Did McDonald's invent fast food?

I recently watched The Founder with Michael Keaton. I enjoyed the film. It’s an interesting character study and does a good job of telling the McDonald’s story. (I personally think McDonald’s has lost its way, but no worries, In and Out Burger picked up the business model and did it one better by delivering great burgers.) The story, of course, is about the invention of fast food, the bane of the calorie conscious the world over.

However, the concept of fast food reminded me of something I ran across in my research for The Shopkeeper. I wanted to make my western series different from the norm, so I focused on miners instead of cowboys and other traditional icons of the frontier. Mine workers start early in the morning, and I discovered they frequently ate biscuits standing up in a saloon.  This may be the real start of fast food. (McDonalds just slapped egg, sausage, and cheese inside the biscuit.)

Here’s how I used that tidbit of research in The Shopkeeper.

Other meals I eat for fuel, but I dawdle over breakfast—and Mary cooks a hell of a breakfast. Mary ran the restaurant across the street from my ragtag hotel. It was not a restaurant in a New York sense, but nonetheless it was the best place to eat in Pickhandle Gulch. Her small building, plank floors, and long tables were all made from unfinished lumber, but a few touches like lace curtains had softened the rough appearance. Breakfast for miners usually consisted of biscuits eaten standing up in some stale-smelling saloon. Not fancy, but quick. They needed to get to work. Mary catered to the mine owners, town merchants, and people like myself, who had the time and money to eat a slow, hearty breakfast.

As I entered her tidy café, the aroma pulled the trigger on my appetite. I took my usual seat at a table by the window, and Mary sauntered over with a cup of black coffee that suspended its own little cloud of steam above the rim.

“What’ll ya have today, Mr. Dancy?”

“Everything.”

“Everything it is—over easy, crispy, and soaked in grease.”

“You got it,” I said.

Risk taker, Rule Breaker, Game Changer

Center Point Has Published Crossing the Animas in Large Print

Center Point will publish a hard bound, large print version of Crossing the Animas, A Steve Dancy Tale. They’re a great group of people, so I signed the contract immediately. 

I’m thrilled that Center Point will have published all six of the Steve Dancy novels. It also pleases me that the first five books earned past their advances. That probably explains why Center Point bought the large print rights to Crossing the Animas. That’s a compliment I feel really good about.

Look for Crossing the Animas in your local library. Trade paperback and ebook formats are also available.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

no rules, no fences, no referees

Recently I tweeted an article I wrote about the Old West. Many people have weighed in on what the American frontier was really about. I think many miss a key point which, at least in a literary sense, ties Westerns, Science Fiction, and Fantasy together.

Here's one paragraph from my article, “Is the Mythology of the Old West Dead?”  . 

“The West, outer space, the future, or a make-believe land represents a new beginning in a fresh place away from home—the shrugging off of disappointments and a chance to start all over again. The romance and adventure of frontiers draws people desperate to escape the travail of their current existence. We've seen this in real life with the migrations to the New World and the Old West, but today many people satisfy this longing vicariously with fiction. If you're poor, your family makes you miserable, you've committed an act that offends society, or wanderlust has gripped you, then the adventure and limitless opportunity of a frontier beckons like a siren's call. Emigrating to a frontier means you get a do-over in a land with no rules, no fences, no referees.” 

Now what?

I've written ten books and contributed to another five. Millions of words, all typed with two fingers. I would have learned to touch type, but I don't think that fast. When I finished the sixth Steve Dancy Tale, I wanted a break, not from writing, but from Steve. Now, I writing a sequel to The Shut Mouth Society. Actually, it's not a sequel, it just uses the same characters. The title is Deluge, and it's a disaster story. I'll vent all my frustrations in relentless waves of destruction and mayhem so I can return to Steve fresh as a huckleberry.

Story arcs drive the popularity of TV series. Can it do the same for a book series?

In novels, a story arc usually refers to rhythm of a story from introduction, to big trouble, to resolution. Basically, the rise and fall of tension and emotion in a story. In most novels, this story arc is self-contained in a single book. Not so, for television.

How does a story arc work different for television? Dictionary.com defines it as "a continuing storyline in a television series that gradually unfolds over several episodes." I would add "or seasons." Think about the hunt for Red John in the Mentalist, or the quest for the throne in Game of Thrones, or the feud between Deputy Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder in Justified. In television, a good story arc threads it's way through multiple episodes that tell self-contained stories with a beginning, middle, and end. 

