[Link] On Dames and Dark Cities

by Christa Faust

They called me a femme fatale in the media, back when that Jesse Black fiasco went down. Most people have no idea what it really means. Most people think it means badass with tits, but that’s not it at all. A real femme fatale is a villain, and I always thought of myself as a hero. At least I tried to be.

Turned out they were right.

That’s the opening of my new novel THE GET OFF. It’s the last in the Angel Dare series and represents the end of an era. For her and for me. Telling her story has been a significant and transformative part of my life for more than a decade. It’s the thing that defined me, the thing that I was and am the most proud of.

It’s also in the rearview mirror now. Which leaves me feeling a little bit melancholy but also very excited to see what kinda trouble I can get into next.

By some cosmic coincidence, the theme of this year’s Noir City Festival is “femmes who made Film Noir fatale.” It’s a dynamite lineup of flicks that highlight the genre’s top actresses, many of whom are also featured in the new, expanded edition of Dark City Dames by Eddie Muller.

Read the full article: https://buttondown.com/christafaust/archive/on-dames-and-dark-cities/

Blog Re-Run: Femme Fatales—An Obsession Dissected

 Here's the original blast from the past... The very first article that ran on this blog. Enjoy!

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 Like the hard-boiled hero, the femme fatale dates to classic myth. An example is Circe, who turned Odysseus' men into swine in Book X of The Odyssey and the Sirens, whose beauty and alluring song attracted his sailors in Book XII. … In the Middle Ages, Christianity refashioned this archetype as a devil, called the succubus. -- Characteristics of Hard-Boiled Fiction: The Femme Fatale (http://www.detnovel.com/FemmeFatale.html)

If you read my writing at all, you know I’m obsessed with writing femme fatales into my stories. In defense, giving the hero an equal and opposite makes for strong storytelling, but surely I could just give him a straight up villain for that role, right? Yes and no.

While a villain needs to be a fully realized character just as much as the hero, the femme fatales (at least to me) are something different, something special, the proverbial monkey wrench (though drenched in curves and slinky sex appeal) thrown into the machine. It’s her role to play Jiminy Cricket in a way, but more for the dark side, but not completely dark, but dark enough to fight dirty and to throw society’s conventions to the wind. She’s the little voice trying to seduce the hero to true independence from being pure good. She’s the test, at least in my mind, that reminds the hero that he (or she) has feet of clay and to never take that for granted.

A Few of My Favorite Femmes

Femme fatales abound in classic films, of course, and many of my favorite actresses played them at one point or another in their careers, such as Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Lizabeth Scott, Lauren Bacall, Gene Tierney, and Ann Savage, and some, such as Barbara Stanwyck all but made playing them their bread and butter roles.

But many of my favorites exist outside of classic noir films. In comics, particularly, Catwoman has to be the ultimate femme fatale, the temptation for Batman to dirty his cowl and cape by letting her go and subsequently trying to tame her time and time again. In many ways, Poison Ivy serves that role to, but with a darker shade of fatale than Selina. Many of today’s comic book heroes got their start that way, from Scarlet Witch to Black Widow.

In Christa Faust’s Money Shot, Angel Dare is in effect both the hero and the femme fatale as the same time.  Even classic fantasy has its share, including the women who oppose and test and support Thomas Covenant in his adventures written by Stephen Donaldson.

While she was most certainly on the side of right and good, even Emma Peel was clearly built (pun intended) on the model of the classic femme fatale, as if dressing up the heroine from the bad girl’s closet would engender the show to a greater demographic—which it did. Even Doctor Who got into the act with the addition of River Song, who is clearly the Doctor’s equal, and clearly less concerned about society’s moral impositions than the stodgy Doc. If anything, she’s a modern creation, the femme fatale with the heart of gold (somewhere underneath all the shooting and jail-breaking.

And modern films and TV are full of them too, including the Indiana Jones series, Decker’s obsession with Rachael in Blade Runner, Angel’s Drusilla, Darla, and later Illyria, and one of my favorites, Captain Mal’s “wife” of multiple names played by gorgeous Christina Hendrix.

What’s Fates Got To Do With It?

 No. That’s not a typo. It’s not fate, like destiny, but fates, like the three Greek mythic women. Just look at Hammetts’s The Maltese Falcon:

“There Sam Spade is attracted to three women, a motif that echoes the ancient Greek Fates, who tell men the future. He is involved in an adulterous affair with his partner's wife, Iva Archer. His secretary, Effie Perrine, is a tom-boyish, competent girl-next-door who would make the perfect spouse. Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the femme fatale, seems to promise sensuality and wealth, but Spade sees through her – and uses her when she thinks she is using him. The novel's end leaves Spade alienated from Effie, who is, ironically, mad that he rejected the "romance" of Brigid, while Iva knocks at the door. It is a grim morality play about making your bed and lying in it.” (http://www.detnovel.com/FemmeFatale.html)

I had forgotten about this at the time, but realize now it’s the same thing Bobby Nash and I did when we put together the story bible for The Ruby Files for publisher Airship 27. Our own 1930’s private gumshoe has his own trio of beauties to contend with—his good girl secretary who wants to save his soul, his bad girl interracial lover, and the socialite who wants to tie him down to marriage—not to mention the femmes he meets from story to story. I’m sure one smarter than I am could make an id, ego, and superego reference to those three female archetypes as well.

