Does Noir have to be All Black?

My current writing project takes place in the 1950s and I have been seeing it as more or less a detective story (albeit with science fiction elements) in the hard-boiled tradition of the era (e.g., Hammett, Chandler, et al.). But after recently viewing several more noir films, of which many are based on such novels, it suddenly dawned on me that most, if not all, of these stories have no real winners, and perhaps no genuine heroes.

Yes, yes, you say, I should have seen that all along. That's the very definition of hard-boiled novels and film noir. Everyone is out for themselves. Everyone is a rascal. And nobody wins. Even the victims turn out to be guilty of something, if not the major crime. And sometimes an apparent victim is the antagonist, perhaps the murderer. The hero almost never survives the story as a genuine hero. They're one of the biggest rascals of all, in order to survive. And even the antagonist turns out, at times, to be a victim. What a world!

But in my mind, my protagonist needs to be a hero, at least for the most part. I guess what I've discovered is that in order to be hard-boiled, he's going to have to do something rash, and calculated, and wrong. Certainly, every protagonist has flaws. But this is probably something more, something dire, something with adverse consequences. It's going to cost him. And it may cost somebody else. But that's good. It's good to know these things about my hero and what it's going to take to make what I hope is a compelling tale.

Noir is black. And in literature, film, and art, black usually represents bad. But in film noir and hard-boiled literature, bad is what makes it good.

read: Rocket Science

This blog must make it seem like all I'm doing these days is read. I am writing, I promise. Oddly, this book is related to the novel I'm writing: what if, just after WWII, an unsuspecting, average guy found himself pursued by foreign agents, military police, and mobsters because of something that may not be of this Earth? That's not exactly where I started with my story, but it's where I seem to be heading. And so did Jay Lake in his first novel, Rocket Science (review below). Thankfully, his plot, setting, and characters turn out to be radically different from mine. But that doesn't mean I won't be borrowing a few ideas.

Rocket Science by Jay Lake


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In Rocket Science, Jay Lake has populated a small post-WWII Kansas town with likable folks, Nazi agents, Communist spies, traitors, mobsters, military police, and a flying machine that's not of this Earth. He blends them together in a tale that is a page turner from start to finish, with the biggest surprises at the end. [More...]

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Novel vs Screenplay

I'd meant to get a bunch of work started on my next screenplay this weekend. But have had limited success. I think the only thing I've really succeeded at is finally convincing myself that I should drop the idea I was working on, for now. It's just not ready to be what I need it to be. But if I'm going to have something ready to write by the end of the month, I need to get something nailed down very soon. Like in a day or two.

Meanwhile, the noveling part of my brain jumped in and gave me what seem to be a pretty decent two or three pages to a first chapter. Then again, they may be too slow. But that's OK. It's a start. Now I'd better figure out a plot before I try to go much further.