Cafe Noir

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.

I was tagged by the terrific and talented Michael W. Sherer to participate in the Meet My Character blog tour/hop.  Michael recently posted his, and you should check it out: http://www.michaelwsherer.com/blog.htm?post=967483

Mike is the Thriller Award-nominated, best-selling author of Night Blind, the first in the Seattle-based Blake Sanders thriller series, which was also named a best book of 2012 by The Examiner’s “Miami Books.” Mike has published six novels in the award-winning Emerson Ward mystery series and a stand-alone suspense novel, Island Life, which was a USA Book News “Best Books” award-winner in 2008.

http://www.emersonwardmysteries.com
http://www.islandlife-thenovel.com
http://www.michaelwsherer.com
michael.w.sherer@facebook.com

So here’s my answers to the Character Blog Hop questions:

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Zach Tanner is a fictional character in my stand-alone novella Vortex. Zach is, or was, a cocky guy who joined the National Guard with three of his high school buddies. But after his tour in Afghanistan some of that cockiness has been knocked out of him, big time.


2) When and where is the story set?

The story is set in Los Angeles in the present, or at least the not-too-distant past. It begins with a flash open of a chase on Pacific Coast Highway. Zach and his high school sweetheart, Jess, are being chased by a hot red Camaro. Jess wants Zach to talk to their pursuers: He responds: “We can't go back. Don't you understand, they'll kill us.” “They're your friends,” she says. "Yeah," Zach says, then thinks to himself: ‘The first rule of war is know your enemy. And I knew mine, too well—or maybe not well enough.’ —And that’s the problem, the people chasing him are his friends—or were.


3) What should we know about him/her?

Zach and his three buddies enlisted together. Served together. Did some bad shit together and thought their bond would never break. But war changed Zach more than he could ever imagine. And maybe it changed his buds too, but in the opposite way. Now the former best friends are enemies. And the collateral damage could be Jess or Zach’s brother or his new love.


4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

Don’t want to give too much away. But: Zach and his buds set something in motion while in Afghanistan that has major repercussions on their return home. Zach has a change of heart...but his buddies don’t.


5) What is the personal goal of the character?

His immediate goal is to protect his girlfriend, Jess, and get them away from his former pals, who think they might know something. His long term goal is to put it all behind them and live a normal life, after this chain of events that might end up taking several lives.


6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

Vortex. And, unfortunately nothing more yet, but stay tuned for further updates.


7) When can we expect the book to be published?

Not sure. Hopefully not too distant future.


I’ve tagged three terrific authors to carry on the bunny, I mean blog hop:

Max Everhart is the author of Go Go Gato, a terrific debut mystery. He writes and reviews mysteries, crime thrillers and detective fiction, when playing hooky from teaching English and Creative Writing. http://www.maxeverhart.com/

Jan Grape is an Anthony award-winning writer with a successful mystery series and more than two dozen short stories to her credit. Her novels include, Austin City Blue and Dark Blue Death, both featuring Austin Police detective, Zoe Barrow.
http://www.sleuthsayers.org/

G.B. Pool (Gayle Bartos-Pool) is a former private detective and once a newspaper reporter for a small town weekly. She writes short stories as well as two detective series, one featuring Johnny Casino, an ex-mobster, and also Gin Caulfield, an over fifty gal who’s still packing heat. G.B. teaches writing classes: “The Anatomy of a Short Story,” ”How To Write Convincing Dialogue,” and “How To Write a Killer Opening Line.” Website: www.gbpool.com .

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

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

1. What am I working on?

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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




3. Why do I write what I do?

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

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

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

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


4. How does my writing process work?

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 
The Crooked Way: 12:45pm, Pacific Time, Friday, 5/23/14. W/ John Payne. Pretty good, but not great, 'B' noir.


Raw Deal: 2:15pm, Pacific Time, Friday, 5/23/14. W/ Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor. Directed by Anthony Mann. Others like this one better than I do. More noir-ish than real noir, IMO. But I'm here to serve, so thought I'd put it up.

