"Your prose makes Raymond Chandler look clumsy," Elmore Leonard was once told

It is the birthday of writer Elmore Leonard (1925), whose career has spanned more than half a century. One of the most popular and prolific modern day writers, he is best known today for his thrillers and crime fiction, among them bestsellers such as Mr. Majestyk (1974), Get Shorty (1990), Rum Punch (1992), and Out of Sight (1996). Leonard is acclaimed for his ear for dialogue and his gritty realism. Leonard counts Ernest Hemingway among his influences, though he said Hemingway didn't have a sense of humor. British novelist Martin Amis once told Leonard, "Your prose makes Raymond Chandler look clumsy."

Happy birthday, Raymond Chandler

It is the birthday of detective novelist Raymond Chandler (1888), whose Philip Marlowe character is for many the quintessential private detective. Chandler's influence on the genre is indelible. What better way to celebrate his birthday than to share some of his choice passages? These are blatantly lifted from The Raymond Chandler Website, where they were blatantly lifted from Chandler's own works. You can read more here. Or you can just find his books and read them.

"On the dance floor half a dozen couples were throwing themselves around with the reckless abandon of a night watchman with arthritis "---Playback (Chapter 8)

"Dead men are heavier than broken hearts "---The Big Sleep (Chapter 8)

"She's dark and lovely and passionate. And very, very kind."
"And exclusive as a mailbox," I said.
---The Little Sister (Chapter 19)

"It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way--but not as far as Velma had gone"---Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 41)

"I put the duster away folded with the dust in it, leaned back and just sat, not smoking, not even thinking. I was a blank man. I had no face, no meaning, no personality, hardly a name. I didn't want to eat. I didn't even want a drink. I was the page from yesterday's calendar crumpled at the bottom of the waste basket "---The Little Sister (Chapter 25)

"Eddie Mars wanted to see me."
"I didn't know you knew him. Why?"
"I don't mind telling you. He thought I was looking for somebody he thought had run away with his wife."
"Were you?"
"No."
"Then what did you come for?"
"To find out why he thought I was looking for somebody he thought had run away with his wife."
"Did you find out?"
"No."
---The Big Sleep (Chapter 23)

"Tall, aren't you?" she said.
"I didn't mean to be."
Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.
---The Big Sleep (Chapter 1)

"I never saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them." ---The Long Goodbye (Chapter 52)

"Then he picked the glass up and tasted it and sighed again and shook his head sideways with a half smile; the way a man does when you give him a drink and he needs it very badly and it is just right and the first swallow is like a peek into a cleaner, sunnier, brighter world." " ---The High Window (Chapter 15)

"The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips." ---The Lady in the Lake (Chapter 1)

"She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight." ---The Little Sister (Chapter 12)

"I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard." --"The King in Yellow"

"The big foreign car drove itself, but I held the wheel for the sake of appearances." --Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 9)

Happy birthday, Raymond Chandler

It is the birthday of writer Raymond Chandler (1888), who created the iconic cynical detective Philip Marlowe, and was one of the founders of the hard-boiled detective novel genre. Chandler's Marlowe was a complex character, more than a typical tough guy. He was educated, enjoyed classical music and chess, spoke Spanish. He had few friends. Chandler only wrote seven novels that were published during his lifetime: The Big Sleep (1939), Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), The Lady in the Lake (1943), The Little Sister (1949), The Long Goodbye (1953), Playback (1958). When he died in 1959, he had been working on an eighth novel (Poodle Springs (1989). Robert B. Parker finished it and it was published on Chandler's 100th birthday. Chandler also wrote nine short story collections and the screenplays for Double Indemnity (1944), And Now Tomorrow (1944), The Unseen (1945), The Blue Dahlia (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951) and Playback, which was rejected so Chandler reworked it as a novel. Eleven films were adapted from Chandler's writing.

Ross Macdonald wrote Lew Archer series

Ross Macdonald

It is the birthday of American-Canadian writer Kenneth Millar (1915), who created the fictional hardboiled detective Lew Archer and wrote under the pseudonym Ross Macdonald. He produced such bestsellers as The Goodbye Look (1969), The Underground Man (1971), Sleeping Beauty (1973), and The Blue Hammer (1976).

Lew Archer is the heir apparent to Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's hardboiled detective. Both were based in California and both were tough as they come but Archer was more openly sensitive than his predecessor. Archer's name came from another fictional detective Miles Archer, who was Sam Spade's partner in the series by Dashiell Hammett, and from Lew Wallace who wrote Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Lew Archer first appeared in 1946 in short story Find the Woman.

Millar lived in for three decades in Santa Barbara, California, and used it as the setting for most of his books, renaming it Santa Teresa. Later, mystery writer Sue Grafton set her alphabet novels in Santa Teresa.

There are 18 books in the Lew Archer series. The first one, The Moving Target (1949), was adapted for film as Harper (1966), starring Paul Newman. Scholars say Millar's first books were closely patterned after Chandler and Hammett. Millar, who held a doctorate in literature, drew on classic Greek myths for inspiration and post-war California for locale. His later works introduced more personal themes such as childhood trauma, the family secret, and the family scapegoat.

Millar first used John Macdonald as his pen name to avoid confusion with his wife Margaret Millar, who was becoming well known as a mystery and suspense writer, too. Then he changed briefly to John Ross Macdonald but that created confusion with John D. MacDonald, of Travis McGee fame. So Millar finally settled on Ross Macdonald.

Happy birthday, Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard

It is the birthday of writer Elmore Leonard (1925), whose career has spanned more than half a century. One of the most popular and prolific modern day writers, he is best known today for his thrillers and crime fiction, among them bestsellers such as Mr. Majestyk (1974), Get Shorty (1990), Rum Punch (1992), and Out of Sight (1996). However, he began his career in the 1950s writing westerns.

Leonard is acclaimed for his ear for dialogue and his gritty realism. Leonard counts Ernest Hemingway among his influences, though he said Hemingway didn't have a sense of humor. British novelist Martin Amis once told Leonard, "Your prose makes Raymond Chandler look clumsy."

Leonard's 10 rules for good writing are as succinct as his prose: 1) Never open a book with weather. 2) Avoid prologues. 3) Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. 4) Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" … he admonished gravely. 5) Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. 6) Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose." 7) Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. 8) Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. 9) Don't go into great detail describing places or things. 10.) Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

His most important rule, Leonard says, sums up the 10. "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

Leonard sold his first short story, Trail of the Apache, to Argosy magazine in 1951. It is set in Arizona in the 1880s, the days of U.S. Cavalry vs. the Apaches.  It was published as the title piece in a collection of short stories in 2007. The title piece in another collection of short stories, Three-Ten to Yuma, was adapted as a film in 1957 and remade in 2007. Leonard's first novel was The Bounty Hunters (1953), also set in Arizona Territory.