Despite the pervasiveness of the term, everything carried along from one episode to another is not a story arc. "Space: the final frontier" from Star Trek is setting, not story arc. The solution of the crime in Bosch takes an entire season, but this television program is more akin to what we used to call a mini-series. Same for the old television program 24. These are dramatizations of a novel or single story over many episodes. A true story arc involves an embedded, larger mystery in a series of smaller stories. Without closure to this grand mystery, the series is hard to put aside. It's also important that a story arc can be resolved. In fact, it is the promise of resolution that draws in the audience week after week. They want the answer to this puzzle. 

So, can the television style of a story arc help pull along readers of a book series? I'm not an expert, but J. K. Rowling is. Each Harry Potter included a self-contained story, along with the gradual reveal of the Lord Voldemort mystery. Handled deftly, a long running story arc can pull readers through the entire series. The problem is you can't string along readers forever. Readers feel they are owed resolution. The trick is to present this resolution in a manner that is not the death knell of the story.

Crossing the Animas resolves the series-long story arc of the Steve Dancy Tales. It's yet to be seen if I did it in a manner that allows me to reboot the series with a wholly new story arc.

I bet I did. Just wait. See where the story goes next.

Crossing the Animas

The trade paperback edition of Crossing the Animas is now available. You can buy it at Amazon here.

You might be surprised by the plot. Steve gets into trouble once again. McAllen builds a horse ranch, Sharp finds a long-lost love, and Steve and Virginia plan a wedding. Bad guys aplenty want to disrupt all of their plans. Wonder how it will work out.

WSJ Editorializes on Hollywood Malaise

Rod Pennington writes that "Sunday's Oscars ceremony takes place during one of the gloomiest times for the film industry in recent memory." With ticket sales trending down, Pennington has some specific advice.

The solution to today's film malaise is simple: better storytelling. Studio executives seem to have forgotten the basic rules preached by the late mythology scholar Joseph Campbell, and his model of "Reluctant Hero." Over four decades this formula has dominated blockbusters: Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen, among many others, are ordinary people reluctantly thrust into extraordinary situations. Elaborate car chases and stunning special effects are fine, but audiences still want someone they can root for.

Since this advice echoes my previous posts, I have no choice but to declare Pennington a genius.

With home theaters a norm, Hollywood believes that to get people off their couches and into movie theater seats, they must blow things up, speed around corners, kill multitudes in gruesome detail, overly edit action scenes, and lay down an ear-splitting sound track. Nowadays, the story is so secondary that the sound track routinely overpowers characters speaking to each other. Screenwriters who understand dialogue write for cable, where they're allowed to strut their stuff. Today's movies are empty calories loaded to the gills with noise and eye candy. Can Hollywood once again learn to walk and chew gum at the same time? I believe so, but only when the story becomes paramount and all the rest is viewed as the delivery system.

And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!" Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Crossing the Animas back from Editor

A few days ago, my editor sent me the edited version of Crossing the Animas and related files. I'm anxious to reviewed her revisions, but I have some personal issues which require me to be in northern California.

Here is the remaining process to publication. Next, I go through every revision, one at a time. I do this to approve the change and improve my writing skill. After I have a clean edited manuscript, the book goes to my ebook formatter. He makes sure the book looks good on various ereaders. My proofreader gets at crack at the book next.

In the past, I published the print and ebook versions simultaneously. The world has changed. Now, more than 90% of my sales are electronic versions of the book. (Excluding library large print sales) So the ebook versions will be published without waiting for the longer print book process.

All of this means that the ebook version of Crossing the Animas should be available before the end of March. The print version will follow about sixty days later.

I hope you enjoy it.

Rough Cover Option

The Magnificent Seven—Hollywood Finally Gets It Almost Right

Hollywood doesn’t like Westerns. They keep trying to make them into something else. If a traditional Western is a success, like Unforgiven, critics tag it as an anti-western. The Chicago Tribune said of Unforgiven, “This dark, melancholic film is a reminder -- never more necessary than now -- of what the American cinema is capable of, in the way of expressing a mature, morally complex and challenging view of the world.” As if a Western never plumbed the depths of depravity before.

