings. A book has to wrap you up inside itself because it can’t rely on a visual picture to get across the look and feel of the characters and settings. And a movie should grab the essence of the book, without necessarily being true to every detail of it (see LA Confidential below). These changes can – on occasion – make the movie better than the book.

So, some good books make good movies and some good books make bad movies. And some bad books make good movies and some make bad movies. Well, of course, nothing is true all the time. And I wouldn't venture a generality, but it works both ways.

It's hard to narrow it down to a few examples as there's so many choices of each combination. And it's also hard to distill down the essence of why this worked and that didn’t, as each one that I've chosen could stand an entire essay on that subject. Here's a sampling, though I'm sure not everyone will agree with my assessments. And I'm sure I'll offend somebody with each one, but here goes (in no particular order):

Spoilers ahead:

In a Lonely Place (Dorothy B. Hughes): Good book, great movie. This is tied for my second favorite movie after Casablanca. I like it for a lot of reasons, but especially the story of the angry and alienated screenwriter. And I know I may offend some people here, Dorothy B. Hughes fans in particular, but for me the movie version is a huge improvement over the book, and I liked the book, but I didn't love it. The book, as I recall it, is a pretty straight-forward serial killer story. The movie takes the basics of the book and adds an ambiguity that leads to a much more bittersweet and poignant story and ending than in the book. So this is a case where the filmmakers did change a certain essence of the story, but it works out for the better. And if you want to hear a really good song based on this movie check out the Smithereens' "In a Lonely Place," which even cops a couple of the film’s most famous lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro6mucYQeN4

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown): Bad book, bad movie. Sometimes bad books make bad movies. I know a lot of people like this, but in my maybe not so humble opinion, the book was very poorly written. It's a prime example of a great idea poorly executed. And the movie didn’t try to break out of the cardboard characters created in the book. It concentrated on remaining relatively faithful to the plot and didn’t stray so the movie remained as weak as the book.

Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe): Great book, horrendously horrible, piece of garbage movie: Why? Because, if I recall, as it's been a long time since I've seen it and I won't punish myself with wasting two hours of my life again, the producers didn't have the courage to do the book. The book is filled with various sensitive and controversial elements that deal with race and our perceptions of justice in society and the producers didn't have the courage to do that on the screen, so they turned it into a lame parody of what the book was trying to convey. And the movie was bad on every possible level.

The Godfather (Mario Puzo): Okay book, a fun and quick read, great movie. In fact, one of the greatest American movies of all time. The movie, through great acting, directing, cinematography, a haunting sound track and a terrific screenplay, took a pulpy story about gangsters and made it a saga about family honor, tradition, a way of life and the struggle for the American Dream.  

LA Confidential (James Ellroy): Good book, great movie: Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland took Ellroy's sprawling novel, condensed it, pureed it and simplified it, making a tight, cohesive and powerful movie out of it, while still keeping the essence of the novel intact.

Mildred Pierce (James M. Cain): Good, maybe just okay book, good movie (the 1946 version w/ J. Crawford). Here the screenwriters and director took a major liberty with the book. SPOILER AHEAD: In the book the Monte character (Mildred's second husband) does not get murdered. In the movie he does. And this brings more tension, drama and mystery to the movie, without, IMO, messing with the basic integrity of the story line. And while the Kate Winslett mini-series follows the book more closely, to me it was more plodding and in a word, boring. Though I guess I'm in the minority here as on IMDB the Winslett version gets 7.7 out of 10 stars, and the Crawford version 8. So almost a neck and neck tie. Oh well.

The Long Goodbye (Raymond Chandler) – Great book, wretched movie. Okay, I know a lot of people love this movie, think it's some kind of cult classic, etc. To me the only really good thing about it is the location of Marlowe's apartment, the Hightower Apartments in Hollywood, where I once looked into renting a place. Really cool building. But Elliot Gould's Marlowe, despite what some say is a Marlowe for the times (the 1970s), is not Chandler's Marlowe by a long shot. And Chandler was, and probably still is, rolling over in his grave at this one. And now that I've pissed off a bunch of people, I've got the Kevlar helmet and flak jacket ready to take the incoming.

 
And now for a little BSP: in addition to my novel WHITE HEAT, just out is LA LATE @ NIGHT, a collection of noir and mystery short stories. So far available on Amazon for Kindle and in paperback. And other venues shortly too.