Ed Gorman's Blog, page 134

Doug Clegg - Outlining

FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2009
That most excellent writer Doug Clegg wrote a lengthy letter about outlining on Shocklines last night. Since I've always been unable (or maybe unwilling) to outline I found his take on the subject fascinating. I want to thank Doug for letting me reprint it here.

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Bio: Douglas Clegg is the author of more than 25 books, including the upcoming (fall 2009) hardcover, Isis, as well as the email serial The Locust, coming out in the summer of 2009. Check his website at DouglasClegg.com for details. He was born in Virginia and currently lives at the beach in New England.

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I used to hate outlining. I felt I was storytelling in the outline, and I'd get bored with it and would never want to write the book. So, for most of my novels, the only outline was the first draft itself. This meant I had a 300-700 page "outline" depending on how that first draft went.

Then, I had to edit it down and cut it like crazy until I found the structure.

However, in the past couple of years, in the studies I've been doing of the architecture of the idea of story and what makes a powerful tale. I think there's another way to look at the outline in terms of a functional scaffolding for the writer's work.

I now believe structure is the most important element in a novel and a story.

I don't believe a writer with undeveloped abilities as a writer can necessarily write a great story or novel. But when the structure is sound in a story, even with so-so writing, a novel or story can be successful. With great writing, it stands a chance of becoming a classic -- either of its time, or a later time.

I have no influence over how "talented" I am. But I do have influence over the technique and craft of story creation.

In the past several years, I've begun studying story architecture -- and structuring what I write far ahead of the writing itself.

If the structure is interesting and exciting enough for me, there's no boredom in the writing of the tale.

The structure begins with a premise. The premise comes from the writer's judgment on some aspect of human nature and the human condition.

From this, I can start to ask questions about where would this story take place, who are the people who most exemplify aspects of this story who will conflict with each other, where am "I" in the story (in other words, how is this a story that I must write, rather than someone else? Otherwise I'm practicing "applied storytelling techniques," and, as a writer, that doesn't interest me. It must come from something important enough to me, specifically, to put it on the page.)

There are other hurdles in creating the structure of the story. Sometimes at the end of a story -- when it's all done and has worked -- I realize the premise itself was something other than I had planned. I love it when that happens -- it reveals to me something about why I write stories.

I used to get hung up on the idea of outlines as being close to what I learned in school about outlining. And to me, that was a homework assignment. I hate homework.

Instead, in structuring the novel and working out the problems of its creation before I begin the majority of the writing, I gain a greater freedom in ordering the scenes, knowing what scenes absolutely have to be there, knowing which characters need further development, etc.

When the structure is in place, I can approach scenes with a freedom to move them, change them, adjust them without hurting the structure of the story itself. Sort of like the game of Jenga -- once it's in place, you can pull out pieces, etc., but there are usually certain blocks of the story that absolutely must remain where they are for the strength of the story to hold.

Why would I do this after publishing more than 24 books in the past 20 years? Because for every good novel I produced, I felt there were two that didn't work the way I wanted them to work. And the problem was in those novels' structures. I'll never let that happen again.

If you ever ask me: what's the one element a story must have?

I have to answer: all of them. Tone, emotional heft, strong idea, talented writer, compelling narrative, strong structure, characters worth writing, good dialogue, great backdrop or setting, etc. But since we're talking outlines here, I'm focusing on structure only.

Now there's something to be said for those stories that are so based on a sudden hit of inspiration that they come alive because, organically, the story structure exists without the writer having to outline.

If a writer has that, more power to him or her. But I've reached a point with writing where I never again want to look at a novel of mine published and think: if I had taken four more months and restructured that story, it would have been unforgettable.

My goal is to write a story before I die where any reader who picks it up will forget they read the story and instead, feel they lived it. Not there yet. May never make the goal. But working on the structure of a story well in-advance of writing it -- for me -- seems to work.

This is just me. You may have a different approach to writing fiction that works beautifully for you.

-- Douglas Clegg
http://www.DouglasClegg.com

Ten Overlooked Classics

Ten Overlooked ClassicsSf Site used to ask writers to list ten novels that they felt had been overlooked or unjustly forgotten. Here are ten crime novels, in no particular order, that I think should be read and re-read.

