The Ultimate Richard S. Prather Interview


Richard S. Prather - 1967
Richard S. Prather - 1985

This interview was conducted exclusively for this webpage. How cool is that?

When did you actually start writing? Was it in college?

No, I wrote quite a bit as a kid. I really started out doing poetry. When I changed to writing stories, a lot of what I had read was mystery stories in the pulps like Black Mask and Dime Detective. I just started writing a novel in '49, when we were living in Riverside, California. I was a Civil Service Clerk at March Field then and my wife Tina, the beautiful Tina, was a cocktail waitress at the Mission Inn. We were both working and lived in a little bitty apartment. The front door wouldn't open all the way, it would scrape against the floor and then stop moving entirely.

I'd wanted to be a writer since grammar school and just decided one day to do it. I said to Tina, "Let's quit our jobs. Let's move to Laguna Beach, give ourselves a year and just write books. Maybe one will sell.” This was one of those moments that could have changed our lives enormously if she hadn't been willing to risk it. But she said, "Okay", and we did it, and we've been writing ever since.

Is she a writer also?

She's an artist. She does mosaics and stuff but mostly she takes care of me and that's a full time job.

(all laugh)

Now up until then many of the detectives in print were of a hardboiled nature. When Shell hit the scene he was very easy going and fun. Was that a result of your literary influences?

Yeah, I just sort of made Shell lighthearted and happy-go-lucky. For one thing, I liked to read stuff that was happy and light. Raymond Chandler used to write a bit on the dark side but his dialogue was so funny and clever it cracked me up. He was my number one influence. I guess I could also say Damon Runyon was another because I read everything I could get my hands on by him. There were many other guys who influenced me and I enjoyed reading.

Making Shell funny wasn't part of some "organic" long-range plan. It was just a part of who I was then and who I wanted my character to be. I wanted people to feel good after they read one of my books. Not be depressed. There are enough depressing things around and I didn't want any in my books.

Now that lighthearted approach was something you used when you edited the anthology book, The Comfortable Coffin.

The Mystery Writers of America asked me to edit that. I did have one story in there, but most of it was from the best writers I could find at that time. I also wrote the introduction, where I mentioned that we were beset with too much these days to make us feel miserable. You know, downbeat plays and stories, depressing stuff. The Comfortable Coffin was written in the light vein, not the gory artery.

When you started your first novel did you use any sort of guide or book that helped you become a professional writer?

There was a guy named Jack Woodford, who wrote the best book for writers that I ever read. It's called Writing and Selling. It was originally called Trial and Error. If you can find it, I highly recommend that book. I think it's the single best book for people who want to be writers.

How did you get Scott Meredith as your agent?

In '49 I wrote The Maddern Caper, which became Pattern for Murder by David Knight, later retitled The Scrambled Yeggs under my name. Anyway, when I finished that first book I was reading Writer's Digest at the time as a resource. Scott Meredith would have a full page ad every month showing the sales he'd made and a list of writers he represented. Many of these were names I recognized. He was then a fee agent, which meant you would pay him a fee to read your manuscript. I liked the look of his ads and what he did so I wrote him out of the blue. I did a novelette, one of the few I had ever done, and wrote to him that I was writing a novel called The Maddern Caper. He read that when I was done and said he would represent me. It seems he liked the manuscript. He said he was very enthusiastic about it because it was unlike most first novels that he had read before and, quote, "smack on the beam from start to finish".

I was taken on as a client of his and he started to try and market that book while I began writing The Case of the Vanishing Beauty. Interestingly enough, he told me at the time that the private eye market wasn't doing very well and that I should consider writing something else. I thanked him for his advice but said that I'd stick with detectives for awhile. If I'd listened to him I probably would never have experienced the success I did. Listen to yourself, that's the advice I'd give any writer.

Scott Meredith himself wrote a great book for writers about the creative process and the business process. The title is very much like Woodford's. It's called Writing to Sell.

Where did the name Shell Scott come from?

The name Sheldon came from a kid, who was a friend of mine when I was growing up, named Meredith Sheldon. I took his last name and made it the character's first name. The surname Scott comes from my middle name, that's what the S. stands for. And I liked the contraction Shell, short for Sheldon.

