“A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.”
― Raymond Chandler
“The faster I write the better my output. If I’m going slow, I’m in trouble. It means I’m pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.”
― Raymond Chandler
These two quotes may seem as if Chandler was reversing himself, but writing can be a very incongruous process, especially when creating an historical fiction short story, which in itself presents an unusual myriad of contradictions. First of all it is fiction, but it must be told factually. It is a novel’s worth of story, but it must be told in fifty pages, or less. Characters must be well-defined, but with minimal description. Every page gets condensed to a few paragraphs, and every paragraph to a few sentences, but the net result must be coherent and enjoyable.
Episode 4 of Tales From The Storyboard, Al Jolson and the Jazz Joint, is admittedly taking a little longer than anticipated, but it is, nonetheless, coming along quite nicely. It is set in 1921 in New York City – The Jazz Era, Prohibition, The Harlem Renaissance. Some of the historical characters you’ll meet – Al Jolson (of course), Julius Marks (better known as Groucho Marx), Walter Winchell, Arnold Rothstein, Dutch Schultz, James P. Johnson (the father of stride piano), and many others.
I always make every effort to portray historical characters, and the time and place in which they lived, as factually as possible. This takes a lot of research. Once this is done, the story, as they say, practically writes itself and I am simply pulled along by it.
This is one of the most entertaining stories I’ve come up with. It will be available later this fall, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.
Tom
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