deepfishy

More from the resource horde: The Dark Room is a gorgeous multimedia exploration of key tropes in film noir. There's still a few pages under construction, but the rest is awesome and informative.

And of course no exploration of the hardboiled genre is complete without Raymond Chandler's excellent essay, The Simple Art of Murder. The last paragraph or so is the key (and memorable) section, but the whole essay is well worth a read. (What's interesting to me is how I can see reflections of Chandler's hero in early Anita Blake novels, and how my waning interest in the series can be charted by its exponential divergence from the model.)

Two very useful resources for writers who want to inflict life-trauma on their characters without falling back on cliche:

First, kaigou discusses the realities of life on the street, and the psychological effect it's likely to have on people real and fictional in "Dear [not just urban fantasy] author Part 1 and Part 2".

Second, rachelmanija talks about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, her experiences with it and ways it differs from typical depictions in fiction in "A User's Guide to PTSD": Part I: What I Did In The War. ("Introduction; background; what happens during trauma; what happened to me."); Part II: What Does A Flashback Feel Like? ("My history with PTSD, and what it felt like to me."); and Part III: I Don't Have To Do That Any More. ("On recovery; lingering effects; book, film, TV, and music recommendations.").

Both talk specifics, and are geared at dispelling unrealistic character reactions/responses to trauma. Writing gold dust.

Problem: There will be no power (NO POWER!) to the house tomorrow from 9am-3pm, and again on Thursday. This is because I am in Woop-Woop a charming rural area.

Solution: Use the free time to try outlining the NaNovel with Holly Lisle's notecard plotting system. Two days should be enough to quell the urge to procrastinate. Will have to lock away the unread books, though.

See? Enforced primitivism is good for you.

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