“Of the three types of noir women, the femme fatale represents the most direct attack on traditional womanhood and the nuclear family. She refuses to play the role of devoted wife and loving mother that mainstream society prescribes for women. She finds marriage to be confining, loveless, sexless, and dull, and she uses all of her cunning and sexual attractiveness to gain her independence. … She remains fiercely independent even when faced with her own destruction. And in spite of her inevitable death, she leaves behind the image of a strong, exciting, and unrepentant woman who defies the control of men and rejects the institution of the family.” (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html)

“Critics tend to classify the women of film noir into two categories identified by Janey Place: the "rejuvenating redeemer" or "good" woman and the "spider woman" or femme fatale. But noir films also feature a third type of female character, the "marrying type" — a woman who poses a threat to the hero by pressuring him to marry her and "settle down" into his traditional role as breadwinner, husband, and father.” (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html­)

I really like that term “spider woman” and not because it makes me think of a certain friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. To me it really defines the type of woman I’m addressing here—she spins a web and you will get caught in it if you get to close. And chances are, she will eat you up, whether literally or symbolically, before the tale has come to an end. 

Or as Marlene Dietrich sang in The Blue Angel in the song "Fallling in Love Again":

"Men cluster to me like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn, I know I'm not to blame"

She does her thing because it’s her thing to do. No one can tell her differently and no man can tame her.

In the majority of noir films, however, the femme fatale remains committed to her independence, seldom allowing herself to be converted by the hero or captured by the police. She refuses to be defined by the male hero or submit her sexuality to the male-dominated institution of the family; instead, she defines herself and resists all efforts by the hero to "put her in her place." (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html)

And just now, as I’m typing this post, it hits me that I’ve subconsciously done the same thing in my story “City of Relics” for the Blackthorn: Thunder on Mars sci-fi anthology for White Rocket Books. The bad girl, the one who falls in love and could settle down (if the difference in species would allow for it), and the companion good girl, all together again in a pulp space adventure. The fates reunited on Mars for another book tour, so to speak.

So you see how these archetypes just work their way into you as a writer and become sort of second nature. Good stories are good stories, and so many of them have their basis way back in the myths and legends of the ancient world, even for something as future-seeking as Martian sci-fi or as tied to the early 20^th Century American life as gritty pulp noir.

All well and good, of course, but the one who interests me is the bad girl with the heart of gold. She may ultimately fight on the side of right and good, but doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty or playing a game of “seduce the hero” while fighting the good fight.

Thank You, Barbara Stanwyck!

But really, you may say, all this is just a way to cover up the fact that you want to write sexy, violent women without people thinking you’re some kind of delinquent pervert.

Well, one thing I’ve learned is that people will think what they damn well please, and I try my best not to care what they think.

When I was writing the Gene Simmons Dominatrix comic book for IDW Publishing (of which I was thrilled to find Broken Frontiers called in a review “the pulpiest pulp on the stands”) I wrote a few pages of dialog between Dominique and her handler/client Doug that I think sums up my fascination with the femme fatale role and why I write them so frequently into everything from sci-fi to super-heroes to fantasy to action stories.

While Dom is threatening to throw Doug out of her house painfully, he blurts out the simple words, “Barbara Stanwyck.”

Dom replies: “What?”

Doug: “Barbara Stanwyck. She got me into this.”

Dom: "The woman from The Big Valley got you interested in conspiracies?"

Doug: "Doesn’t anyone under forty watch classic films anymore? Lady of Burlesque? Martha Ivers? Double Indemnity? Ringing any bells here? I watched her movies when I was a kid. I guess I sort of fell in love with strong women because of that."

Dom: "Fine, but don’t try to turn this into some kind of bad movie moment."

I was trying to explain Doug’s nature to readers at the time, but the more I go back and read the Dominatrix trade paperback, I find that I was inadvertently writing myself into the story at that point. It was Barbara Stanwyck who defined the role of the femme fatale for me, and I’ve been writing her into so much of what I create without even realizing it.

Even in her more dramatic (Meet John Doe) and comedic (The Lady Eve) roles, her characters were tough as nails and played by their own rules.

My Own Twist

I’ll admit it. I hated the movie Pretty Woman. I just can’t buy into the hooker with a heart of gold theme. Maybe it’s my fascination with noir. Everything should be dirty, tainted of original (and some new and unique) sin.

In spite of that, I do however love to write the femme fatale with the heart of gold—or at least with a heart of something slightly less valuable than gold. For me, the pinnacle of my fatale creations is Monique San Diablo (also called the “Saint Devil”), whom I created for my story “A Dance with the Devil” in Lance Star: Sky Ranger Volume 3. She plays both sides of the fence, freely admits to being a thief when it suits her, and a British agent when her special skills are needed On top of that, she’s more than willing to sully poor Lance’s reputation with his good girl Betty—if she can convince him to take her for a ride. She’ll do what it takes, but she’ll also do what she wants, all the while saving the day—when she feels like it.  

And there you have it.

Hi. My name is Sean, and I’m obsessed with writing femme fatales. But I didn’t spill my guts so I could quit like some 12-step program because… What’s that saying? … Oh yeah, 12-step programs are for quitters, and well, me and my femme fatales, we’re in it for the long haul.

So pipe down and back off, before they fill you full of lead, you big galoot.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And in case this post has gotten you interested, here’s a list of “The Greatest Femme Fatales in Noir Film”: http://www.filmsite.org/femmesfatales.html

THE STEREOTYPE WORE BLACK: AVOIDING THE CLICHES THAT STAIN YOUR PULP AND NOIR MYSTERIES

Sure, we all know that good pulp and Noir fiction (like any good genre fiction) is built on the recurring types of characters that inhabit the classic stories. But how do authors avoid complete stereotypes and cliches while being true to the tropes that are necessary for good pulp and Noir?
 
