Some words of wisdom from Margaret Millar about her own writing, as well as collaborating with her husband, Kenneth Millar (aka Ross Macdonald)."I loved writing dialogue. He [Kenneth] used to like writing action. And I hate writing action. When somebody has to go someplace, I say: 'He went someplace.' That's the most action I want to write. Because to me, it's irrelevant. What's relevant are the words: the mood, and the words that are exchanged. Because you can be driving a Chrysler, or a Jeep -- who in hell cares? What matters is what you say when you get there!"
And:
"He's always been tactful. I'll show him something I've written and he'll say, 'This is marvelous, but it would work even better if you did thus-and-so.' Then I know I'm in for a major job of rewriting. He edits me with positives instead of negatives… I did teach him to write better dialogue, so that everybody didn't sound like him. In his first two books, all the characters talked like Ken! I don't even know anybody who talks like Ken. And I told him he had to listen... And we went around to a lot of places: pawn shops, low bars... And he realized how different people talk."
--Margaret Millar, from "Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar: Partners in Crime" by Tom Nolan, (Mystery Readers Journal, Vol. 17, No. 3, Fall 2001)
2 comments:
Love those quotes. I see they're from a magazine article. You want to read a terrific biography? Check out Tom Nolan's on Ross MacDonald. Reads like a suspense story, I'm not kidding. It's a page turner. Of course, you kinda need to like MacDonald's work to appreciate the man behind it all.
I think she may well be my favorite writer. Yes, the Nolan books is very good. And I adore Ross. But Margaret wrote a different kind of story-ones that showed more psychological depth.
Post a Comment