Last night my wife and I went to see The Magnificent Seven, the remake. It’s a good movie. I thought the climatic gun battle was over the top, but that’s what audiences expect nowadays. Also the storyline was more implausible than the original. A roving band of bandits in the age of Poncho Villa raiding villages for food is far more believable than a mine owner killing random farmers to acquire land that hasn’t proved to be lodes of precious metal. But, hey, this is entertainment. Suspension of belief is de rigor.

An NPR review said of the movie, “it's not a revisionist western. Nor is it an anti-western. It's a western.” The reviewer, Chris Klimek, did not necessarily mean that as a compliment. I say, thank goodness. It’s about time Hollywood got back to good storytelling. Modern Hollywood often gets itself wrapped up messaging. Storytelling is an art that requires a meaningful plot, engaging characters, proper pacing, and craftsmanship. When they made the The Magnificent Seven, they set out to make an entertaining film, not a statement. Great stories can make statements, but they must be subtle enough to not jar the reader/viewer out of the story. Philip Pullman once said, “Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.” The Magnificent Seven did include a message about inclusiveness, but never did that theme interrupt the flow of the story.

I liked the movie, and my wife liked it as well. The film did $41.4 million on its opening weekend, which bodes well that box office receipts will be high enough to encourage more of the same.

The Hateful Eight— Tarantino mailed it in

I like westerns and I like Quentin Tarantino films, so I had high expectation when I rented The Hateful Eight. Bummer. It's not only a crummy movie … punishment is compounded by its interminable length. Long is usually good for Tarantino, but it’s a bad sign if you ever consciously wonder when this thing will be over. The movie desperately needed editing by someone unintimidated by the grand master.

The Hateful Eight came across as a parody of a Tarantino movie instead of the genuine article. His good films are characterized by stylish cinematography, clever and incongruous banter, startling and extreme violence, and artful revelation of plot through time displacement. The Hateful Eight included all of these elements, but without charisma. It felt flat and uninspired. Tarantino dispassionately applied his formula without the artistic essentials that make it work.  Too bad. He’s tried twice to hit one out of the park with a western. Django Unchained was a ground-rule double, and he may have barely beat out an infield grounder with The Hateful Eight.

I have watched Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films many time. I’ve also re-watched other Tarantino movies. I can’t imagine spinning up The Hateful Eight again.

Over 1,400 Book Reviews and Counting

I read every book review. Can't help myself. I'm perverse. I even like to read bad reviews. Dumb, I know, but it's a five minute exercise I enjoy with morning coffee.

• Over 1,400 Amazon reviews for an average of 4.4, with 525 of those for The Shopkeeper. 
• Nearly 4,000 Goodreads ratings for 4.0 and another 400 written reviews
• Plus dozens of professional reviews

Shopkeeper at Amazon

Goodreads

I appreciate every reader. A review or an email note gives me a feel for my audience and helps me connect with readers. Less than 1% of readers leave a text review and I'm grateful for every one. I don't just read them, I take note of what they like and don't like. Each review helps me with my next book. Thank you.

If you like short illustrated reviews, I get a kick out of 3-Panel Book Reviews by Lisa Brown.

Lisa Brown's 3-panel Book Review  of The Metamorphosis

Final Episode of Justified

I watched the final episode of Justified last night. A little tardy you might think. Not to my way of thinking. I never watch any TV until the entire season is available on DVD or streaming.  That way I can binge-watch the series without ugly commercials or intervening days of holding my breath for the next episode. I get it all, and I get it the way I want.

Except … the sixth season of Justified has been available for nearly a year, so you might ask what took me so long. Justified is my favorite television program. (Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite authors.) I was heartsick when I heard the series had come to an end. As long as I never watched the last season, it was not really over. It was always there to look forward to.

Here is what I wrote about Justified in a previous post:

Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins, and a host of other fine actors, is a character-driven modern day western based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. I believe bad guys and gals make heroes heroic, and Justified has a bevy of really bad characters. Our hero has sidekicks of course, but basically, it’s Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens against this cast of misfits, hoodlums, and felonious masterminds. Good actors portraying interesting characters in a tightly written drama presented with masterful storytelling. Who could ask for more?

But good things can’t be put off forever, so I watched the last season of thirteen episodes in four nights. The final episode did not disappoint. It echoed the pilot in a well-crafted conclusion that sets a high standard for future finales. Good writing starts with good plot decisions and Graham Yost and crew did a masterful job. It’s hard to imagine a different ending that would leave viewers as satisfied.

