IfI’m honest with myself, the inspiration for Novel Noir came from an incredible amount of different source material that I synthesized into one coherent unit.
I…
- Took photos.
- Read nonfiction books.
- Watched black-and-white movies galore.
- Did some historical research.
- Took a lot of notes.
I could feel it.
A little steam was escaping, occasionally, and there was a lot of red-hot magma churning around inside me.
And yet, I was overwhelmed.
I really couldn’t find a way to coordinate it all into one central plot.
1. Dealing with Creative Stalling.
But then, some synergy arrived.
And good timing.
At that time, my wife and I had never been on a cruise.
But we had booked an inexpensive Caribbean Cruise, and in the smail-mail, I received all the information about the ship.
- A map of every room and area.
- How the bedrooms worked.
- The physical size of everything.
- Details about the sip and its history.
- And an enormous amount of detail about the upcoming cruise.
That was when everything sort of snapped together.
2. Inspiration for Novel Noir Finally Arrives.
I researched color-blindness.
But it wouldn’t work.
With color blindness, you can still see some color.
Hmn.
So, we went on the cruise.
On pure faith, I took photos of anything I thought might fit the plot that I now had in mind.
When we got back, I had all the photos I needed to motivate me to start a novel.
All I had to do was Photoshop them into black-and-white.
And the color-blindness research took me to an even more rare eye disease.
Achromatopsia.
Achromatopsia is a rare, bilateral inherited retinal degeneration affecting all three types of cone photoreceptor cells that results in reduced visual acuity, photophobia, hemeralopia, and severe loss of color discrimination.
Yeah, I know.
Me, too.
Very achademic.
And boring.
But within that boredom, there was a secret door to create a main character who could only see things in black-and-white.
Which took me deeper into the central character.
I watched maybe the best noir movie ever– Double Indemnity.
I locked in on the then-popular Sharon Stone, and studied her characterization in the movies Diabolique, Sliver, and, of course, Basic Instinct.
Hey. While you’re here, at FaulknerFiction, why not check out some Behind-the-Scenes Videos?
3. The Synergy.
Sometimes, inspiration is the synergy that comes about from the combination of a lot of different ingredients!
Here are some of the additional source materials that went into researching Novel Noir:
Novels by James Cain | Books on Editing Film |
Novels by Raymond Carver | Internet research on eye diseases |
Lots of B&W movies from the 1940s | Internet research on Plastic Surgery |
Non-fiction about the directors of these movies | Internet research on Marilyn Manson |
Photos and information from the Cruise | Restaurant photos and research in downtown Raleigh, NC |
History of Weimar Germany | Character studies |
4. The Deeper Research
To this day, I still have an entire box of books, character sketches, notes, images, outlines, and rough-drafts.
But before each rough draft, I reviewed my black-and-white photos.
I’ve read about other fiction writers doing similar things. I remember reading about Anne Rice having an image of the vampire Lestat near where she worked. Years ago, I remember how astounding this discovery was. I assumed I was the only one.
But, of course, you never are.
Still, in spite of all this research, I think a great way to give you a vibe similar to the things that led to the inspiration for Novel Noir might be to share a sampling of some of my photos (click to see a larger image):
*Header Photo by Lewis Faulkner at Faulknerfiction.com
Let’s Recap:
Are you intrigued?
Are you reading Novel Noir, right now?
Do you have questions about what’s going on in the novel?– this might be a great opportunity to leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post! Other people might have the same question.
Go Even Deeper at FaulknerFiction
- Watch a short video about Novel Noir.
- Find out more about Novel Noir.
- Buy Novel Noir on Amazon
OK, So What Do I Do Now?
Well, let’s see. You’re Artistic. Brilliant. Creative. Maybe even more. Don’t pretend like you don’t have something to say. Come on. Share it with the rest of us in the comments below.
Lewis Faulkner is the author of six novels. He enjoys playing guitar, pickleball, watching movies, reading novels, Arts and Culture, Carolina Hurricanes hockey, and Starbuck’s iced coffee.
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