To find out, I went to a few hand-picked authors I really respect who handled their fiction deftly and with originality among the tropes.

Everyone knows of the hard-boiled loner. We've seen it too many times to count. What should writers avoid when crafting their protagonist for period piece detective fiction? What can they do to make more original and creative protagonists?

Derrick Ferguson: I don’t think writers have much of a problem coming up with original and creative protagonists for period piece detective fiction. At least not the ones I’ve read. I think it’s the readers of that particular genre (or any other for that matter) who don’t want the original and creative protagonists. I think the readers are expecting the Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe knock-off because that’s what they know and it’s as comfortable to slip into as those ten-year old jeans they won’t let their spouses throw out, no matter how ragged and holey they get.

And don’t get me wrong… I’m not playing the game of “I Blame The Reader Because I’m Not Outselling James Patterson.” I think Our Faithful Readers know exactly what they want, Odin bless ‘em. It’s just that a lot of the time they don’t know what they want until they see it. There’s a lot of satisfaction in reading about the hardboiled, hard-drinking, two fisted trenchcoated gumshoe who walks the mean streets alone. It’s what the fans of a genre know. It’s what they like. It’s what they want more of (how else to explain the subgenre of Tolkien-influenced fantasy that began back in the 1970s and is still going on to this day?)

But that’s not what you asked me. So what should writers avoid when crafting their protagonists? How about getting rid of the alcoholic ex-cop turned private dick still grieving over his marriage and ex-wife? This is one that infects not only period piece detective fiction but modern day detective fiction as well. How about a detective who is actually successful and makes money at his job? One of my favorite things about the “Chinatown” sequel “The Two Jakes” was seeing that Jake Gittes has prospered.

Tommy Hancock: When something is done over and over again, it usually becomes cliché. The trick that any creator runs into is how to do something that has been done in some form before, but to not have it seen as derivative, as cliché.  That’s a sticky wicket when the genre itself is founded on and even built continually around characteristics that are, in and of themselves, already cliché’d to the point of lampoon.  So, the question for me really is less what should be avoided and more about how writers handle the characters they are creating, and in a sense, copying, depending on the story and cliché in question.

It’s like the age old issue with eyewitnesses.  You can have ten people witness the same event, standing within inches of each other, all of them having almost the same visual experience play out before them. Then, interview them not three minutes after the event and you will get at least 8 different versions, if not 10, of what all of them just saw.

Writing in a genre replete with established archetypes and situations that sometimes have to be beats in every story of that type is similar.  The character is there, in front of us all. We see him, the hard boiled loner detective.  Yet, how we respond to him should be different for each one of us.  Our own experiences should impact how we write him. Also, interpretation, how we feel about aspects of his character will also impact that. We have to make a conscious decision NOT to cling to the cliché, but to fill the outline that provides with things of us, our differences and our nuances.  

After we do that, then we may even need to make a conscious effort to shave away some of the obvious edges of the expected.  If you’re guy keeps a bottle in the bottom left hand desk drawer of his desk only because every other private dick you’ve ever read does, then leave the drawer empty. Take that affectation away.  But, when/if you do, let taking it away impact the creation and execution of the character.  Don’t just have him not have a bottle, make it important, even if you don’t talk about it. Make the absence of the cliché’d aspects of characters work for you by them just being absent.

Ron Fortier: Before I get too far into this, let me say I’m not one of those writers who avoids clichés like the plague. There is a point in any genre that certain elements should always be present to validate the genre.  Making a 1930s detective an intellectual who is afraid of physical violence only to purposely go against iconic typing dooms one’s tale as a gimmick. End of story.  Embrace clichés…and then embellish them.  So your detective is tough as nails, a World War One weary vet who has seen life’s worst.  That’s the cliché place to start and from there add an ex-wife he still loves but couldn’t take his constant nightmares and ultimate drinking.  What if he was a police dick who lost an arm in the war and now, due to city regulations, can’t be on the force so he opens his own private agency.  Again, use your setting, research the times in which your protagonist exist and from it draw your inspiration to tweak those tried-and-true clichés into something new and intriguing.  Hmm, I just invented a character I may have to come back to one of these days.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: For period pieces, read history. Learn all the things they didn't have that we take for granted. OR all the things they did have that we no longer have or need. Americans love to learn but they hate being taught SO they like learning stuff in stories. If you can slip in a educational fun fact, their subconscious loves that and eats it up.

As for the loner, I like loners. I am a loner. It comes from a lifetime of moving around and never setting down roots. People who are still in my life after a year or so confuse me a little bit. I'm like, 'Are you still here? Why?" HOWEVER, loners are not always unhappy. I'm not unhappy, generally.  So, to answer your question, perhaps show introverts and solitary folks as happy people? Not alcoholic losers mourning some lost something?  Although, the doe eyed 16 year old girl in me loves those Byronic dipshits.

On second thought, forget it. You're never going to erase that kind of character. We love those dark eyed, haunted, gunslinger, cowboy, gumshoes. They fulfill an ID wish we all have to do what we want and fuck the consequences.