Odds Against Tomorrow William P. McGivern
The 31st of February Julian Symons
How Like An Angel Margaret Millar
The Blank Wall Elizabeth Sanxay Holding
Night and The City Gerald Kersh
The Far Cry Fredric Brown
Cocaine and Blue Eyes Fred Zackel
True Confessions John Gregory Dunne
On The Yard Malcolm Braly
Something in The Shadows Vin Packer

How the West Was Won': 25 Things You Didn't Know About the Classic Western

FROM MOVIEFONE by Gary Susman

When they say, "They don't make 'em like that anymore," this is what they're talking about.  "How the West Was Won,"  released in America 50 years ago this week (on February 20, 1963) was probably the most ambitious western ever made, an epic saga spanning four generations, 50 years, two-and-a-half hours, five vignettes, three directors (well, actually four), the widest possible screen, and an enormous cast of A-listers, including James Stewart, Debbie Reynolds, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, and Spencer Tracy. It's hard to imagine any movie, let alone a western, being made on such a grand scale today, when it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.Naturally, in a production that massive, there was a lot of chaos behind the scenes. Even fans of the movie may not be aware of the off-camera feud between Peck and his director, the technical challenges imposed by the untried widescreen format, or the freak accident that crippled a stuntman. Read on for a round-up of little-known facts behind the MGM classic.1. The initial source of the story of "How the West Was Won," which traced one pioneer family's role in the settlement of the West throughout the 19th century, was a photo essay of the same name in Life magazine.2. Three directors are credited for the movie's five segments -- but there was a fourth, Richard Thorpe, who went uncredited for directing the transitional historical scenes between segments. Thorpe had done similar uncredited duty for the galley-slave scenes in MGM's "Ben-Hur" four years earlier.3. The main directors were all veteran directors of westerns. Henry Hathaway helmed three of the segments ("The Rivers," "The Plains," and "The Outlaws"). Legendary director of westerns John Ford shot the segment "The Civil War," and George Marshall (who'd directed Stewart a quarter-century earlier in the western "Destry Rides Again") directed "The Railroads."4. This was one of the first -- and one of the last -- Hollywood drama features shot in Cinerama. The IMAX of its day, Cinerama was an ultra-widescreen format used mostly for documentaries. It required three projectors running simultaneously and a screen that curved at the sides to show the entire image.5. The three-strip Cinerama process resulted in vertical dividing lines visible in many shots (as generations who've watched the movie on TV can attest). Sometimes the filmmakers were able to hide the lines behind trees or poles, but it wasn't until the recent restoration and Blu-ray release that the lines were erased.6. Another Cinerama issue: actors who, due to the curvature of the screen, appeared to be making eye contact from opposite sides of the frame seemed to be staring off in odd directions when the film was projected on flat screens. That, too, had to be corrected in the recent restoration.7. Ford and Hathaway grumbled about shooting in Cinerama, with Ford complaining about the size of the sets they had to fill the frame with and Hathaway grousing that he couldn't get closer to the actors than a waist-up shot. The actors grumbled, too. "I found it impossible to act realistically in front of the giant machine with three lenses," said Gregory Peck, according to Lynn Haney's biography, "Gregory Peck: A Charmed Life."8. In fact, there was no love lost between Peck and Hathaway. According to Haney, Peck said that, while he found Hathaway "a charming fellow at dinner," he was a tyrant on the set. "He just yelled and screamed and foamed at the mouth and chewed cigars all day long."9. Henry Fonda said he felt "lost in such an overwhelming epic -- it's like I wasn't there."
for the rest go here:
http://news.moviefone.com/2013/02/20/...

Bill Pronzini at his best

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Bill Pronzini's novella Femme is one of the best written and most cleverly engineered private eye stories I've ever had the immense pleasure to read.  The piece is original to the dazzling package Cemetery Dance has given both it and Kinsmen.

The "Femme" in the title is one Cory Beckett, so breathtakingly beautiful she can freeze you in your tracks. There are such women. Ostensibly she hires Nameless to find her bail-jumping brother Kenneth who is momentarily free after being charged with stealing an expensive necklace owned by her boss' wife.

But if you think that's what's really going on you're probably someone who thinks Karl Rove is a nice guy. Oh no. Nameless investigates but since Pronzini keeps turning the story back on itself (you have to read it to understand just how masterfully Pronzini constructs Femme) Nameless has to keep second guessing himself. This is a tale that belongs in The P.I. Hall of Fame.

