Wisecracks in Writing

[I wouldn't] have Marlowe say things merely to score off the other characters. When he comes out with a smash wisecrack it should be jerked out of him emotionally, so that he is discharging an emotion and not even thinking about laying anyone out with a sharp retort. Try and make similes both extravagant and original. And there is the question of how the retort discourteous is delivered. The sharper the wisecrack, the less forcible should be the way it is said. There should not be any effect of gloating. (Raymond Chandler)


Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959