Why do I love noir?

If you’ve been following my blog for a while or read some of my books, you’ll be wondering why I made that statement. 

You'll be thinking: But she writes comedy and crime!’

Or even, ‘What is noir?’

Well, I'll soon explain my three reasons to love noir.

But first. Noir is French for black and there are many definitions of noir fiction.

Google defines it as ‘a genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity.’

The main difference between traditional crime stories and noir is that the protagonist is not a detective but a suspect, perpetrator or victim.

Noir Fiction Examples

Noir fiction came out of WW1 and the Depression, and famous early authors include James Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice)

Also, Cornell Woolrich (Rear Window, upon which the Alfred Hitchcock movie was based) and Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me).

Later authors include Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty), Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr Ripley).

As well as, Richard Stark, alias Donald Westlake (the Parker series) and Lawrence Block (the Bernie Rhodenbarr series).

Nowadays there are all sorts of noir-blend genres.

Noir romance, noir fantasy, noir thrillers and so on.

Essentially, if you just put the word noir in front of any genre you'll likely find something to satisfy you.

To explain the specifics of noir fiction, author Dave Zeltserman, in a blog post titled ‘On Writing Noir,’ quotes American fiction editor Otto Prenzler:

‘Pretty much everyone in a noir story (or film) is driven by greed, lust, jealousy or alienation, a path that inevitably sucks them into a downward spiral from which they cannot escape. They couldn't find the exit from their personal highway to hell if flashing neon lights pointed to a town named Hope. It is their own lack of morality that blindly drives them to ruin.’

Writing Noir Is Fun

Sounds uplifting, doesn’t it?

But I believe that villains and highly flawed characters are more fun to write than heroes.

If you write them well, you also reveal their positive traits as well as their flaws, which helps to create empathy in the reader.

I’ve always loved reading crime novels and having worked as a probation and parole officer on and off for over 25 years, I’ve had first-hand exposure to the lifestyles of people living on the fringes of society.

I’m not sure if I was drawn to that profession because of an innate interest in crime or whether the job itself sparked the interest.

But two things happened recently to make me realise how much I love noir.

I know that writing noir fiction was the direction I want to go in from now on.

Firstly, while writing An Affair With Danger, (book number one in my new Noir Nights novella series), I realised how much I enjoyed writing about desperate, doomed characters.

People who are victims of their own weaknesses and frequently take the not-so-heroic path.

And secondly, a reviewer of my book of short stories Comedy Shorts, said that while she thoroughly enjoyed the stories, she didn’t think they were comedy.

She said they all had a macabre core to them, dealing mostly with crime and/or death.

On reflection, I had to agree with her.

So for me now, noir is the new black and you should go find a book right away.

Here are three reasons why

Three Reasons I Love Noir