The robin's egg Blue Cadillac that Shell drives. Where did that come from?

That was just one of the tags I gave Shell when I was making up the character. It was originally an old yellow 1936 Cadillac, but I eventually decided to make it more modern. A lot of the Shell Scott tags I got were based on a guy I knew named Brad Voigt. He was a friend of mine in high school and Junior College. He looked quite a bit like Shell and I used those traits, and then the rest of Shell was just me. Brad was a good guy...I don't know where he is now. I don't know where I am now.

(all laugh)

The Spartan Apartments and the Hamilton Building. Were they fictional or real places?

They were made up. As a matter of fact the Spartan Apartment Hotel and Shell's office in the Hamilton building -- I used those so long ago that I couldn't use them now. Los Angeles has changed so much. That was back then, when I started in 1949.

In Shell's apartment was a large painting of a nude woman named Amelia. What's the story behind that?

I just made it up. I like nudes. (all laugh) Shell picked up that picture in a pawn shop and hung it above his fake fireplace. Interestingly, in our guest bathroom there's a small painting of a cute little girl wearing a big pink hat and nothing else. This gal looks a bit like the Amelia in the painting. We bought that a few years after I made it up in the books.

Shell has a large aquarium in his apartment. Are tropical fish a hobby of yours? Do you have a tank?

Yes, I like aquariums. We don't have one now, but a while ago Tina and I had a whole mess of fish tanks. We fed them all natural foods like tubifex worms and fishmeal and such. As a result, those fish were so healthy and horny that they just kept having babies and we finally wound up with about thirteen tanks. This was right after the year we lived in Mexico. My wife and I moved to Mexico City in 1952 and I wrote three books there that year.



The above pictures were taken by Gene McCoy, an old friend of Richard S. Prather. When asked about the history of these photos Mr. McCoy said, "I took the photos.  It was on La Calle La Fontaine, maybe Number 75, in the Colonia Polanco in Mexico City, probably 1952. I was attending Mexico City College. Richard and Tina were living as expat writer and wife. We shared the terrace in the apartment building we lived in. Richard is seated on the right. Tina (Mrs. Prather), is sitting in the middle and Mar Ciele McCoy, my then wife, is to the left. "

The book "Strip for Murder" is dedicated to Gene and Mar Ciele McCoy. After looking at the optical illusion created by the typewriter covering Mr. Prather's swimming trunks, "Strip" seems the appropriate book.

Back to the interview...

What made you move to Mexico with the water so bad?

Hahaha,  we didn't know it was bad back then but we quickly found out. I guess it was just for the hell of it -- I get itchy to move every few years. Since December of '49 we had been in Laguna at a place called Holly Cliffs, which was beautiful. It was right on the ocean. Late in 1951 we talked about moving. Tina wanted to go to Hawaii and I wanted Mexico. In the end I won. We had a good year there except for the "turistas" from drinking the water.

Two pseudonyms you've used are David Knight and Douglas Ring. Where did they come from? Did you just make them up?

What happened was that I started with Fawcett and after they put out a few books we moved to Mexico. The very first book I wrote, I originally titled it The Maddern Caper and I can tell you that you've never seen that title. It was later published as Pattern for Murder. It took about two and a half years for that first book that I sent to Scott Meredith to be published. He sold it to Graphic Books. Now, because Fawcett was planning to bring out more Shell Scott books then I either had to change the character to someone else or use a pen name on the Graphic Books. I chose David Knight because it sounded good. And that's the story on that name.

Now later The Peddler was published by Lion Books. Let's see, Lion brought out two of them in 1952, The Peddler and Lie Down, Killer. I was busy as hell in those days. For the Peddler they needed a pen name so I went with Douglas King. You know, I've mentioned elsewhere that the name Douglas had a macho sound and King was sort of royal. When the book came out though the name on the cover was Douglas Ring. The editor changed it and I haven't felt right about editors since then and that was in 1952. (all laugh)

Now Dagger of Flesh was put out by Falcon. Were they a division of Fawcett or were they a separate publisher?

What happened was that Scott Meredith sold that to Falcon and they absolutely screwed up and made about a thousand changes to the thing without telling me or asking me. This was just inexcusable. These things happen sometimes, but those people should have been tortured and boiled in oil.

