Masters and Commanders of Our Fates

What period of history, from the invention of the printing press to yesterday, was the best time to be a writer?

by Paul D. Marks

It depends. Like with most things, there's pluses and minuses to various times in history for being a writer.

If you start off in Gutenberg's days – or even before – there probably weren't a hell of a lot of writers, so there probably wasn't a hell of a lot of competition. On the downside, there probably weren't a hell of a lot of people who knew how to read.

Also, I doubt many people could afford a printing press, and writing more than a few pages with a quill pen probably wasn't a lot of fun.

During the Renaissance, writers and artists had patrons or you could be someone's protégé like the Mischa Auer character in the movie "My Man Godfrey," though, of course, that's not set during the Renaissance (good screwball comedy by the way). Wouldn't it be nice to have a rich patron to freeload off of and it wouldn't matter how many books you sold? But, of course, being writers we want to sell as many books as possible. There's always a downside, isn't there?

In the 20^th century, things were a little easier in some ways. Typewriters were ubiquitous, which made the physical aspect of writing easier. But there was a highly entrenched establishment in the publishing industry and it was really hard to break in, almost as if you needed some magic spell to get the door to open – Open Sesame. But if you got in, even if your weren’t at the top of the best seller list and were just a midlist writer, you were at least nurtured along by an editor and/or publicist. And I think people in the publishing industry liked writing and had a respect for writers. That started to change, maybe around the 80s, when things got more corporatized and Hollywoodized. And the people in publishing cared less about the writing and the writers than the marketing. I saw this change from the time I "sold" my first book to a major publisher (that ultimately didn't get published), to when I tried later on to do it again and the whole ethos of the business had changed. The people I dealt with originally loved writers and writing and books. Not necessarily so a few years later. Very frustrating.

But also in the early 1980s, personal computers started to come in. When they did I was working in Hollywood and had a writing partner. He was the first person I knew to get a PC. I thought it was a silly toy...until I was over at his house one day and he showed me how easy it was to move a paragraph from page 3 to page 71. I was hooked – and I was the second person I knew to have a PC. Ancient technology by today's standards. It had two 5.25" floppy drives, no hard drive and a monochrome monitor. It was a Leading Edge, similar to the one on the right. Looks pretty high tech, doesn't it? And if you wanted to run more than one program you had to take the floppy with that program out of one floppy drive and put in the next program. Fun. Still, it was better than a typewriter. And things moved quickly and writing with computers was definitely the way to go.

But the biggest improvement came with the internet and being able to "take" meetings over e-mail and chat and send things and not have to live in town and be close to everything. And, of course, researching on the internet is a breeze. I'm a night person. I sleep during the day and I write at night. And there are few libraries open at 3am. But the internet is on 24/7. And that's heaven for me.

Along with that and things like e-books and Amazon, the publishing industry began to change again. Today, because of the indie scene, the gatekeepers are not as strong as they once were. And we'll see how things shake out. Now, with so many players on the field, the question becomes (as it was even with gatekeepers) who has a good book, how does a reader distinguish, and how does the writer get it noticed?

The final question is, how do you earn a living as writer? At least enough of a living to live off of it. In the mid-20^th century people could actually make a living writing short stories. You could get paid a decent amount for them. Today you have more freedom, but paying markets for short stories have begun to dry up and it’s impossible to make a living off them. Even most novelists, both traditional and indie published, still have to keep their day jobs. Isn't the writing life grand, not quite Hemingway sitting on the Left Bank, is it?

That said, my answer to the question posed is: today is the best time for writers overall. Why, because for good or bad, we are much more the masters of our own destiny today. And (mostly) that's a good thing. Because as William Ernest Henley said in his poem "Invictus":

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. 

Ink Odyssey

No, I'm not going to suggest that Ancient Greece was the best time for a working-class girl to be a writer. (Sidebar: I can entertain being born in Ancient Greece but not being posh or male? What's that about?)