Bobby Nash: No matter what genre you write, there are going to be tropes that are overused and clichés waiting to leap out at your writing from all corners. In creating a protagonist, or the antagonist, for that matter, it all starts with character. Yes, we’ve all seen the hardboiled loner type character, but if I’m creating a character that needs to be a loner, the first question I ask is what can I, as the writer, bring to this character that is unique to me and my writing? Once I have that hook, I have a better insight into the character and can hopefully elevate him, her, or it above the cliché of that type of character. Knowing your character is key.

Let's talk villains and dames. Sexy struts and legs up to there. Gunmen with speech affectations. How can writers avoid the done to death cliches?

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Just don't don't them! Go outside. Watch real people. You want characters? Just go to the mall or Wal-mart, hang around there and watch people. Or, if you are really brave, talk to people. I'm one of those cursed bastards that has  face people feel comfortable spilling out their life stories to. It can get really uncomfortable sometimes but, DAMN...it is fodder crazy.

OR read history. I'm a huge fan of reading old newspapers and crime blogs.

As for sexy dames, i know it's hard to write female characters in a traditionally male genre that don't use their sexuality to push ahead. Most of the women in Jake Istenhegyi are evil or pawns. How cliche is that? I'm introducing a new female protagonist in Jake #4 (coming out in March, hopefully) that breaks the mold for that story even though she still doesn't pass the Bechdal test because she's there to save a guy.

Women are hard to write because we're crazy. My mind is racing and thinking on 15 levels, all the time.  And in a genre like pulp where it's basically action packed fun filled BOOMBOOMBOOM kind of writing, nobody has time for that shit.  This isn't the place for that. Go read Barbara Kingsolver.

Ron Fortier: How you are ever going to write a grim, noire detective yarn without an alluring, desirable, oh so sexy femme fatale is beyond me.  Femme Fatales are as much a part of classic pulp mysteries as “the butler did it.”  And I would personally find any such story or book lacking even one hot tomato, boring as all get out. Whereas I think you can take the basic premise of a beautiful woman who bewitches your hero and find new ways to add new and original spice to the mix.  Try an angle where, after being jaded by so many men, this leggy broad suddenly finds herself actually falling for the detective thus complicating the mystery.  Falling in love with the killer can do wonders to any plot, look at the recipe whipped up in the Maltese Falcon.  Then again, there’s nothing wrong with having the female lead a war widow raising a rebellions teenage daughter, or a down and out waitress looking for some sunshine in a rainy world.  One of my own ploys in writing the opposite sex has been to imbue these women with traits I’ve found in the women in my own life, past and present.  Even if she’s drop dead gorgeous, a writer needs to humanize his little sexpot or else risk writing a caricature with no real impact on the story at all.

As for Bozo tough guys, I personally love writing their dialogue.  For the most part, gunmen are generally school dropout bullies and the fact that they come in cookie cutter dozens is a real hurdle to overcome.  My favorite detective writer of all time, Ed McBain, often overcame this stereotype by injecting ridiculous, silly humor in his characterization of the tough-guy henchmen. Their dialogue rang with personal bits of idiosyncrasies that in the end made each stand out from the crowd as a truly unique, one of a kind character. Taken to cinematic life when Quentin Tarentino had two dumb gunmen talking foreign Big Macs in Pulp Fiction.  Again, villains should be allowed to come in all shapes and sizes… and pedigree.

Tommy Hancock: It’s pretty simple. Don’t do them.  Or, if you absolutely have to have the albino assassin or the dragon lady, then inform them with different information and characteristics than what the cliché’ offers.  Characters in themselves are not the cliché’, but it’s their attributes, their characteristics that often are, or even their back stories. Make why the albino became an assassin different than all the other albino assassins before him… or her, there’s a difference.  Don’t worry over the character being cliché’d.   Because, you do that, and eventually you realize every character type has been represented and you can’t write anything if you’re afraid of cliché’ because in essence, any character type could be considered such, depending on who you ask.

Bobby Nash: My rule of thumb is if it makes me cringe when I write it then it needs to go. Cliches exist and it is so easy to fall into them. If I write something cliché, I can generally tell because it doesn’t feel quite right. Just like with the protagonist, your villain and the sexy dames and femme fatales that make up this world have to feel like real characters. If I can make them real to me then they should, hopefully, feel real to the readers.

Derrick Ferguson: See, here’s where I scratch my head when it comes to clichés. Say you write a western. Okay, you’ve got horses and six guns and Indian attacks and schoolmarms. Now is it fair when somebody reads your western and accuses your work of being cliché ridden? When you read in a certain genre, shouldn’t you expect certain tropes of that genre to make an appearance?

I’m reminded of a frequent argument I have with friends of mine who detest the character of Willie Scott in “Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom” simply because she wasn’t the two-fisted, hard-drinking Marion Ravenwood. My counter argument was this; hasn’t the heroine who is just as competent as the hero become itself something of a cliché by now? I mean, every woman you meet isn’t going to be Marion Ravenwood. Some of ‘em (perhaps more than you would like) are going to be Willie Scott.

But again, that’s not what you asked me. So here’s my short answer: Read as widely and as much as you can. I know a depressing amount of writers who tell me that they don’t read as they don’t want to be influenced by other writers. Okay, I can dig it. But then I read their work and find that all they’re doing is regurgitating plots that were old when Raymond Chandler was in diapers. They only way to avoid cliché is do become a sponge and absorb everything you can from books, TV, comics, movies, discussions with your barber, drug dealer, local alligator hunter and girlfriend/boyfriend/wife and let it marinate in your subconscious. You stay locked into your narrow view of what a genre can or should be and all you’ll do is repeat what’s been done over and over and over again.

