{"id":15,"date":"2007-04-26T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-27T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=15"},"modified":"2012-04-06T15:22:40","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T15:22:40","slug":"the-masters-of-narrative-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/the-masters-of-narrative-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"The Masters of Narrative Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, I\u2019ve become obsessed with the writ\u00aders of paper\u00adback noir\/crime\/sleaze nov\u00adels from the late 40s through the 60s.<\/p>\n

Hav\u00ading now read at least 100 of them (no small feat, con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00ading how dif\u00adfi\u00adcult they are to find), I can say with author\u00adi\u00adty that these guys knew bet\u00adter than any oth\u00ader authors of their time (and today, for the most part) how to hook the read\u00ader and keep him hooked.<\/p>\n

And yes, the cov\u00aders were eye-catch\u00ading, but as tit\u00adil\u00adlat\u00ading as they were, they weren\u2019t enough to keep men read\u00ading if the sto\u00adry sucked.<\/p>\n

This skill of keep\u00ading the read\u00ader read\u00ading is known as nar\u00adra\u00adtive dri\u00adve or, as Lar\u00adry Bein\u00adhart says on page two of this book<\/a>, it\u2019s \u201cthe promise\u2014or threat or tease or suggestion\u2014that some\u00adthing is going to hap\u00adpen<\/em>.\u201d Giv\u00aden the num\u00adber of titles that came out around this time, it\u2019s amaz\u00ading that these authors achieved such vari\u00adety with\u00adin a fair\u00adly com\u00admon frame\u00adwork.<\/p>\n

The gen\u00ader\u00adal plot struc\u00adture, which each author tweaked depend\u00ading on his style and the quirks of the sto\u00adry he want\u00aded to tell, was as fol\u00adlows:<\/p>\n

A com\u00adpe\u00adtent man, usu\u00adal\u00adly with a drink\u00ading prob\u00adlem, is either a stranger to town or stum\u00adbles into an unfa\u00admil\u00adiar sit\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion.<\/p>\n

Usu\u00adal\u00adly on page one, he meets a femme fatale<\/em>, a sexy and often younger temptress. The woman draws him into her web with a tale of how she is trapped by her cir\u00adcum\u00adstances, but with his help, they can kill the guy in the way (the over\u00adbear\u00ading hus\u00adband) and keep the loot (a bag of mon\u00adey, gold, or an insur\u00adance pol\u00adi\u00adcy like in DOUBLE INDEMNITY by James Cain).<\/p>\n

The two of them then engage in crazy ani\u00admal sex in every place imag\u00adin\u00adable. The man is now hooked on the woman and will do any\u00adthing she wants. He con\u00advinces him\u00adself that he\u2019ll be able to get the mon\u00adey and the girl, if he can only com\u00admit the mur\u00adder per\u00adfect\u00adly.<\/p>\n

Most of the time, though, the guy\u2019s drink\u00ading gets in the way, and there\u2019s always some annoy\u00ading twerp\/blackmailer that catch\u00ades on and comes in towards the end to foul things up, so they have to kill him\/her as well and screw it up.<\/p>\n

The temptress then dou\u00adble-cross\u00ades the com\u00adpe\u00adtent man who helped her and absconds with the mon\u00adey, some\u00adtimes killing the man her\u00adself.<\/p>\n

As I said before, that\u2019s the frame\u00adwork. There are dozens of vari\u00ada\u00adtions on this struc\u00adture. Mind you, I\u2019m not mak\u00ading fun of it; in fact, I\u2019m work\u00ading on a nov\u00adel of my own that fol\u00adlows a sim\u00adi\u00adlar struc\u00adture.<\/p>\n

What amazes me is this: even though I\u2019ve read dozens of these sto\u00adries and know how they\u2019ll end, every time I find myself hop\u00ading, and in some cas\u00ades believ\u00ading, the pair will get away with it\u2014that they\u2019ll have each oth\u00ader and the mon\u00adey and get away with killing the schmuck who usu\u00adal\u00adly deserves it.<\/p>\n

And every time, it ends bad\u00adly for them.<\/p>\n

The fact that I con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading when I know, every time, that it won\u2019t end well, is a tes\u00adta\u00adment to the skill of nar\u00adra\u00adtive dri\u00adve these authors pos\u00adsessed. I can\u2019t tell you how many nights I\u2019ve lain awake well up to 2 or 3am read\u00ading one of these sons of bitch\u00ades. Here are my favorite authors in this genre:<\/p>\n

1. Gil Brew\u00ader<\/a>
\n2. Charles Williams
\n3. Har\u00adry Whit\u00adting\u00adton
\n4. Jim Thomp\u00adson (his work went well into the 70s)
\n5. Hank Jan\u00adson<\/p>\n

And in case you were try\u00ading to think of a nice lit\u00adtle gift to buy me (friends & rel\u00ada\u00adtives, lis\u00adten up), I\u2019m look\u00ading for the fol\u00adlow\u00ading titles to add to my col\u00adlec\u00adtion:<\/p>\n

TALL, BLONDE AND EVIL by Greg Hamil\u00adton<\/p>\n

SNOW BUNNIES by Joan Ellis<\/p>\n

NAKED ON ROLLER SKATES by Maxwell Boden\u00adheim<\/p>\n

NUDE ON THIN ICE by Gil Brew\u00ader<\/p>\n

SATAN IS A WOMAN by Gil Brew\u00ader<\/p>\n

Now, if you\u2019ll excuse me, I have to get back to my nov\u00adel, in which a com\u00adpe\u00adtent stranger shows up and a sneaky vix\u00aden tricks him into killing her hus\u00adband\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, I\u2019ve become obsessed with the writ\u00aders of paper\u00adback noir\/crime\/sleaze nov\u00adels from the late 40s through the 60s. Hav\u00ading now read at\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}