(all laugh)

This was also in 1952 when we were living in Mexico City. After it was printed, Scott sent me a copy and I read it and went absolutely crazy. It had become a very sleazy and flimsy novel and I didn't like it. My original title for that book was The Secret Places, but Falcon's editor changed the title and pen name and screwed everything else up as well.

Pattern for Murder, Lie Down Killer, Dagger of Flesh, and The Peddler were all sold after Shell came out and because of your contract with Fawcett you had to use a pen name. Am I assuming that right?

Yeah, close enough. In two Shell Scott books I had to change the name of the main character. Then, as my books sold well through Fawcett Gold Medal, they wanted all of my titles including the ones they had turned down in the first place. They wanted them all under their imprint, so if it had a pen name previously on it Fawcett changed it to my own name. In Pattern for Panic I had changed the lead character from Shell Scott to Cliff Morgan and that's how it was originally published. After Fawcett bought it, I changed the Cliff Morgan character back to Shell Scott. All I did really was restore it to the way it had originally been written. Similarly, in Dagger of Flesh I changed Shell Scott to Mark Logan, then back to Shell. Curiously, the only copies of Dagger I have here at the house all say Mark Logan, so I'm confused about that one myself.

In 1959 you wrote Double in Trouble with Stephen Marlowe. Was that a deal that your editors came up with or did you know Mr. Marlowe and suggest the idea to him?

I knew who Stephen Marlowe was, but we'd never met. He was also under contract with Fawcett and was also represented, and this is the key point, by my agent Scott Meredith. One day out of the blue I received a letter from Scott saying that they were considering a book by both of us featuring our two detectives, Shell Scott and Chester Drum.

I'd never done a collaboration like that before, but I thought, "What the hell", you never really know until you try. Steve and I corresponded for close to a year. We plotted the book by mail, and once that was done I wrote the first Shell Scott chapter and sent it to him. He then wrote the second or Chester Drum chapter and sent it back to me. So we did it all by mail and then got together in Laguna Beach for minor revisions, while Tina furiously typed the final manuscript, then off it went to Scott and Fawcett.

I had read previously that you were an avocado farmer for a period of time. Can you tell me a bit about that?

We were growing avocados out in Falbrook California from about '74 to '80. We had ten acres of avocados there and we farmed that organically, probably the only naturally grown avocados in CA as far as I know."

We've always had a garden that was natural, meaning no poisons or sprays or chemical fertilizers. We used compost, fish emulsion and kelp and that sort of thing. Just one of the things I believe in. I wish there was more of it.

Avocado farming a career change?

No, it was just a change, but a pretty big one for us. Again, in those early years I was with Fawcett. They were the best publisher in the business as far as I'm concerned, and I've said elsewhere one of the best things about Fawcett/Gold Medal was that they were the first to pay writers on print order, or the number of copies printed, rather than on reported net sales. Unfortunately, I don't know of any publishers who do that today. Anyhow, in 1962 Scott Meredith and his brother flew out from New York and presented me with a contract from Pocket Books. I won't get into all the hassle and ramifications, but the long and short of it was that eventually I wound up signing a ten-year contract with Pocket.

Now jump ahead ten years or so. By that time I wanted to move on, and considered the contract with Pocket Books over and done with. But they wanted to exercise their contractual right to sign me up for another ten years, which didn't excite me a whole lot. The end result of the impasse was that in 1975 I brought suit against Simon and Schuster/Pocket Books, and it took about five years to settle that lawsuit.

Believe it or not this still has to do with my getting into avocado farming. When you sue a publisher they stop printing your books. Also from 1975 to 1980 all of my time was spent pursuing the lawsuit, so I wasn't doing any writing during this time.

We moved from Arizona, where this started, to Falbrook, CA and bought the avocado grove and a little house there. It was a way to get some income while I was spending a lot of money on lawyers.

It was a great and beautiful experience working down in the grove with those big friendly trees and my wife picking tons of those avocados and hauling them up the hill.

So you were the only farmhands?

Yeah, just Tina and me, most of the time, and she practically did all of the work. I was up in the house writing again.