I'm down at the other end of the cultural universe with Mr Kubrick, because 2001 was when I became a professional writer and I think, in what might be a massive failure of imagination, that it was the best moment I could have chosen.

I'll see off earlier times first. The trouble with being a writer when Jane Austen, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf or Dorothy L Sayers were writers is I'd have to actually live then too. The problem with that is . . . dentistry and sanpro. I'd love to visit any of those times but oh how very briefly. (My favourite scene in the Lost in Austen time-travel caper is where Amanda finds herself back in modern London and heads straight for the Colgate).

As for the thirteen years since, they've been horribly interesting times. Recessions, mergers, shrinking markets, exponentially complex business practices. I'm sure someone somewhere knows what's going to be going on in publishing when the dust settles but it's not me or anyone I've ever spoken to. I know how lucky I am to have happened to catch the last uncomplicated publishing boom.

It's hard to believe how different it was from today. I sent a paper submission to an agent. She wrote me a letter back. Licked a stamp and everything. I sent a huge block of paper to London and it thudded onto editors' desks, one after the other, until someone bought it. They paid me a decent wedge for English rights, and I started writing the second one. I went out for lunch with my publisher, made scones for the newspaper arts correspondent who came round for tea to talk to me, and signed for the bouquet of flowers that arrived on release day.

No blog tour to double-book, no Skype dates to forget, no online bookmark print order to get wrong, no conventions to spend a ton of money attending, no Facebook to use up 12 hours, no Twitter to use up the other 12 hours, no Kindle daily deals to find out about a day too late to tell anyone, no pirate sites to monitor until your eyes cross.

Man, it was dull. I absolutely love blogging, Skyping and ordering online. Left Coast, Malice and Bouchercon are like Christmas, New Year and my birthday all over again. Facebook is home. Twitter is my weekend cottage in the country. Kindle daily deals are like little gifts from a stranger and I get to fight pirates!

But sometimes I feel like one of the old countries spouting on about free trade and conveniently forgetting that they made their stack when it was anything but (coughempirecough). When I see a first-time writer beginning to fray at the edges under the sheer tonnage of stuff writers do now that's not writing, I just want to give her/him a hug and a huge cocktail.

So, if you see me at Left Coast Crime next week, debut authors, and you can summon a half-decent eye-twitch or neck blotch, the drinks are on me.

Would You Write If It Meant Getting Your Head Chopped Off?

What period of history, from the invention of the printing press to yesterday, was the best time to be a writer?

This week’s question catches me unprepared, I admit. Part of me enjoys romantic fantasies about Shakespearean England, another about 1920s Paris, and let’s not forget The famous round table at the Algonquin in Manhattan.

But then I remember that 16^th and early 17^th century England was fond of hanging, beheading, or incinerating people who wrote something that displeased whoever the queen was at the moment, that writers have died of starvation or neglect (witness the stories enshrined in grand opera), and that books have been burned in more than one epoch including the terrible 1930s in Germany.

Today, traditional publishing is a bit of a shamble as the people who watch the health of the bottom line have triumphed over those who watch the health of the culture and society. On the other hand, e-books and self-publishing have opened the universe to exponentially more voices.

So, who’s to say? I’m hoping more erudite Minds will pick up the ball and run with it this week. I’ll learn something in the process. For now, I’m sticking with what I know – the only time I’ve been in the business – the present.

-Susan

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.

  

Lights! Camera! Problem!

Yes.

Well, leaving aside To Kill A Mockingbird, a slew of Chandlers, I Capture The Castle, and Atonement, yes.  And Harry Potter. But broadly speaking.  And The Great Gatsby. Quite broadly. Trainspotting.

So maybe no.

Sometimes the problem with a beloved book being made into a movie is that so much is lost. Nothing's missing from the film - the film's fine - but all you can think of as you sit there with a fistful of popcorn halfway to your open mouth are the purged characters, edited out like Trotsky.