Now for the clincher... Heroes solve mysteries. Heroes get the bad guy, if not the girl too. But how does a writer balance the expectations of the genre with managing to work off a checklist of "seen it all before" story beats?
Bobby Nash: As with the character, I ask how can I tell this story. That’s really where the biggest changes will happen. You can give ten writers the exact same plot/scenario and let them write it and you will get ten different stories in return. Some of them might share some of the same beats, but it’s a good bet that many of them will veer off in unexpected and quite unsuspecting ways. The uniqueness of each writer can bring a bit of that uniqueness to the story he or she is writing. That’s how clichés get turned on their head or turns left when everyone assumed the story would turn right. That’s where the magic that is writing happens, at least for me.

Ron Fortier: Again, I’m old fashioned in that I do think a “hero” should win out in the end. But how he does that can take so many different roads, even to the point of dying to bring a villain to justice.  The point of any such victory is how much the hero had to overcome to achieve that victory and the more challenges you can put to him, the more satisfying the conclusion…to the point you don’t make him a superman.  There should always be that vulnerability and infallibility.  Example, say your detective brought in the wrong man and he is tried and executed.  Years later, evidence resurfaces that proves the man’s innocent and now the flawed detective, knowing he caused the wrong man to lose his life, becomes obsessed with finding the real killer.  Another element to a good mystery is being sure to pepper one’s tale with lots of red herrings to divert your hero until the very end, when he finally puts the clues together in the proper sequence and uncovers the culprit. Playing fair is essential as well, making sure your readers are given the same clues you provide your hero.  No cheating allowed.  In the end, characterization is everything to me in any detective tale.  I would argue that after you’ve met Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade or Nero Wolfe several times, you soon begin to enjoy the stories because of them…and the mysteries almost become secondary to one’s enjoyment of the read.  Now that’s great writing.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: I can speak for me but...I don't have a checklist. For me, writing is a bit holistic. I start with an idea and I let it unfold. I try not to get in the way of the story. Whiskey helps with that.  The first draft is always a big pile of mush but from that clay I am able to sculpt a cool story. Hopefully. If I don't fuck it up.

SO, if you want my advice for not writing cliche pieces of shit.....write it. And then once you have the huge steaming pile in front of you, THEN you can get to work. Dig out the boring bits and chuck them into the bin. See something cliche? Spin that bitch into something new. You can't work in a vacuum.

Don't worry so much. Write the goddamn story and polish it until it sparkles.

Derrick Ferguson: I don’t know any other way to write a story other than to write it the way that I want to write it and then present it to the Readers At Large and let them make up their mind about what I wrote. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a very original or innovative writer. I also admit that I don’t spend a lot of time burning up my brain cells trying to figure out ways to be original or innovative. I’ve got friends who desperately want to write. Have wanted to write for years. But they haven’t because they refuse to write anything that’s isn’t “totally and completely original.”

So let’s be honest here: unless you’re a literary genius (And hey, you may be. What do I know?) The chances of you telling a completely original and unique story are very slim. But by no means should that stop you from doing so. But what I am saying is don’t let that stand in your way of having fun telling the most entertaining stories that you can tell until that Thunderbolt of Zeus crashes into your brain and that literary masterpiece comes flowing out of you to amaze the world. You keep on writing. It’ll happen.

Excuse me…what was the question again? 

Tommy Hancock: By not worrying about it. If your hero doesn’t have his/her own story to tell, then you might as well not even write the piece.  Even those of us who write homages and pastiches of characters we love usually without effort make our version different, at least the good ones who do it, anyway.  But if your focus is being overly concerned about making sure that your hero either meets all the requirements established in the genre by previous heroes OR that your hero meets none of those requirements, then you’re wasting a lot of time that you should be using just to tell the best damn possible story you can.

Nugget #71 -- Monkey Wrenches and Jazz Rhythm

 

For my money, I prefer the monkey wrench a femme fatale 

brings into the world of the crime story. She’s the literary 

change in time signature to shift the jazz of the tale from 

Benny Goodman to Miles Davis. Either one is good, and 

really good, but one has that something special that 

 makes it a lot spicier to the ears.

Vixens Make the Pulp Go ‘Round

By Sean Taylor

Even though Scooby Doo wasn’t a pulp tale, I still blame Daphne Blake.

I do. That poor, danger-prone mystery solver turned young me on to the joy that is the redhead. Now, that in itself is innocuous enough, but then you must take into account all the vixen redheads that make up the crime movies and the pulp stories.

It’s simply math. A + B = C.

A. The brunettes are the girl next door who chase the hero or wait patiently for him to return.

B. The curvy blondes are the slinky lounge singers the hero chases and who tosses all those classy double entendres at him.

C. That leaves the red heads and the truly raven-haired beauties to play the part of Lilith—the femme fatale who, if not outright gunning for our hero, seeks to coax him (often through sex or the promise of it) to the dark side.

Yes, I know I’m oversimplifying and resorting to the worst, broadest stereotypes, but bear in mind I was still a kid. I didn’t know that women heroes could dye their hair to be any shade. I didn’t know that heroes could come in both genders yet. My world wasn’t ready for that kind of thinking yet. Yes, I’m THAT old.

So, because I liked the redheads (a fact that neither Josie nor that thief from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon did anything to dissuade), I had no choice but to fall in love with the bad girls. The vixens. The femme fatales. The ones who only led to trouble. Not Eve. Hell, probably not even Lilith now that I think about it. I fell in love with the serpent.