 

Joseph Emmett Sullivan: [who is being visited in prison by Ann] Next time you come up, don't wear that perfume.
Ann Martin: Why not?
Joseph Emmett Sullivan: It doesn't help a guy's good behavior.

Film Noir Alert: D.O.A., 3:30pm, Pacific Time, Monday, May 05, 2014, Turner Classics.

I think I've said this before but in my opinion this is the ultimate "high concept" story. Murdered man has to find his murderer...before he dies.

With Edmond O'Brien. And Neville Brand, one of the great movie villians. Good movie! Some great L.A. (the Bradbury Building) and San Francisco locations.

Dr. MacDonald: Of course, I'll have to notify the police. This is a case for Homicide.
Frank Bigelow (O'Brien): Homicide?
Dr. MacDonald: I don't think you fully understand, Bigelow. You've been murdered.

Film Noir Alert: A Kiss Before Dying, 7:15pm, Pacific Time, Sunday, May 04, 2014; Turner Classic Movies.

W/ Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward. Remade later with Matt Dillon and Sean Young.
Interesting twist, though it comes early on.

Leo Kingship: What was accomplished by it?
Ellen Kingship: What has to be accomplished by it? Some people do things out of nothing more than sentiment. Softness, you'd probably call it.
Leo Kingship: As opposed to my callousness? My hardness? I think, Ellen, you mistake parading an emotion for feeling one.

 

A couple "rare" Mickey Rooney noirs show up on Turner Classics on Tuesday, August 13, 2013.  "The Strip" and "Quicksand".

Rooney was trying to change his boy-next-door-image.  Does a pretty good job of that.

The movies are decent, low budget B noirs.  “Quicksand” has the added advantage of Peter Lorre and Jimmy Dodd, the chief Mousketeer.  

"The Strip" also features the Louis Armstrong classic song, "A Kiss to Build a Dream On." 

Good L.A. locations in both.

 

Dark Passage (1947) with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, screened on Los Angeles station KCET over Labor Day weekend and on Turner Classics on Wednesday of this week. The screenplay, by Delmer Daves (who also directed), is based on a novel by David Goodis. This is a movie that I like to see at least once a year, both for the story and the terrific San Francisco locations, some of which you can still see today.
Vincent Parry, an innocent man, is thrown into San Quentin for the murder of his wife. For a Goodis story it has what might be considered a happy ending. And I think, in this case, the movie improves on the book. It takes what's good about the novel and fleshes it out in ways that work.
Historian and critic Geoffrey O'Brien said "[Goodis] wrote of winos and  barroom piano players and smalltime thieves in a vein of tortured lyricism all his own, whose very excesses seemed uniquely appropriate to the subject matter. As his titles announce—Street of the Lost, Street of No Return, The Wounded and the Slain, Down There—he was the poet of the losers…" *  
It is through the movie version of Dark Passage that I discovered Goodis many years ago. And he is now one of my favorite writers – truly the King of Noir. His stories often deal with people who were once riding high and who've fallen on hard times, to say the least.
Goodis did a stint as a Hollywood screenwriter, eventually leaving Hollywood to return to his native Philadelphia, where he led an "interesting" life to say the least.
If I had to pick a favorite Goodis novel it would be Down There, upon which Truffaut's movie Shoot the Piano Player is based. And I know what I'm going to say is heretical to some, but I like the book a lot more than the movie in a lot of ways and, in fact, I don't like the movie much at all, though it's still worth watching. That said, Dark Passage, both the book and the movie are definitely worth checking out.
 
*Hardboiled America, Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir; Geoffrey O'Brien; Da Capo Press

‘Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river.


From: http://pauldmarks.tumblr.com/ 
Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks 

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

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

Welcome Gayle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

La Crescenta Library Event – July 2012

Ashley Ream & Paul D. Marks