Perhaps that's why short stories can make such successful films even for their fans: they start the right size.  Brokeback Mountain for instance is wonderful in both forms (unlike The Shipping News) and (Rita Hayworth and) The Shawshank Redemption too.  Whereas, when John Irving tried to turn the  - admittedly sizeable - Cider House Rules into a movie, the script had a running time of over eight hours.

Killing other people's darlings must be easier. Emma Thompson pulled off a near miracle when she adapted Sense And Sensibility. She took a wonderful book and made it better; removing characters no one misses (Lady Middleton and her four children? Who cares?) and giving purpose to dull characters too. Margaret Dashwood adds nothing to the world of the novel whatsoever but in the film she's funny, she reveals Edward's character through his relationship with her and the little actress playing her manages to steal scenes from Kate Winslet, no less.

When I was beginning to think about writing, I never daydreamed having written the books I was reading, but I quite often daydreamed the book that a movie I was watching would have been before its adaptation.  I still do.  (And if anyone else does, feel free to admit it and not leave me hanging, eh?) Some films made terrible imaginary books - Groundhog Day, for instance (RIP Harold Ramis), where short chapters could never capture the quick cuts of the days when Phil is getting into his repetitive groove.

Moonstruck on the other hand, I could never believe hadn't been a book. Its plot is perfect, its characters delightful, its world fully imagined. I wish I'd written it - even though I might have killed myself when they took my book and cast Nicholas Cage.

Two Thumbs Way...

So, is it true that bad books make good movies, and good books make bad movies?

In my head, a list of good movies (and TV series – I’m arbitrarily expanding the question) flits by and, yes, I’d have to say at least a few came from dogs of books. But it would be unkind and impolitic to identify the books I think were awful enough to make this list. I will offer one: The Frost detective series on British TV was created from the late R.D. Wingfield’s handful of books. I saw the series first and liked it more than the books, which were depressingly misogynistic in tone.

I have fewer friends in the film industry than in the author community, so for the next list, yes, some books and series I have loved just didn’t fly when translated to the screen and I’ll name names. V.I. Warshawski’s conscience-driven exploits didn’t take off even though Kathleen Turner’s a fine actor. Reacher doesn’t work for me played by a short guy who grins and grimaces for hours, even though – or perhaps because – he does many of his own stunts. The pert blonde who tried to sound like Stephanie Plum was so very wrong for the part of someone who grew up in Trenton. The only actor who could have done her right was Cher 30 years ago. Inspector Lynley on TV didn’t cut it for me and the wonderful actress who played Barbara Havers was way too attractive. I like my Havers lumpy, thank you. Some of this is casting and directing, but a lot of it is the scripts, usually “based on” rather than close to the originals and for good reason, i.e. 42 minutes or 109 minutes or whatever the convention is. The stories don’t get to unfold properly, there’s no character arc unless it’s in a TV series, and for some reason, there’s no suspense.

Exceptions to the rule: French crime drama in film. Why I don’t know but, man, do they do it well. But I’m wandering off topic since I have no idea if they were books first.

The question didn’t ask what good books made good movies – Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves, and Kate Atkinson come to mind immediately. Good storytelling, good translations to screen, and excellent casting. So all of you with optioned books, don’t lose heart. There’s hope!

Meanwhile, what about you, fellow Criminal Minds? Disagree with me completely? Have more to add to the lists?

- Susan C Shea

My Bloody Valentine

(And now for something completely different...)
 
by Paul D. Marks
 
Hmm, is there a classic love story I'd like to improve with a nice messy murder? Well, let's see. 
 
Aren't I the lucky one falling right on Valentine's Day itself. So for that special occasion, a special love story. Well, the kind of love story you might find running 24/7 on the Discovery ID channel.
 

So, as cleanup hitter for this week's question here's my Valentine's paean to love and death and some stories that could be improved with a murder or two in them:
 
In an alternate universe Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice and other stories morph into stories the Discovery ID Channel would be proud to air. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth strikes a blow for freedom and goes on a killing spree, murdering the condescending Mr. Darcy first. She then sends a text through time and space to a woman named Lizzie B. "borrow ur axe, pls?"
 
