clues at the scene

clues at the scene

Saturday, January 24, 2015

The Happy Character

At left, my favorite clown: Enrico Caruso as Pagliacci.

Now, Caruso sung so long ago that recording technology barely allowed us to capture his voice. I'm fortunate to have some 78's of his arias. In the summer, under the trees, on the Victrola, echoing.

When I die, my thoughts will be of such evenings I've enjoyed. Oh, and trout fishing, of course.

Happy people.

I clean up problems for a living. I've too much the dour Scot in my blood.

I'm considering the unhappy protagonist: the fellow we put in crisis. Often the protagonist doesn't seem happy in our crime writing. Most of time, a body count has something to do with that unhappiness.

Pepper sweetens the soup.

We've got plenty of pepper in the protagonist's problems. Do we really need the dour Wallander clone? Again?

I'm going to try and write my rural noir protagonist with something other than an introspective depressed personality. I'm trying to think of happy noir.

I'm trying to envision a hard world populated by hard-edged characters who are happy and content in their surroundings.

I could use an example. Marlowe always seems reasonably happy to me.

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