and although it looks to be VERY good, there are just a lot of cliches in regard to the detective. Will there ever be a detective who is a regular church goer for instance?
What are some overused character traits found in the typical police or private detective. I will start with this one.
He is wrestling with a drinking problem. What else?
41 comments:
Private eye cliches:
He is probably divorced.
He has a violence-prone sidekick.
He's a natural wisecracker.
He takes a cynical view of the world.
He's a loner and is devastating to women. But he uses women, rather than really loving them.
He has a friend/informant on the local police force.
He has a head harder than Gibraltar and a constitution of unfathomable resilience.
He's unflustered by the violence and death he sees.
He's a he.
Unfair. J. Kingston Pierce named them all! Actually, the Drinking Problem that Patti mentioned is probably numero uno in the cliche arena.
He is angry.
Oh, and he is contemptuous of authority figures. And rules.
He lives in a dilapidated apartment, boat, mobile home.
Actually, you have to hand it to writers like Dashiell Hammett: no matter how much his protagonists drink, it's never characterized as a "problem."
Oh, for those good old days when Nick and Nora drank from dawn to dusk and still solved crimes.
He has impulsivity or anger management issues.
He has a contact on the local newspaper.
Remember newspapers?
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
He has a code which makes him a good guy even though he kills somebody on every other page.
His diet is terrible.
He has a really cool though old car.
And he either smokes incessantly or is trying unsuccessfully to stop.
J. Kingston Pierce got most of them.
How about: either he's still in love with his ex-wife, who is now married to a very rich, probably older man or his ex is a total harridan who bad mouths him to his kids and/or hounds him for alimony and/or child support.
Jeff M.
PS - Great meeting you for dinner yesterday, Patti. We had a great time. Glad you enjoyed the show.
Likewise, Jeff.
He can take a punch.
IS IT POSSIBLE THAT MOST OF THESE ARE JUST DESCRIPTIONS OF MOST MEN?
Shhh! Patti, that last is to close to home. We try to keep things like that quiet.
Since all women love men like this, it's just as well.
He listens to jazz.
And I read at least two submissions like this a week. The genre isn't tired but the lack of imagination on the writers is.
His marriage has collapsed, the wife walked out and took the cute little daughter with her.
Or more poignant: his wife died in childbirth
Not a single one of these feels off. Yikes.
Now that you mention it there is a certain sameness to most PIs. A regular church goer. I'm gonna have to write a story with such a PI.
Regarding PI novels ... "he (they) never want to take the case" ... (so why the f--k are they in the business?
How about this one? They tend to eat at the same diner or bar every night. The same waitress, old but still attractive, knows what they want and brings it.
Broke, or close to it.
Is it worth asking why they became cliches? Did some of these qualities embody some sort of larger fantasy that readers wanted in their lives?
The first things that popped into my head (and others appear to have gotten there first):
He's still carrying a torch for his ex. She pops up from time-to-time and there's at least one book where her life is in jeopardy (sometimes she dies; sometimes he's the one who finds her body).
He's an expert in some aspect of the arts (classical music, opera, poetry, Restoration drama, etc.).
His car has over 150,000 miles on it and never gets any standard maintenance, but he thinks nothing of jumping in it to drive 200 miles over deserted backroads to interview a suspect and never once does he have car trouble.
Although he's variously described as a schlub, a baldy, short, wrinkled, overweight, rumpled, drunk, and/or angry, the most attractive woman on the force (or the most attractive female suspect) will fall into bed with him on the slightest pretext. (I call this the "Beer Commercial Dynamic.")
I feel like I want to write a story about this guy, cliched or not, Deb.
He has been shot at least twice in the same shoulder and once in the leg, and suffered five concussions in the last quarter, but has no lingering ill effects and requires no rehab other than internal lavage with alcohol.
No matter how much violence and death he has seen, he's still capable of profound and immediate empathy with strangers, except when they are bad and need killing.
Invincible, yes. And drink will get you through a lot.
Men aren't like that. But they like to pretend they are like the Kool Kwalities, and can feel superior to the dumbass ones. Much as the women readers do.
Basically impotent (not so much sexually, despite the drinking, unless they are, and ED pills can help now), but capable of finding a way to unravel or at least lean on the racket, the big shots, the organization he (or she) is going up against.
GAH! How could I've missed this post? That said, I tried hard to shave away the cliche w/ my PI character, Charlie Byrne. And the tarppings and cliche mine field is one of the reasons I dropped him. Was Charlie cynical? Yes but who isn't?. Not divorced but orphaned, no cop friends, hapless slacker, likes to drink, likes to smoke weed, drives a dorky Camry and then a cargo van when the Camry gets trashed, eats well, kind of feels embarrassed by what he does, doesn't really care for right or wrong as long as he gets paid. Doesn't have a sidekick that dishes out the beatings, instead his sidekick (Stevie) cries at the sight of violence. Positively no freaking jazz. Okay, he has a one-eyed cat...*sigh* ....
Although how many of these traits to we demand as readers? That's the question. Would we be engaged with a church-going, married father of three, driving a mini van. I think not.
Although how many of these traits to we demand as readers? That's the question. Would we be engaged with a church-going, married father of three, driving a mini van. I think not.
A writer gifted enough could probably rise to that challenge. Well. except for the bit about the mini-van.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I think it would fly. It'd take a good writer to make such a paragon reasonable in the profession, but you do remind me of THE HUNTRESS tv series...which didn't last long enough.
All good points, and Jeff's initial list is excellent, but I wonder if some of his examples aren't cliches at all, but archetypes? The three that come to mind right away are wisecracking, cynical, and hard-headed. More than cliches, they're more along the lines of the natural character traits that would allow someone to handle the levels of violence and depravity fictional detective have to endure to get through a series. (Or even a single book, in some cases.)
While all of these have merit, I'm strongly with Peter on one point: no minivans.
I just read a novel that used a minivan to good effect in a chase scene. The protagonist wasn’t driving it, though.
And yeah, good question: When does an archetype become a cliche?
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
One last comment about regular Church attendance: in Susan Hill's series about Detective Simon Serailler, members of his family are church attendees. I can't remember if Simon is a believer, but in the last book I read, he appears to be falling in love with a female priest. These are British crime books, but I believe there's an American series too that involves a detective and a female priest. Perhaps someone else remembers those.
This is probably much too late (I've just arrived at your site via google), but I was wondering...what was the novel you were reading that had the one-eyed cat?
(I'm trying to find a detective novel that I'd read years ago that was, in my opinion, very good, and in which the protagonist had a one-eyed cat, but I no longer remember the author's name).
Thanks!
- Jeff
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