Lizzie replies "sry, already loaned 2 A Karenina."
 
Swish Pan: Volga River, Moscow. A young girl comes upon a man's body bloating in the river. Police are summoned. They pull him out.
 
He's dressed like an aristocrat.
 
"Count Vronsky," the lieutenant says.
 
"There's an axe in his back," his partner says, counting. "Forty whacks."
 
"Who would have wanted to kill Count Vronsky?"
 
"Let's check with his wife, Anna K."
 
They go to Anna's house. She is nowhere to be seen.
 
"What's that?" the lieutenant says.
 
They stare at some glittering crystals that soon disappear as A Karenina time shifts to a place called Sporks, Washington, USA. Golden hour is dying, twilight is fast upon her.
 
"Holy Guacamole," Anna says, in Russian, of course. "This place is filled with vampires and werewolves. I must off them all."
 
She finds a vampire named Bella, er, Kristen Stewart.
 
"Who-are-you?" Kristen S says.
 
"Oy!" Anna says, in Russian, of course. "You are one lousy actress."
 
She throws Lizzie B.'s silver-plated axe at Kristen cutting her head off.
 
"Ah! I have saved the world," Anna says, in Russian, of course.
 
Magically Kristen's head returns to her body. It's a little off kilter, but not so bad. Nobody can tell.
 
"Holy Cow," Anna says, in Russian, of course. "I thought I killed you."
 
"Your axe was only made with cheap nickel-plated silver, which, as we all know, is not silver at all. Ha! You can't kill me with that."
 
"Can I kill you  with a bad review?" Anna says, in Russian, of course.
 
"No, that can't kill me either."
 
"All is lost," Anna says, in Russian, of course. "This Putin guy is insane – I cannot go home again."
 
She takes Lizzie B.'s cheaply plated silver axe and whacks off her own head.
 
And everybody died happily ever after.
 
Happy Bloody Valentine's Day Everyone!
 
(Pass me my meds, please.)
 

The End

 

(This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, real or fictional persons, real or fictional actors, rivers, cities, aristocrats, axes, Russians, actors, sporks or actual events is purely coincidental.)

Reader, I strangled him.

<3 Which classic love story would be enlivened by a nice messy murder? <3

Buh-bye, Humbert Humbert. Let's get that little bit of housekeeping out of the way.

Then perhaps Shade No.51: post-mortem grey.

And how about if the widow Karenina was discovered in chapter one, quickly unhooking the piano wire from the top of the stairs while Karenin lay dead and broken at the bottom? Okay the book would be shorter (and possibly unpublished) but I thought this when I was thirteen and I think it now: it's not love if you end up under a train.

That's pretty much my problem with so-called love stories all-round. I've never gone for the idea that love hurts.

And hurt - or at least conflict - is what makes a story. Empathy and Open-Mindedness by Jane Austen? I don't think so. Happy Valley by Emily Bronte? Perhaps not. Brokeback Mountain II: Ennis and Jack attend Wyoming Pride by Annie Proulx? If only.

Thankfully, my favourite literary love story already has the murders in it.  Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane meet when she is on trial for offing her lover in Strong Poison. They flirt over a stranger with his throat cut in Have His Carcass. They fall in love during a weekend of torrid psychological threats and general headwreck in Gaudy Night and then trip over a corpse in their (Busman's) Honeymoon cottage, hours after their wedding.

And woven through the four books, there's more genuine romance than in many murder-free novels.  Harriet, on remand in prison, rejects Peter's first proposal with the words: "If anyone does marry you it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle" but it's not piffle he's talking when, hitched at last in the final book, he says: "What do all the great words come to in the end but that? I love you, I am at rest with you, I have come home."

Then they open the cellar door and it all goes a bit pear-shaped.  But that's not love - that's a story.

All the News That’s Fit to Imagine

"What was the first moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?"


