The faster I write, the better my output. If I’m going slow, I’m in trouble. It means I am pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.”
RAYMOND CHANDLER
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Noir fiction master Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago on July 23, 1888 and spent much of his childhood living in his divorced mother’s native England. He moved to Los Angeles in 1913 — and remained forever identified with the city, thanks to his short stories and novels where Los Angeles plays a central role.
Chandler was 51 years old when his first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. He had spent many years as an executive in the oil business and, when he lost his job in the early 1930s (during the Depression, no less), decided to reinvent himself as a crime fiction writer.
After figuring out the formula to the pulp detective stories, Chandler submitted his twist on the genre to the popular magazines of the day — most notably Black Mask, where his first published work appeared in 1933. Of this experience, he later wrote: “I spent five months on an 18,000 word novelette and sold it for $180. After that I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward.”
During the 1940s, Chandler worked for a brief period as a Hollywood screenwriter — his most notable contribution as cowriter with Billy Wilder on the film noir masterwork Double Indemnity (1944), which earned the two men Academy Award nominations.
He spent his final years in La Jolla, California, just north of San Diego, and passed away in 1959.
BOTTOM LINE: Chandler turned something commonplace (pulp fiction) into something extraordinary — bringing style, originality, and unforgettable prose to crime sagas and turning them into high art.
Illustration by Scott Laumann, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (Used by permission). Visit Scott’s website here. I love Scott’s illustration because it sets Chandler in his free-ranging Southern California milieu, yet the formally attired writer remains detached, distanced — as if tilting his head to get a perspective on the bleached out, gritty place he called home for most of his life.
Noir fiction master Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago on July 23, 1888 and spent much of his childhood living in his divorced mother’s native England. He moved to Los Angeles in 1913 — and remained forever identified with the city, thanks to his short stories and novels where Los Angeles plays a central role.
Chandler was 51 years old when his first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. He had spent many years as an executive in the oil business and, when he lost his job in the early 1930s (during the Depression, no less), decided to reinvent himself as a crime fiction writer.
After figuring out the formula to the pulp detective stories, Chandler submitted his twist on the genre to the popular magazines of the day — most notably Black Mask, where his first published work appeared in 1933. Of this experience, he later wrote: “I spent five months on an 18,000 word novelette and sold it for $180. After that I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward.”
During the 1940s, Chandler worked for a brief period as a Hollywood screenwriter — his most notable contribution as cowriter with Billy Wilder on the film noir masterwork Double Indemnity (1944), which earned the two men Academy Award nominations.
He spent his final years in La Jolla, California, just north of San Diego, and passed away in 1959.
BOTTOM LINE: Chandler turned something commonplace (pulp fiction) into something extraordinary — bringing style, originality, and unforgettable prose to crime sagas and turning them into high art.
Illustration by Scott Laumann, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (Used by permission). Visit Scott’s website here. I love Scott’s illustration because it sets Chandler in his free-ranging Southern California milieu, yet the formally attired writer remains detached, distanced — as if tilting his head to get a perspective on the bleached out, gritty place he called home for most of his life.
The faster I write, the better my output. If I’m going slow, I’m in trouble. It means I am pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.”
RAYMOND CHANDLER
THE BIG SLEEP (Excerpt)
by Raymond Chandler
We drove away from Las Olindas through a series of little dank beach towns with shack-like houses built down on the sand close to the rumble of the surf and larger houses built back on the slopes behind. A yellow window shone here and there, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness.
We were close to Del Rey before she spoke to me for the first time since we left the drugstore. Her voice had a muffled sound, as if something was throbbing deep under it.
“Drive down by the Del Rey beach club. I want to look at the water.”
****
The above photo and passage from Raymond Chandler‘s novel The Big Sleepappear in the superb photo collectionDaylight Noir byCatherine Corman, with a preface by Jonathan Lethem. A series of photos from the book — including the photo of the Del Ray Beach Club above — were featured in a review by Rollo Romig in The New Yorker (October 7, 2010).
Photo: Del Ray Beach Club by Catherine Corman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Find Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman at Amazon.com.
ELMORE LEONARD TALKS CHARACTERS….
(from introduction to Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life)
I once named a character Frank Matisse, but he acted older than his age; and for some reason he wouldn’t talk as much as I wanted him to. I changed his name to Jack Delany and couldn’t shut him up.
Because I use a lot of dialogue in my stories, the characters must be able to talk in interesting ways. So I audition them in opening scenes to see which ones will have important roles in the plot. If a character doesn’t speak the way I want him to, and changing his name doesn’t work, he could be demoted to a less important role.
The best kind of character is one who starts out in a minor role – sometimes without even having a name – and talks his way into the plot. He says a few words, and I see this guy has an interesting personality and I look for more ways to use him in the story.
I write my stories in scenes and always from a particular character’s point of view. Then I may rewrite the same scene from a different character’s point of view and find that it works better. After I finish a book, I continue to think about my characters and wonder what they’re up to.
ELMORE LEONARD (1925-2013) was the bestselling author of nearly forty books, including Get Shorty, La Brava, Cuba Libre, and Stick, many of which have been made into films.
SNOOPY’S GUIDE TO THE WRITING LIFE is available at Amazon.com. (The books is out of print, but used copies are available for around $7.50 plus shipping.)
Photo: Elmore Leonard at his home in Michigan, photo by Carlos Osorio/AP, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
In honor of the great Elmore Leonard, who passed away on August 20, 2013, a few months from his 88th birthday, we feature his famous rules for good writing.
ELMORE LEONARD’S 10 RULES FOR GOOD WRITING
- Never open a book with weather
- Avoid prologues
- Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue
- Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely
- Keep your exclamation points under control — no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose
- Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”
- Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly
- Avoid detailed descriptions of characters
- Don’t go into great detail describing places and things
- Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip
Leonard’s most important rule that sums up the 10 — If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.
Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle”
Illustration: B. Menace, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THE BIG SLEEP (Excerpt)
by Raymond Chandler
We drove away from Las Olindas through a series of little dank beach towns with shack-like houses built down on the sand close to the rumble of the surf and larger houses built back on the slopes behind. A yellow window shone here and there, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness.
We were close to Del Rey before she spoke to me for the first time since we left the drugstore. Her voice had a muffled sound, as if something was throbbing deep under it.
“Drive down by the Del Rey beach club. I want to look at the water.”
****
The above photo and passage from Raymond Chandler‘s novel The Big Sleep appear in the superb photo collection Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman, with a preface by Jonathan Lethem. A series of photos from the book — including the photo of the Del Ray Beach Club above — were featured in a review by Rollo Romig in The New Yorker (October 7, 2010).
Photo: Del Ray Beach Club by Catherine Corman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Find Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman at Amazon.com.
“He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.”
RAYMOND CHANDLER, The Long Goodbye
Photo: Heather L. Shannon, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Silver Birch Press 