Continue reading at: https://hcplaya.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/writers-ramble-vixens-make-the-pulp-go-round/

Nugget #68 -- You Known Vixen...

To me, you just about can’t write

pulp stories without a vixen getting

in the way of the hero’s quest.

Whether she’s a client and he’s a

P.I., or he’s a soldier and she’s a spy,

or he’s a copper and she’s a gun

moll, she just has to be there to

divert his eyes and tempt him to

the dark side, at least a little.

Nuggets #31 -- The Jazz of a Femme Fatale

For my money, I prefer, the monkey wrench that a femme fatale brings into the world of the crime story. She’s the literary change in time signature to shift the jazz of the tale from Benny Goodman to Miles Davis. Either one is good, and really good, but one has that something special that makes it a lot spicier to the ears.

PARTNERS IN NEW PULP AND GENRE FICTION -- PRO SE PRODUCTIONS AND THE PULP PROJECT

Known as a cutting edge publisher of New Pulp and Genre Fiction, Pro Se Productions, continually looking to expand the variety of its catalog and bring the best packaging possible to the books it publishes, announces a new partnership with The Pulp Project.

The Pulp Project is a collaboration of Colorado’s most talented photographers, models, artists, and designers, coming together to create Pulp inspired photography in the studio and on location. Headed by Austin Welch, The Pulp Project has produced and plans to continue to create images definitely inspired by both the medium of Pulp Fiction as well as the style of Pulp, which long outlived the original magazine format.

The association of Pro Se and The Pulp Project means that Pro Se Productions will be utilizing images produced by The Pulp Project as covers for appropriate books and collections as well as Pro Se Single Shot digital singles and Single Shot Signature series. When a Pro Se work requires a cover and a Pulp Project image matches said story or book, then Pro Se will utilize the image as a cover. Also, plans are in the works for covers to be designed and created by The Pulp Project for specific Pro Se works. Thirdly, collections and/or complete novels will, in the future, be built around Pulp Project existing photographs.

“One of the best parts,” says Tommy Hancock, Pro Se Editor in Chief and Partner in the company, “of being a part of Pro Se Productions is when neat things like this happen. We’ve always known our interest in Pulp and Genre Fiction was shared by many, that others have the same passion we do. When we find those people, those groups who are expressing that in their own way, in a fashion that not only we can utilize, but where there can be mutual benefit, it’s almost an innate action to see how the two entities can work together. The Pulp Project is an exciting prospect, something that I wish we saw more of in this field. The bringing together of models/actors, photographers, cinematographers, and more to produce a singular image that is a story all by itself. To have the opportunity to put these works of modern Pulp art on Pro Se books, it’s really one of the reasons I enjoy doing what I do.”

The first image from The Pulp Project to be used for a Pro Se Productions title will act as the cover for author Sean Taylor’s upcoming Single Shot Signature Series Spy Candy. It will be featured on the digital singles as well as the print collection produced when the series ends.

For more information concerning this press release or interviews with those involved, contact Morgan McKay, Pro Se’s Director of Corporate Operations, at directorofcorporateoperations@prose-press.com.

To learn more about The Pulp Project, go to https://www.facebook.com/thepulpproject.

For more information on Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions.

Femme Fatales (Repeated)

Because anything worth saying is worth repeating, here's a post from early in the blog's history, reposted for your reading pleasure. 

Like the hard-boiled hero, the femme fatale dates to classic myth. An example is Circe, who turned Odysseus' men into swine in Book X of The Odyssey and the Sirens, whose beauty and alluring song attracted his sailors in Book XII. … In the Middle Ages, Christianity refashioned this archetype as a devil, called the succubus. -- Characteristics of Hard-Boiled Fiction: The Femme Fatale (http://www.detnovel.com/FemmeFatale.html)

If you read my writing at all, you know I’m obsessed with writing femme fatales into my stories. In defense, giving the hero an equal and opposite makes for strong storytelling, but surely I could just give him a straight up villain for that role, right? Yes and no.

While a villain needs to be a fully realized character just as much as the hero, the femme fatales (at least to me) are something different, something special, the proverbial monkey wrench (though drenched in curves and slinky sex appeal) thrown into the machine. It’s her role to play Jiminy Cricket in a way, but more for the dark side, but not completely dark, but dark enough to fight dirty and to throw society’s conventions to the wind. She’s the little voice trying to seduce the hero to true independence from being pure good. She’s the test, at least in my mind, that reminds the hero that he (or she) has feet of clay and to never take that for granted.

A Few of My Favorite Femmes

Femme fatales abound in classic films, of course, and many of my favorite actresses played them at one point or another in their careers, such as Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Lizabeth Scott, Lauren Bacall, Gene Tierney, and Ann Savage, and some, such as Barbara Stanwyck all but made playing them their bread and butter roles.

But many of my favorites exist outside of classic noir films. In comics, particularly, Catwoman has to be the ultimate femme fatale, the temptation for Batman to dirty his cowl and cape by letting her go and subsequently trying to tame her time and time again. In many ways, Poison Ivy serves that role to, but with a darker shade of fatale than Selina. Many of today’s comic book heroes got their start that way, from Scarlet Witch to Black Widow.

In Christa Faust’s Money Shot, Angel Dare is in effect both the hero and the femme fatale as the same time.  Even classic fantasy has its share, including the women who oppose and test and support Thomas Covenant in his adventures written by Stephen Donaldson.