This is one of the questions writers get most often and it’s fun to hear the answers. I wonder, though, how many are apocryphal. I mean, how many four-year olds think about the process and think of it as FUN? It’s not like ballet or space walking or basketball. There’s not much to see, nothing glorious in action, no applause, no costumes. In fact, if we had a clue about the realities of being writers, we might run screaming, or at least retreat to law school or reality show stardom.

But something happens to a blessed number of kids, and it’s real. Some of us are writing plays, stories, whole newspapers (me), poems, graphic novels – also called comic books – by the age of seven or eight. And the passion sticks with us. By high school, we’re the student paper, yearbook, and drama club crews. We’re winning essay contests and scholarships, and writing letters to the editors about social issues. We’re readers, the ones who take out the maximum number of books every week from the library, who weep reading Louisa May Alcott, who read every ad in the subway car. We can’t help it. We’ve been hooked by the power of the word and we crave it.

The earliest I recall consciously wishing to write was when reading, probably for the fourth or fifth times, Mary Poppins and Stuart Little. The characters and the warm and ultimately protective universe in which they lived was one I wanted to create myself. That must have been when I was six or seven. I know that I was publishing a newspaper (multiples made with carbon paper, fully laid out and illustrated) when I was eight. Rather interesting considering my parents were drinking heavily by then and any newspaper reporting truthfully on our family life would have included reports of yelling and plate throwing. I think the “Wolff Weekly” reported on life as I wanted it to be, as it was in the Banks’ and the Little’s households.  

When I was in high school, it was generally thought by other kids that boys (it was always boys then) who wrote about their sports teams for the school paper were would-be athletes who weren’t good enough to play varsity. Girls who worked on the paper were never going to be popular enough to have lots of dates, so this kind of geeky activity was a consolation prize. Boy, were they wrong! We were the lucky ones who wielded the power to shape the news, to influence others, to give or withhold praise and glory…well, maybe it went to our heads a bit.

Later, I became a reporter and magazine writer, then went into college communications and marketing, speechwriting, and fundraising (creative writing). I didn’t take up fiction (acknowledged creative writing) until late in my career. But I’ve always been on the path I stepped onto with the first issue of the “Wolff Weekly.”

-Susan

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.

The five books that made me a writer

I read a lot from the age of three or four when my big sisters taught me.  For instance, I read my entire introductory reading book walking home from school after the first day. But I read as a reader.  I didn't know there was a man behind the curtain and I didn't wonder about him. 

Then, when I was eighteen and in my first year at university, feeling completely out of my depth with Ben Johnson and W.H. Auden, I got a hold of a copy of Gone With The Wind and devoured it in one sitting, in my student flat, in my pyjamas, missing classes.  For some reason, it struck me for the first time that day that someone had sat at a desk and done this. Interesting.

We also studied Persuasion that year.   Which was okay.  So I bought and inhaled Pride And Prejudice.  Which was mind-blowing!  That taught me that I didn't want to study literature; I wanted bathe in it, dive into it and drown in it.  And - this was a very tentative dream - make my own.

So when, maybe six months later, I read Catch-22 I can remember laughing with exhilaration at finding out that you could do that in a novel.  Be that tricksy, play those games, have so much FUN!

The next year I switched to studying linguistics and also read John Irving's The Water-method Man which had all the fun and games of Heller, but real people, in a world I recognised (with real, baggy, messy, silly relationships), and was full of jokes about the kind of epic Norse poetry I was parsing in my history of language classes.  Another lesson: you can take what you've got and do whatever it pleases you to do with it.

So far, so slightly giddy, right?  I think what saved me from plunging, hysterical and unprepared, into pastiches of Irving and Heller was Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle.  It's another big, warm-hearted book that builds a whole world around its characters, but it's also about writing.  About learning the craft and finding your own voice.  And about the fact that sitting all alone in a room trying to write can be a trap-door to mental collapse.

So I learned one of its lessons, but managed to ignore the other.  I'm very glad of that.  I finished my linguistics degree and a PhD and even taught in a university for a few years, but writing is home. I'm so lucky that these five books were there pointing the way.