When this lawsuit was all over it took awhile for me to find another publisher. I got with Tor in about 1985-87 and that's when my last books in the series were published, so far. Those were The Amber Effect in '86 and Shellshock in '87.

What was the deal? Did Fawcett close down press? What I mean is that when your agent presented you with the Pocket Books contract did you sign it because Fawcett was shutting down their paperback division or did you feel it was time to leave Fawcett?

No, I loved Fawcett and Gold Medal. I knew some of the people at Fawcett, like Roscoe Fawcett, he's still a friend of mine. We see him every couple of years or so. He was one of the Fawcett brothers and was head of circulation. There were four Fawcett brothers who owned the company. Anyway, that was in 1962, August or so. We had not made much money that year. We'd been makin' pretty good money from the big sales of the books, but something just happened that year. I don't know if it's one of those things that's supposed to influence you or not.

Scott Meredith was my agent at that time and for a total of about twenty-five years. As I said before, he and his brother came out to Laguna Beach where we lived. He called me before he came and asked if he could visit me, and if I had any idea what his visit was about. I did not. I just thought maybe Gold Medal was going to bring out more new printings of the books or something like that.

He concealed it from me then but when he got to the West Coast he gave me a story that Fawcett Gold Medal was cutting down on their mystery line, and then out of the blue showed me a contract with Pocket Books. I had no idea that he was even talking to another publisher.

The contract looked awfully good. Pocket Books offered me $75,000 a year as an advance against royalties from day one. They asked if I wanted to accept that. I wound up saying...not until I delivered the first book. I didn't want to take money for work I hadn't done.

I didn't leave Fawcett because I was discontented, or they had treated me unfairly. On the contrary, they had treated me very fairly. I just wasn't making much money and, you know, you’ve got to keep the money coming in. Also, I thought this was a lovely contract from Pocket. It turned out later not to be. It looked good, and I was flattered that they were willing to pay me $75,000 a year for books not yet written. As I said, this was supposed to be an advance against royalties and my assumption was, judging from sales of my other books, that it would only be about three or four years until I started earning additional royalties beyond the advances made at that point.

That didn’t happen, but I also didn’t deliver all the books I was supposed to. Anyway, after the ten years I wanted out – and I’ve already mentioned the 1975 lawsuit.

Was it a victory?

Well, let’s just say I succeeded in getting out of the contract. It wasn’t entirely ended, meaning Pocket Books had no further obligation to me and I had no further obligatiopn to them, which was the important thing. Also, Pocket Books returned to me all rights to all of my books. There were fourteen with Pocket including an unpublished manuscript. So I guess you could say I came out Okay, but it cost me a bunch of money and five years.

What was the title of the unpublished manuscript?

That was The Amber Effect, later published by Tor Books.

You mentioned that you got back the rights to the books you wrote for Pocket, do you have the rights for the Fawcett books as well?

Yeah, I got those back as part of the preparation for the lawsuit. I needed the copyright in my name to sue Pocket. Actually, right now all the copyrights are in my name.

I see that the Meandering Corpse and the Kubla Khan Caper were published by Trident Books.

Yes, like Pocket Books they were a division of Simon and Schuster. Trident Press was the hardback division. They brought out The Meandering Corpse, The Kubla Khan Caper Gat Heat, also a big three-in-one volume of previously released novels called Shell Scott's Murder Mix, including Dead Heat, Kill Me Tomorrow, and The Cheim Manuscript.

Is that how you pronounce that? Cheim, like ch-aim? (The "ch" pronounced like it is in the word church.)

I called it ch-aim although I heard some pronounce it khime or hime...either way. Why don't we just call it the C-H-E-I-M Manuscript.

(laughter from interviewer)

Since we mentioned the Mystery Writers of America earlier, I believe you were on the Board of Directors at one time?

A couple of times I was a Director at Large. I was one of the early members of the MWA. I joined in 1950 or '51 when I had my first book published and was a member up until about three or four years ago.

When you would write a book did you know where it was going and what the ending would be or did you just let the story flow and have it dictate its own direction?