I'm hoping Bill eventually turns this into a novel. I've rarely seen sex more convincingly portrayed as a deadly weapon.



Bill Pronzini has a special gift for portraying the ominous underbelly of America, the troubled and dangerous people who want to destroy our political system.  Call them what you will--Klan, Birchers, Tea Baggers--they hope to undermine the aspirations of average Americans by suggesting that violent overthrow may someday be the only answer.

In the meantime, well short of that grandiose scheme, they pick on people who give them offense.  Here Nameless is hired by a mother whose college student daughter has vanished along with her black boy friend. Given the nature of the Kinsmen, a far-right group that has many in the area of the college living in fear of speaking up, Nameless has reason to be worried about their fate.

The terror here never lets go. And Pronzini's skill at dramatizing the effects of violence on average people has never been more startling. Though I'd read this a few times after it was originally published in the 90s, this time through I was seized by it.  Present day America is far scarier than it was when Kinsman was first published.

The Presidency of Barack Obama has brought out the kind of racism not seen since the early 1960s.  Kinsman is a belated wake-up call.

Crime Writer Patricia Cornwell Wins $50.9M Lawsuit

« Huffington Post Executive Editor Tim O'Brien to DepartCrime Writer Patricia Cornwell Wins $50.9M LawsuitPublished: February 19, 2013 @ 3:59 pmGetty ImagesPost a CommentPrint This Page00
inShareBy Alexander C. KaufmanAuthor Patricia Cornwell was awarded $50.9 million on Tuesday in a federal lawsuit against her former financial manager, according to court documents obtained by TheWrap.Cornwell, whose best-selling series of crime novels stars the medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, sued Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP and its former principal, Evan Snapper, in 2009 for negligence and breach of contract.A U.S. district court jury in Massachusetts on Tuesday ruled unanimously that the financial firm cost Cornwell and her company millions of dollars in losses and unaccounted revenue.Lawyers for the New York firm said no money was missing from Cornwell's accounts and blamed losses on the economic recession and on what they considered the author's extravagant lifestyle, which included a $40,000 per month apartment in New York City and expensive cars and helicopters.But Cornwell, 56, said Anchin began betting aggressively with her money and, in 2009, she found that her net worth was under $13 million, despite eight-figure earnings in each of the previous four years.James Campbell, a Boston-based lawyer representing Anchin, did not respond to calls from TheWrap requesting comment.Pamela Chelin contributed to this report

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW

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Odds Against Tomorrow

Three men - an embittered ex-con (Robert Ryan), a former cop (Ed Begley) who was fired from the force for illegal activities, and a chronic gambler (Harry Belafonte) - try to change their lousy lot in life by forming a partnership in crime. But a plan to heist a payroll from a small-town bank in upstate New York is doomed from the start because of the racial tensions within the group.

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) is often acknowledged as one of the last films to appear in the film noir cycle which reached its height in the post-World War II era. However, this crime thriller is much more complex than the standard genre entry. While it's certainly gritty and downbeat in the best noir tradition, it also works as an allegory about greed as well as a cautionary tale about man's propensity for self-destruction. Financed by Harry Belafonte's own company, Harbel Productions, Odds Against Tomorrow allowed Belafonte to exercise complete creative control over the film's conception and to handpick an expert cast and crew to bring his project to the screen. In an article in the New York Times, Belafonte said, "The character I play is not thrown in for a racial thesis, but because the bank robbers - played by Ed Begley and Robert Ryan - need a Negro who can enter the bank as a colored delivery man. While Robert Ryan hates the Negro, it is not merely a racial antagonism. He hates everybody, and the Negro is no stereotype of sweetness and light either. No brotherly love saves everyone here. Their hatred destroys them both."

Robert Ryan gives one of his finest performances here as the pathetic, venom-spewing racist Earle Slater. Off screen, Ryan was a compassionate activist who was committed to such liberal causes as SANE and the ACLU but on-screen he was often cast as angry, misanthropic characters who occasionally expressed themselves through violence. Crossfire (1947), Beware, My Lovely, and On Dangerous Ground (both 1952) are probably the best examples of this typecasting. Shelley Winters and Gloria Grahame also have minor supporting roles in Odds Against Tomorrow but while their scenes are brief, they both make indelible impressions. You can also spot Cicely Tyson, Wayne Rogers, and Zohra Zampert in tiny roles.

