>Dear Reeves,
> I agree with much of what you have posted to this
mailing list. I
>myself might remain subscribed but I probably will not
contribute
>another posting. I was under the misconception that
this was a group
>for writers as well as readers of hard boiled fiction.
I responded to a
>thread (as you well know) that involved the length of
novels these days
>as opposed to some years ago. My point was that many
novels these days
>seem to be written by committee. Of course you and I
understand that
>Clancy and Michener are not hard boiled detective
writers. The point of
>the thread is the requirements of the current fiction
marketplace, and
>the forces acting upon it. Clancy and Michener are
irrelevant except as
> examples of this trend. I'm writing for the
marketplace, and I need to
>understand the marketplace to do so. Any debate in
this area is helpful
>to me as a writer.
> Maybe we need to start our own list for writers of
hard boiled fiction.
> Sincerely,
> Bill Holmes
Bill,
I was writing a comment on this question yesterday, but
didn't send it due
to the fact that I'm taking some cough medication that
rendered the
message incoherent. (At least more so than ususal) I'm a
little braver
today so please forgive any lapses.
I'm very interested in the length issue as well and write
also.
Some of my favorite HB works are very short by today's
standards 45 - 55k
words.
It seems that the current standard is around 65 - 75K words
(and even
more). I don't see any written guidelines saying this, but it
does seem to
be in the air.
People more plugged into the business side can probably
explain this, but
I suspect it has to do with the pressure to break writers out
of genre
into the general lists. The safe midlist writer is seeming a
less and less
desirable commodity to the NY mega publishers.
The problem is that if you pad a tight 55k book you end up
with a bad 65k
book, and a tight 75k book is really a completely different
beast than a
45 - 55k book. They require a lot more sub-structure:
characters, back
story, sub-plots, and so on. The extra 25 k words demands
much more than a
half again as much time and effort.
The shorter length is a lot more like a long novella. In
spite of their
reputation for being plot driven, the early HB didn't need a
lot of story.
You had to have a very strong sense of your characters and of
mood or
atmospherics.
If a short story required strong characters, a situation and
a turn. A HB
novella didn't necessarily require a lot more: characters, a
situation, an
inciting incident, and a fairly simple line of action leading
toward a
resolution.
You don't find many of the wheels turning within wheels as in
a
contemporary Ellroy novel. A good but not perfect example of
the
difference would be early Elmore Leonard vs. late. (His early
work is
already more complex than a lot of early HB).
The basic short HB novel is really a good commerical form
because someone
with a spare writing style and a gift for colorful characters
and
situations (and a plot-o-matic) can turn out 4-5 pretty good
books a year.
I know there are other writers on this list. I certainly
would be
interested in hearing from them via e-mail for discussions
not pertinent
to the general interests of RARA-AVIS subscribers.
Fred
-- ----------------------------------------------------------- Down on Ponce by Fred Willard fwillard@mindspring.com http://fwillard.home.mindspring.com/ -----------------------------------------------------------
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