While she was most certainly on the side of right and good, even Emma Peel was clearly built (pun intended) on the model of the classic femme fatale, as if dressing up the heroine from the bad girl’s closet would engender the show to a greater demographic—which it did. Even Doctor Who got into the act with the addition of River Song, who is clearly the Doctor’s equal, and clearly less concerned about society’s moral impositions than the stodgy Doc. If anything, she’s a modern creation, the femme fatale with the heart of gold (somewhere underneath all the shooting and jail-breaking.

And modern films and TV are full of them too, including the Indiana Jones series, Decker’s obsession with Rachael in Blade Runner, Angel’s Drusilla, Darla, and later Illyria, and one of my favorites, Captain Mal’s “wife” of multiple names played by gorgeous Christina Hendrix.

What’s Fates Got To Do With It?

No. That’s not a typo. It’s not fate, like destiny, but fates, like the three Greek mythic women. Just look at Hammetts’s The Maltese Falcon:

“There Sam Spade is attracted to three women, a motif that echoes the ancient Greek Fates, who tell men the future. He is involved in an adulterous affair with his partner's wife, Iva Archer. His secretary, Effie Perrine, is a tom-boyish, competent girl-next-door who would make the perfect spouse. Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the femme fatale, seems to promise sensuality and wealth, but Spade sees through her – and uses her when she thinks she is using him. The novel's end leaves Spade alienated from Effie, who is, ironically, mad that he rejected the "romance" of Brigid, while Iva knocks at the door. It is a grim morality play about making your bed and lying in it.” (http://www.detnovel.com/FemmeFatale.html)

I had forgotten about this at the time, but realize now it’s the same thing Bobby Nash and I did when we put together the story bible for The Ruby Files for publisher Airship 27. Our own 1930’s private gumshoe has his own trio of beauties to contend with—his good girl secretary who wants to save his soul, his bad girl interracial lover, and the socialite who wants to tie him down to marriage—not to mention the femmes he meets from story to story. I’m sure one smarter than I am could make an id, ego, and superego reference to those three female archetypes as well.

“Of the three types of noir women, the femme fatale represents the most direct attack on traditional womanhood and the nuclear family. She refuses to play the role of devoted wife and loving mother that mainstream society prescribes for women. She finds marriage to be confining, loveless, sexless, and dull, and she uses all of her cunning and sexual attractiveness to gain her independence. … She remains fiercely independent even when faced with her own destruction. And in spite of her inevitable death, she leaves behind the image of a strong, exciting, and unrepentant woman who defies the control of men and rejects the institution of the family.” (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html)

“Critics tend to classify the women of film noir into two categories identified by Janey Place: the "rejuvenating redeemer" or "good" woman and the "spider woman" or femme fatale. But noir films also feature a third type of female character, the "marrying type" — a woman who poses a threat to the hero by pressuring him to marry her and "settle down" into his traditional role as breadwinner, husband, and father.” (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html­)

I really like that term “spider woman” and not because it makes me think of a certain friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. To me it really defines the type of woman I’m addressing here—she spins a web and you will get caught in it if you get to close. And chances are, she will eat you up, whether literally or symbolically, before the tale has come to an end. 

Or as Marlene Dietrich sang in The Blue Angel in the song "Fallling in Love Again":

"Men cluster to me like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn, I know I'm not to blame"

She does her thing because it’s her thing to do. No one can tell her differently and no man can tame her.

In the majority of noir films, however, the femme fatale remains committed to her independence, seldom allowing herself to be converted by the hero or captured by the police. She refuses to be defined by the male hero or submit her sexuality to the male-dominated institution of the family; instead, she defines herself and resists all efforts by the hero to "put her in her place." (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html)

And just now, as I’m typing this post, it hits me that I’ve subconsciously done the same thing in my story “City of Relics” for the Blackthorn: Thunder on Mars sci-fi anthology for White Rocket Books. The bad girl, the one who falls in love and could settle down (if the difference in species would allow for it), and the companion good girl, all together again in a pulp space adventure. The fates reunited on Mars for another book tour, so to speak.

So you see how these archetypes just work their way into you as a writer and become sort of second nature. Good stories are good stories, and so many of them have their basis way back in the myths and legends of the ancient world, even for something as future-seeking as Martian sci-fi or as tied to the early 20^th Century American life as gritty pulp noir.

All well and good, of course, but the one who interests me is the bad girl with the heart of gold. She may ultimately fight on the side of right and good, but doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty or playing a game of “seduce the hero” while fighting the good fight.

Thank You, Barbara Stanwyck!

But really, you may say, all this is just a way to cover up the fact that you want to write sexy, violent women without people thinking you’re some kind of delinquent pervert.

Well, one thing I’ve learned is that people will think what they damn well please, and I try my best not to care what they think.

When I was writing the Gene Simmons Dominatrix comic book for IDW Publishing (of which I was thrilled to find Broken Frontiers called in a review “the pulpiest pulp on the stands”) I wrote a few pages of dialog between Dominique and her handler/client Doug that I think sums up my fascination with the femme fatale role and why I write them so frequently into everything from sci-fi to super-heroes to fantasy to action stories.

While Dom is threatening to throw Doug out of her house painfully, he blurts out the simple words, “Barbara Stanwyck.”

Dom replies: “What?”

Doug: “Barbara Stanwyck. She got me into this.”

Dom: "The woman from The Big Valley got you interested in conspiracies?"