Odds Against Tomorrow was filmed on location in a small town in the Hudson River Valley, New York City, and at the Gold Medal Studios in the Bronx. Director Robert Wise completed the film between his Oscar-winning productions of I Want to Live! (1958) and West Side Story (1961). The screenplay was written by Nelson Giddens, blacklisted writer Abraham Polonsky (who wasn't allowed to accept an onscreen credit until 1968), and black novelist John O. Killens, who later penned the revisionist antebellum drama Slaves (1969). The latter film also provided work for former blacklist victims, director Herbert J. Biberman and his wife, actress Gale Sondergaard. The moody, evocative jazz score is by John Lewis, the pianist for the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Director: Robert Wise
Producer: Robert Wise, Phil Stein (associate)
Screenplay: Abraham Polonsky, Nelson Gidding, John O. Killens, William McGivern (novel)
Cinematography: Joseph C. Brun
Music: John Lewis
Art Direction: Leo Kertz
Principle Cast: Harry Belafonte (Johnny Ingram), Robert Ryan (Earl Slater), Shelley Winters (Lorry), Ed Begley (Dave Burke), Gloria Grahame (Helen), Will Kuluva (Bacco), Kim Hamilton (Ruth Ingram)
BW-97m.

"Lee Marvin: Point Blank" - Dwayne Epstein's New Biography of The Merchant of Menace

 18, 2013"Lee Marvin: Point Blank" - Dwayne Epstein's New Biography of The Merchant of Menace fromm Classic Film n TV Cafe
In Lee Marvin: Point Blank, author Dwayne Epstein puts together a convincing portrait of the enigmatic actor that New York Times film critic Vincent Canby once called "The Master of Menace." Epstein augments Marvin's insightful letters and colorful quotes with anecdotes from family, friends, and especially former wife Betty Ebeling Marvin. The result is a lively biography of a dedicated, hard-drinking actor whose detached, violent "heroes" came alive vividly in films such as The Dirty Dozen, The Killers (1964), and Point Blank.

Born in New York in 1924, Lee Marvin--like his brother Robert--was named after Robert E. Lee. Their mother, Courtenay, was an ancestor of the famous Confederate general. Author Epstein speculates that Lee Marvin suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder as a youth as well as dyslexia. The young Marvin displayed a rebellious nature at home--he and his mother never got along--and in school. Later in life, he boasted of being expelled from fifteen schools.

He eventually played authority figures
in war films like The Dirty Dozen.For a young man who often defied authority, it's ironic that Marvin not only enlisted in the armed services in 1942, but chose the Marines. However, as Epstein points out, "it was a time of extreme patriotism" following Pearl Harbor; Marvin's brother and father, a World War I veteran,  also enlisted. Undoubtedly, his years as a Marine shaped the rest of Marvin's life. Excerpts from his early letters show a young man at conflict. He proudly discusses his test scores and marksmanship, but also writes "sometimes I wonder what I joined up for." Marvin participated in many bloody battles following his deployment to the Pacific in 1944. When a wound ended his military career in 1945, Marvin "could not shake off the intense feeling he was experiencing: anger, frustration and worst of all, survivor guilt as the war stubbornly wore on."

Following the end of the war, Marvin contemplated working as a forest ranger and car salesman before becoming a plumber's apprentice. However, Marvin's career took a different path when he became involved in a Red Cross benefit called "Ten Nights in a Barroom" in Woodstock, New York, in 1946. That eventually led to a summer stock gig with the Maverick Theater in 1947. Epstein notes that acting provided an "outlet to express his inner demons that had been frustrating him since the war." Marvin used his G.I. bill money to attend the American Theater Wing, which led to small parts. However, he later said that Broadway "was a damn bore...the New York stage is a hustle." When colleague James Doohan (Star Trek's Scotty) recommended Marvin move to the West Coast, Marvin took the advice.

for the rest go here:
http://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2013...

bill gaines explains the origins of alfred e. neuman

http://www.newsfromme.com/2013/02/17/...