No, no, no. There's two types of writers: the ones who plot everything first and always know where it's going, and then you have the people who sort of wing it. One isn't necessarily better than the other, but I think the people who plot in advance are more likely to produce books that hold up over the years. I plot out everything before I start writing the story’s first line.

The way I've always done that is to try to get a fresh idea and just keep working with it. I'd fill up about a hundred or two-hundred pages, single-spaced, with just plotting stuff. You know, ideas, characters, and bits of dialogue, actions and reactions. I'd figure out all the movements of the story from beginning to end, and then compress that into a page or two of the just the highlights. I'd then cut those highlights into chapters. I'd then expand those chapter notes, winding up with a separate page or two for each chapter and put all these pages into a folder. With every book I did I'd wind up with what I call a synopsis, it's actually an outline of maybe twenty or thirty pages, with all the action cut up into like twenty chapters. That's all there before I start the first draft.

How many drafts would each book go through?

Just a couple.

Full drafts or portions?

Usually I didn't do anything but make the research changes and a few little corrections. The first draft would have little notations and edits that I would make on the side in pen, nothing too drastic. Pretty much the final draft was just that first draft with my corrections, and Tina would type that on twenty-pound bond.

Did you come up with the titles before you started writing a book?

Once in a while a title would come to me beforehand, but most of the time I would get it after I started my outline. It would sort of flow out of all the plotting that I would do. Occasionally it would even come after the book was finished. About a third of the titles were put on by the publisher's editors. You know, almost always the publisher has the right to change a title if they want to. For example, Case of the Vanishing Beauty was something I originally titled Laughter of a Cadaver. The editors thought, "Who knows from cadavers?" The Meandering Corpse I called The Peripatetic Corpse and they changed that. And they never tell you these things, they just do it (all laugh). That's sort of treating the writer with contempt, you know, and they ought to treat writers with respect. They wouldn't exist without us.

How long did you generally spend on a book? You know, from the first idea to typing the final page.

Well...a couple of them I did in a month. Most of them were four to six months. A time or two it even took a year or so. The last Shell story that was printed, Shellshock, took about seven months to write and then about a month to revise and cut down. The one I'm writing now is going on about three years because I put it down for awhile.

In the early days, three or four months was the usual time. Bodies in Bedlam and Find This Woman I did in about a month. With Find This Woman for example, Scott Meredith wrote me that Fawcett declined to take one of the books...Dagger of Flesh I think it was. Anyway, they needed a book in a month. I didn't have anything in the typewriter but I told Scott I'd get him something in a month. Find This Woman took place in Las Vegas during the Helldorado days. The month included plotting it and writing the first draft, then three days in Vegas checking everything out. After that I typed the final manuscript myself making last-minute changes.

Do you write mostly in the day or at night?

Now I'm mostly a day writer, but years ago I was both. It worked out to be about a 26-hour day. I'd maybe work all night. I'd knock off in the morning and go down the steps at Holly Cliffs where we were living in Laguna and hit the beach for awhile. I'd then come up, eat, go to bed, and do it all again. Each day I'd go to bed about two hours later. (all laugh)

It was very strange. For years I was on just about a 26-hour day. I wasn't going anywhere...all I did was write. I might start working at ten o'clock in the morning and go to bed about two the next morning, then wake up at ten o’clock and start the cycle over again at noon. Every day it was about two hours later, rotating like that. I just thought of it as a 26-hour day.

When you wrote on this schedule did you give yourself a goal of doing so many chapters a day or so many pages a day?

No, I'd just write as fast and as long as I could and then fall into bed. My only goal was to try and do more than I did the previous day. The biggest day I ever had was here in Arizona when I was working on Dead-Bang. I worked 24 hours straight and did 24,000 words. I think when it goes that well and goes that fast, it's the best stuff you can do.

Which book is the cherry on top of your sundae? In other words, and this might be the toughest question, which is your favorite book that you have written?

Well, hold on a minute...I'm lighting a cigarette. I don't believe the Surgeon General.

(all laugh)

I always have coffee and cigarettes sitting next to me while the typewriter is on my lap. It was a Royal portable and then I switched to an electric typewriter. I even used a computer for awhile, but now I'm getting sidetracked.

