"I write for the .. strange lingering love of a world wherein men may think in cool subtleties
and talk in the language of almost forgotten cultures."
- Raymond Chandler
and talk in the language of almost forgotten cultures."
- Raymond Chandler
May 5, 1939
To: Erle Stanley Gardner
...I made an extremely extremely detailed synopsis of your story and from that rewrote it and then compared what I had with yours, and then went back and rewrote it some more, and so on...
...Incidentally I found out that the trickiest part of your technique was the ability to put over situations which verged on the implausible but which in the reading seemed quite real. I hope you understand that I mean this as a compliment. I have never come even near to doing it myself. Dumas had this quality in a very strong degree. Also Dickens. It's probably the fundamental of all rapid work, because naturally rapid work has a large element of improvisation, and to make an improvised scene seem inevitable is quite a trick. At least I think so.
And here I am at 2:30am writing about technique, in spite of a strong conviction that the moment a man begins to talk about technique that's proof that he is fresh out of ideas.
Raymond Chandler
To: Erle Stanley Gardner
...I made an extremely extremely detailed synopsis of your story and from that rewrote it and then compared what I had with yours, and then went back and rewrote it some more, and so on...
...Incidentally I found out that the trickiest part of your technique was the ability to put over situations which verged on the implausible but which in the reading seemed quite real. I hope you understand that I mean this as a compliment. I have never come even near to doing it myself. Dumas had this quality in a very strong degree. Also Dickens. It's probably the fundamental of all rapid work, because naturally rapid work has a large element of improvisation, and to make an improvised scene seem inevitable is quite a trick. At least I think so.
And here I am at 2:30am writing about technique, in spite of a strong conviction that the moment a man begins to talk about technique that's proof that he is fresh out of ideas.
Raymond Chandler