"MR. LUCKY: THE COMPLETE SERIES" ON DVD FROM TIMELESS MEDIA GROUP

By Harvey Chartrand 
REVIEW: "MR. LUCKY: THE COMPLETE SERIES" ON DVD FROM TIMELESS MEDIA GROUP
By Harvey Chartrand MR. LUCKY: THE COMPLETE SERIES is now available for the first time ever as a 4-DVD box set from Timeless Media Group… all 34 episodes, with a running time of about 840 minutes. MR. LUCKY– created by writer/director Blake Edwards (PETER GUNN) – ran for only one season (from 1959 to 1960), even though it was a hit with viewers.This adventure/crime drama is a sort of PETER GUNN Lite, featuring a lush, organ-powered theme song by Henry Mancini (a bonus CD of MR. LUCKY’s soundtrack is included in the set), an assortment of shady characters aboard a floating casino, and competent acting by series regulars John Vivyan (as suave professional gambler Mr. Lucky), Ross Martin (as his sidekick and business partner Andamo), Pippa Scott (as Mr. Lucky’s girlfriend Maggie Shank-Rutherford) and Tom Brown (as Lieutenant Rovacs, Mr. Lucky’s cop buddy).Edwards directed and co-wrote the first episode of MR. LUCKY, and the credits of the first 18 episodes include “Entire production supervised by Blake Edwards.” Jack Arnold (director of THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE) produced the show and directed 15 episodes. The end credits include “Series based on an original story: Bundles for Freedomby Milton Holmes,” which was published in Cosmopolitan in June 1942. This story was also the basis of the 1943 motion picture MR. LUCKY, starring Cary Grant as a gambling-ship owner out to fleece a beautiful society woman (Laraine Day), but who falls in love with her instead. The film and television series have little in common, except for the title and the suave nature of the leading man.According to a March 1942 news item in The Hollywood Reporter, RKO bought Holmes’ story at the request of Cary Grant, who wanted to star in it. In a 1969 Hollywood Reporter news item, Holmes claimed that his story was inspired by Edward G. Nealis, the owner of the Clover Club on the Sunset Strip, a venue for drinking and illegal gambling in the early 1930s. In 1936, Nealis rigged a one-night gambling benefit at the Beverly Hills Hotel to raise $40,000 for a church.
Image quality on the 4-pack DVD varies from fair to very good. Audio quality is excellent throughout. 

FROM SALONForty years later, Garfunkel is still bitter af...

FROM SALON

Forty years later, Garfunkel is still bitter after all these yearsHe blames director Mike Nichols for the breakup of Simon & GarfunkelBY KERA BOLONIK       37       43       0                            more                        TOPICS: 1960S, 1970S, FOLK MUSIC, FILM, MOVIES, ENTERTAINMENT NEWS, PAUL SIMON, ART GARFUNKEL,SIMON & GARFUNKEL, MIKE NICHOLS, THE GRADUATE, CATCH-22, JOSEPH HELLER, CHARLES GRODIN,PALEY CENTER, NYC, NEW YORK, POP, MUSIC, ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
Art Garfunkel, now 71 years old and still reeling decades later from the breakup of the musical act that made him a household name, is now saying that one of the reasons Simon & Garfunkel broke up was because of Mike Nichols’ 1970 film adaptation of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.” In the late 1960s, he says, the two were cast in the film, and while Garfunkel managed to hold on to his fourth-billing role, Simon ended up on the cutting room floor, reports the Guardian.Garfunkel was speaking at the Paley Center for Media in New York last Wednesday, as part of a screening of Charles Grodin’s 1969 Simon & Garfunkel documentary “Songs of America.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, both the singer and Grodin implicated Nichols. Recall that Nichols featured Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” and “Scarborough Fair” in “The Graduate,” his now-iconic 1967 film that won him an Oscar for best director.“That was the beginning of their split-up,” said Grodin. “You don’t take Simon & Garfunkel and ask them to be in a movie and then drop one of their roles on them.”Garfunkel agreed, saying, “Chuck [Grodin]‘s gone right to the heart of the difficulty in Simon & Garfunkel when he says, ‘Artie and Paul were cast for ‘Catch-22,’ and Paul’s part was dropped.’ I had Paul sort of waiting: ‘All right, I can take this for three months. I’ll write the songs, but what’s the fourth month? And why is Artie in Rome a fifth month?’” He added, “What’s Mike doing to Simon & Garfunkel?’”“Catch-22″ was, as it happens, Garfunkel’s feature film debut — the following year he’d appear in a more prominent role, in another Mike Nichols film, “Carnal Knowledge,” starring Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and Ann-Margrek,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
for the rest go here:http://www.salon.com/2013/02/12/forty...