Doug: "Doesn’t anyone under forty watch classic films anymore? Lady of Burlesque? Martha Ivers? Double Indemnity? Ringing any bells here? I watched her movies when I was a kid. I guess I sort of fell in love with strong women because of that."

Dom: "Fine, but don’t try to turn this into some kind of bad movie moment."

I was trying to explain Doug’s nature to readers at the time, but the more I go back and read the Dominatrix trade paperback, I find that I was inadvertently writing myself into the story at that point. It was Barbara Stanwyck who defined the role of the femme fatale for me, and I’ve been writing her into so much of what I create without even realizing it.

Even in her more dramatic (Meet John Doe) and comedic (The Lady Eve) roles, her characters were tough as nails and played by their own rules.

My Own Twist

I’ll admit it. I hated the movie Pretty Woman. I just can’t buy into the hooker with a heart of gold theme. Maybe it’s my fascination with noir. Everything should be dirty, tainted of original (and some new and unique) sin.

In spite of that, I do however love to write the femme fatale with the heart of gold—or at least with a heart of something slightly less valuable than gold. For me, the pinnacle of my fatale creations is Monique San Diablo (also called the “Saint Devil”), whom I created for my story “A Dance with the Devil” in Lance Star: Sky Ranger Volume 3. She plays both sides of the fence, freely admits to being a thief when it suits her, and a British agent when her special skills are needed On top of that, she’s more than willing to sully poor Lance’s reputation with his good girl Betty—if she can convince him to take her for a ride. She’ll do what it takes, but she’ll also do what she wants, all the while saving the day—when she feels like it.  

And there you have it.

Hi. My name is Sean, and I’m obsessed with writing femme fatales. But I didn’t spill my guts so I could quit like some 12-step program because… What’s that saying? … Oh yeah, 12-step programs are for quitters, and well, me and my femme fatales, we’re in it for the long haul.

So pipe down and back off, before they fill you full of lead, you big galoot.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And in case this post has gotten you interested, here’s a list of “The Greatest Femme Fatales in Noir Film”: http://www.filmsite.org/femmesfatales.html

[Link] Badass Women of the Pulp Era

by Jess Nevins

The pulps of the world were full of tough men. The iconic pulp characters — the Shadow, Doc Savage, Tarzan — are all men, and the common perception of the pulps is that they were written by male writers, about male characters, for male readers.

However, the pulps were more progressive than mainstream fiction (and film and comic strips, etc.) in a number of respects, including and especially the number of formidable female characters who appeared in them. Even excluding those characters whose writers forced them into marriage and respectability, the list of Women Badder Than You is long. Here are 14 of the most badass fictional women to appear during the pulp era. Excluded are the best-known female badasses: Isaac Asimov's Susan Calvin, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry, John Russell Fearn's Golden Amazon, and Lester Dent's Pat Savage. You already know them. Here are some you don't - but you should.

Continue reading: http://io9.com/5802941/badass-women-of-the-pulp-era

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#193) -- Female Protagonists

What's with your preference for writing female protagonists? 

The Fool, from Show Me A Hero.

Let's face it, women are far more interesting than us men. It's just truth that we need to accept. Both genders of characters have their stereotypes to break out of, but both also have so much fun to be had while playing fast and loose with those stereotypes.

Part of it, I think, stems from that fact then when I was a beginning writer, I couldn't write the female voice at all, well, not without sucking bigtime anyway. The only clues I could provide that a character was female were the physical ones, such as references to wearing a bra or pantyhose.

Whoa. So talented!  I know. (Yes, that's sarcasm.)

So I drove myself hard to learn to write the female voice. If I'm going to be a real writer, I figured, I needed to learn to write anyone's voice, red or yellow, black or white, man or woman, boy or girl or two-headed Beeezlesnord from Planet X (they are precious in his sight). Anyone.

The best compliment I ever received as a writer came from a fan who wrote me an email fan letter during my time on staff with Cyber Age Adventures magazine. She told me how wonderful it was to have another woman writing kick-ass super hero fiction. I felt bad to have to tell her (so far as apologizing for it) that I wasn't a female. Still, what a powerful compliment!

Female characters to me have so many more depths to explore. Perhaps that's just because I'm a man, and to a female writer, writing male characters would be the same. I don't know. But for me, that's how it goes.

Part Two of My Interview with Amber Unmasked Is LIVE!

 

Part 2: The Femme Fatale Continues

16-DEC-2011 My interview with pulp writer SEAN H. TAYLOR continues as we dive into the hypnotic lure of the femme fatale in literature, television, and cinema. Don’t forget to go back and read Part 1.

Today’s media faces an uprising of women (and for that matter men who look at women) that feel the body sizes we’re shown are unattainable; they are fantasy fodder being a detriment to anyone who looks at bony size 0 skeletons when the average woman has meat on her. The femme fatale is usually described as “curvy.”  She’s seductive, sexy and has a wiggle when she walks. I asked Taylor if this discrepancy makes the literary femme fatale more accessible or relatable. He replied, “I really don’t [see] this as an issue here (unlike in drawn works like comic books), if only because so many of them became standard fair in noir films and thrillers. Is Lauren Bacall attainable? Well, Lauren Bacall sure seemed to attain her. The same goes for Ann Savage, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Lizabeth Scott, Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Tierney, and numerous others. Some much of the idealized femme fatale is based on actual women that I think it cuts that argument off at the knees (and then locks it in trunk and drives it to the quarry to bury it in cement).” ...

For the full interview, go here: http://www.amberunmasked.com/part-2-the-femme-fatale-continues/