Books and a Movie; Writing Tricks

I thought I might catch up a little tonight and talk about several books I’ve read recently, as well as the one movie we’ve watched lately.

THE COMPLETE WESTERN STORIES OF ELMORE LEONARD is a massive volume collecting all thirty of Leonard’s Western stories, from his first appearances in magazines like DIME WESTERN and ARGOSY at the tail end of the pulp era to a few stories that appeared in anthologies later on. Since I’m on record as liking Leonard’s Westerns better than his crime stories – and his earlier stuff better than his later work, for that matter – it’s no surprise that I really liked this book. All the stories have plenty of good dialogue, Leonard’s trademark, and the plots are tight and focused, rather than sprawling all over the place. The characters aren’t clear-cut good and bad but generally have some real depth. The only real drawback to this book is that almost half the stories have appeared relatively recently in Leonard’s other collections, THE TONTO WOMAN AND OTHER STORIES and WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO DANCE. Still, having them all in one place makes for a really fine volume.

I’ve read a couple of trade paperbacks reprinting story arcs from the Vertigo (DC’s mature readers imprint) comic book series 100 BULLETS. This is a very hardboiled series set in various sectors of the criminal underworld, but the stories play out against an enigmatic backdrop of a developing “mythology” concerning a mysterious cabal that really runs the country. The set-up is fairly simple: a man calling himself Agent Graves shows up and gives somebody who has been wronged an attaché case containing an automatic and a hundred untraceable bullets. Whoever gets the gun can do whatever they want with it and get away with their actions. Of course, things never turn out to be that simple. I’m missing the second volume, but I’ve read #1, FIRST SHOT LAST CALL, and #3, HANG UP ON THE HANG LOW. I wasn’t sure about this series at first. The scripts by Brian Azzarello feature great dialogue and lots of plot twists, but they’re unrelentingly grim. And the highly stylized art by Eduardo Risso isn’t really the sort that a traditionalist (old fogey) like me is used to. But by the time I was finished with HANG UP ON THE HANG LOW, I was hooked on this series and I’m glad I have several more of them on hand to read. Although Azzarello doesn’t use captions in his scripts, like a lot of current comics writers, the dialogue flows so naturally it’s really a pleasure to read. And even Risso’s art is growing on me. I’d recommend these to any readers of hardboiled fiction.

Moving from the current to the old-fashioned, I also read MONTANA RIDES AGAIN, by Frederick Faust writing as Max Brand writing as Evan Evans. (If you’re a Faust fan you understand that byline; if you’re not . . . well, don’t ask.) This is a second book in a trilogy that also includes MONTANA RIDES! and THE SONG OF THE WHIP. I liked it a lot, and a review of it will probably show up here eventually, after I’ve used it in my apazines.

Now for the movie. We watched MILLION DOLLAR BABY a few days ago. I enjoyed it, thought it was well-written and very well acted for the most part, and Clint Eastwood’s direction was nice and understated. It was very refreshing to watch a movie that depended on the script, the actors, and the direction rather than on a ton of CGI. In fact, I wonder if maybe that had something to do with its success, if it benefited from a little backlash against flashy, special effects laden extravaganzas. Not that it didn’t deserve its acclaim, but maybe it wasn’t quite really as good as it seemed by comparison. My only real complaint about it is that too much of the dialogue was mumbled or whispered or otherwise inaudible. Maybe that’s more realistic than actors’ delivery used to be, but I don’t care. I still want to hear what they’re saying.

I’ve hit the 100 page mark in the current manuscript, 106, to be precise, but I’m not going to be finished by August 10. When I finished work for today, I got to the end of a scene, wrote the first few lines of the next scene, and then stopped in mid-sentence. I’ve heard writers recommend this trick as a way of getting started easier the next day, but the truth is I hardly ever do this. Occasionally I will, though. More often I stop at the end of a scene, or the end of a chapter if possible. Sometimes I’ll write a little prompt for what’s coming up next, no more than a line or two, in all-caps right there at the end of that day’s text. Then I delete it the next day and go on. But none of these little tricks are rules with me. I just do whatever feels right at the time. Which makes me think that maybe the only real writing rule is: Do whatever works.

I’m currently reading BLONDES DIE YOUNG by Bill Peters (William P. McGivern). I know Bill Crider and Ed Gorman have already talked about this book recently, but you’re going to have to wade through my comments on it, too. Or not.