For a long time my favorite was Strip for Murder. Way back when I wrote that I got more positive responses and fan mail on that book than any other. But, I think if I had to pick a book now...it would have to be The Amber Effect. I think it just flows nicely without a lot of static and I enjoyed the character of Ms. Naked California so much.

(all laugh)

Have you ever belonged to a nudist colony? There are so many times Shell's just naked for some odd reason, or better than that, his female acquaintances are.

Hahaha...no, but I've got a private eye friend who became a private eye because of my books; when I met him, he told me that he and his wife are members of a nudist camp. Tina or I have never been to one and I think that's one of the things I missed in my life...I should have done it.

(all laugh)

Now wait a minute? Are you telling me that someone you know actually chose to become a private eye after reading your books?

Yeah, he and his brother. Hahaha...he thought he was going to meet a bunch of beautiful women, but we all know the real private eye isn't like the fictional one, hahaha.

(all laugh)

Since we're on the subject of talking about real versus fictional detectives. What kind of research would you do to make the detecting process and the police procedures as real as possible?

A lot of it would be from things that I had read previously, from all kinds of crime publications. In the garage at one time I must have had about ten thousand books out there. Many of them are about crime and criminal investigation, and forensic medicine, and so on. Whenever I read something useful I would jot down where I saw it, in case I needed to refer to it later.

I don't do any real research before I write a book. I just write the book.. If I come to a scene or a situation where I would have some investigative procedure taking place, I'd just make something up and move on. I wrote an article years ago for Writer's Digest that touched upon this exact topic. What I said was that in the first draft I would make something up so I wouldn't disturb the flow of my writing. After that I would for-sure check it. Usually what I would do in reading the first draft was make a list of the things I would have to check. If it was something to do with police matters I would check with the Los Angeles Police Department's Public Relations Director. I would also try to go into the squad room and talk with the guys. If it was something to do with a location or specific place I would drive around L.A. and see what I needed.

Is there anything you're working on now?

Yes. I'm doing a book that's about a thousand pages. It's the longest thing I've ever written. I've been on it forever, for years actually. Right now I'm typing the final manuscript. Maybe in a year or so it might be out if I find a publisher I like. It'll be book number forty-four and the forty-first in the Shell Scott series. It's called The Death Gods. That's all I'm going to say about it.

There's an old occult law that suggests, "silence and secrecy" about important projects. I've never, from the beginning in '50, never talked about what is in a book until it is finished. Not even to my wife. When I write The End, I give it to her and she's the first reader.

Are you currently an avid reader of mysteries?

I read mostly non-fiction now, and I read a lot. I subscribe to a lot of newsletters and such. Occasionally I read a mystery. I will always read a Dick Francis, I love the guy. I don't read as many mysteries as I used to.

Aside from hitting the auction sites on the Web or going to a used book store to find all your books, where else can a Richard Prather fan find Shell Scott related items?

Well, Gary Challender’s Books in Motion, one of the pioneers of the audiobook industry, released the first eight Shell Scott titles in 1999. Each is a six-cassette unabridged audiobook (read by Maynard Villers), now available both for rental and/or sale. Additional releases are planned. Right now my own eight audiobooks, or more than 53 hours of listening to Shell’s adventures (plus hundreds of other authors’ titles), are available from: Books in Motion, 9922 East Montgomery, Suite 31, Spokane, WA 99206. Their website is: www.booksinmotion.com.

Finally, and the most gratifying development for me in this area, is my recent signing of a long-term agreement with literary agent (and now publisher) Richard Curtis, who’ll be making my work available on the Internet, specifically on his website, www.e-reads.com. What’s really exciting to me about this is that it means all 40 of the titles in my Shell Scott mystery series will be -- for the first time ever in my writing career -- available simultaneously from a single source. So, for anyone who’s interested, each book (or all of them) will be available not only for downloading to computer or handheld electronic book readers, but also as print-on-demand hard copies. With over 40,000,000 of my books already sold in the USA, and many millions more sold in foreign-language editions throughout the world, it’s my hope that many of those old readers – and some new ones as well – will check out that webpage.

Mr. Prather, I want to thank you so very much for taking the time to make this interview possible.

Thank you. I had a wonderful time chatting with you.

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