 Mystery: October 28, 2015 Issue [#7288] |
  Mystery
This week: Noir Mystery Edited by: blue jellybaby  
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Looking at different types of mystery and how they are defined.
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At the moment, I'm writing a noir mystery for a short story call. When I read the call two words really stood out to me: 'straight' and 'unsweetened'. Alongside that, the call itself is called Black Coffee and to me, that is already beginning to set the mood.
Noir as defined in the Oxford Dictionaries online is:
1 A genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity: his film proved that a Brit could do noir as darkly as any American.
1.1 [count noun] A film or novel in the noir genre: he says he’s making a noir
To me, when I think of noir I think of dark streets, bad lighting, detectives in long overcoats and highly-styled women wearing heels and fishnets with their hair pinned up. What does it conjure for you? Everyone will have something different.
Noir is best known for films and you may remember such movies as Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and The Maltese Falcon (1941). I remember so many of these well from studying Film Studies at Uni.
For me, the two most important characters of a noir mystery are the detective and the femme fatale.
The hero of the noir is often modeled on the American version of the Hardboiled detective who is often stereotyped as:
 he is a middle aged man and he works alone.
he is a loner and a tough guy, not afraid of anyone.
he has a terrible diet, smokes like a trooper and often drinks.
he carries a gun.
he often is seen as a poor man.
he has an ambivalent attitude towards the police.
he is generally a cynic.
For more information, check this link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_crime_fiction#Hard_boiled_American_crim...
The Femme Fatale as defined by Wikipedia is:
 a stock characters and a mysterious and seductive woman.
she ensnares her lovers and often leads them into dangerous situations.
she is an archetype of literature and art and her ability to hypnotize her victim with a literal supernatural power means she is often likened to an enchantress, seductress or vampire.
a femme fatale tries to use feminine wiles to get what she wants/needs.
For more information on the femme fatale check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme_fatale
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| Do you think you can write a noir mystery? Can you darken the setting and add in some morally ambiguous and dangerous characters? What about switching the roles of the private eye and femme fatale? See what you come up with! |
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