Back in the days when there were dozens of magazines and no
editor or reader could keep up with them all, writers
stealing plots, characters, and other aspects of value from
other writers may have been fairly common in the pulp heyday,
even though the practice was despised by most writers.
Being on the road this week, I can't check the book for
details but in THE LAST PIN (1996), a collection of pulp
detective fiction by Howard Wandrei, the accusation is made
against Steve Fisher, best known as the author of I WAKE UP
SCREAMING. Wandrei, the lesser known brother of Donald
Wandrei, was highly regarded in the detective pulps with many
sales to Black Mask, Detective Fiction Weekly and others.
Later in the 1940s, his career declined as his personal life
became more difficult and he finished selling to the cheaper
pulps before dropping out of writing completely. He was
friendly with Steve Fisher and Fisher's pal Frank Gruber but
then discovered Fisher was mining his old stories from the
30s and reselling them. As I recall the story, this ugly
episode was one of the factors that soured him on New York
and writing. Again, I don't have the book with me to
check.
Another old pulpster who used the 'stealing plots from the
pulps' concept in a novel was William Campbell Gault. His
mainstream novel MAN ALONE has a glad-handing but creatively
challenged screenwriter stealing plots from old pulp stories
and building a reputation in Hollywood as a good 'idea man'
and making lots of money. Meanwhile the writer from whom he
stole many of the ideas was struggling for assignments. MAN
ALONE was published late in Gault's life but was written in
the late 1950s and is quite good.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Steve Lewis
<stevelewis62@c...> wrote:
>
> At 07:00 AM 12/13/2005, you wrote:
> > >
> > > Recently uploaded to my Mystery*File
website is an interview
that
> >Ed Gorman
> > > did with John D. MacDonald in the
mid-1980s. It's at
> > > http://www.mysteryfile.com/JDM/Interview.html.
Among other
> >things, JDM
> > > talks about his early days as a writer and
how Travis McGee
came
> >to
> > > be. The article is reprinted from The Big
Book of Noir, but if
> >you haven't
> > > seen it, the interview is well worth
reading. At least I
think so!
> >
> >And over on FictionMags, a few of us are
wondering about this
claim
> >of JDM's:
> >What are some of your least favorite memories of
that time?
> >"... The clown who was taking my old pulp
stories and changing the
> >point of
> >view and selling them to Manhunt. "
> >
> >Any likely suspects?
> >
> >Todd Mason
>
> TM
>
> No one seems to have a clue, including Ed Gorman,
nor does Peter
Enfantino,
> who is doing the story-by-story guide to Manhunt
for
Mystery*File. (The
> latest of which is at
http://www.mysteryfile.com/Digests/MMM3.html.)
>
> I'm continuing to ask people who might know, but so
far, not even
a suggestion.
>
> Best
>
> Steve
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
removed]
>
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~--> Life without art & music?
Keep the arts alive today at Network for Good!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/7zgKlB/dnQLAA/Zx0JAA/kqIolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 13 Dec 2005 EST