Here is an excellent Entertainment Weekly explanation of the final episode

Here is Variety’s description of the finale

And for fun, here Entertainment Weekly links to the Top Ten best Show Downs

For the impatient, here is the #1 Showdown!

My Second Short Story

I write novels. Seven and counting. (Plus six nonfiction books, if I include my ghost writing assignments.) I’ve previously written only one short story, for which I received an Honorable Mention as a finalist. Maybe that didn’t count. It was a newspaper contest for a one hundred word novel. In the beginning, I thought anyone could string together one hundred words, but it took me a week to create a draft fit for submittal. Short is hard.

All of this is preface to telling you that I have written my first real short story. “Snake in The Grass” is a Steve Dancy Tale with a twist. I won’t tell you the twist. You have to read it for yourself. Where? First, you’ll need to wait a few months. The book is an anthology written by seven top selling Western authors.

Wanted, A Western Story Collection includes stories by Brad Dennison, Lou Bradshaw, Tell Cotten, Robert J. Thomas, WL Cox, James D. Best, and Duane Boehm.

I’ll let you know when it becomes available. In the meantime, I’ll leave with a few of my favorite quotes about short stories.

A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it. Edgar Allan Poe

A short story is a different thing all together - a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger. Stephen King

The great thing about a short story is that it doesn’t have to trawl through someone’s whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side. Emma Donoghue

I used to write things for friends. There was this girl I had a crush on, and she had a teacher she didn’t like at school. I had a real crush on her, so almost every day I would write her a little short story where she would kill him in a different way. Stephen Colbert

Clint Eastwood Saves a Genre for a Mere $12,000

The Wholesome and the Good

Hollywood overdoes things. If something works, they just keep doing it until it doesn’t. There were 26 Western series on television in 1959, and most daytime programming used old Western B movies to fill airtime. A good thing taken to saturation. By 1964, the Western genre was waning due to overexposure in pulp, movies, and television. In case you believe Hollywood learned its lesson, think about the permutations of CSI and reality shows.

One of the remaining Western television series in 1964 was Rawhide, an endless cattle drive under the watchful eye of Rowdy Yates, played by a young Clint Eastwood. Despite the prominence of Eastwood’s image on the covers of newly released DVDs, the series starred Eric Fleming as Gil Favor, with Yates as the trusty sidekick.

By 1964, Eastwood saw that Rawhide was winding down. What to do? His Rawhide contract would not allow him to film any other movie or television shows in the United States. Then he heard about an Italian director named Sergio Leone who wanted to make a Western. Leone's low budget project had already been turned down by Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, and probably others. Eastwood accepted the role for $12,000, which even in 1964 represented a pittance in tinseltown. Eastwood didn’t have an inkling of the upcoming significance of this odd film shot in Almería, Spain.

After the six-week filming of The Magnificent Stranger, Eastwood returned to Southern California to make two more years of Rawhide episodes. He seldom thought about his European sojourn and heard nothing further about the film.

Due to legal hassles, the movie didn’t debut in the U.S. until almost three years after filming. Eastwood didn’t initially recognize the renamed A Fist Full of Dollars as the Western he had made with Sergio Leone. It was a hit. A huge hit. Made for a paltry $200,000, the film grossed over $134,000,000 worldwide. The Leone/Eastwood partnership would continue with For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Eastwood persona and Leone’s idiosyncratic cinematography created huge appeal worldwide. (It wasn’t sound or film editing, as any quick perusal of IMDb Goofs will show.) After the success of the Dollar Trilogy, Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson succumbed to Leone’s entreaties and agreed to star in Once Upon a Time in the West, a box office dud, but a classic nonetheless.

From this $12,000 gig, Eastwood went on to become a Hollywood icon with a reported net worth of $375 million. (A bit more than a fistful of dollars.) This kind of puts into perspective the manufactured row over the disparity in pay between Harrison Ford and Daisy Ridley in The Force Awakens. IMDb reports, “Daisy Jazz Isobel Ridley is an English actress. She is best known for her breakthrough role as Rey in the 2015 film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” I hope this low paid role in a groundbreaking film works as well for Ridley as it did for Eastwood.

Tip of the hat, Ridley

And now for something completely different ...

In Production—Audio Version of The Return

Coming Soon in Audio

Jim Tedder has agreed to narrate The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale and has already completed 6 chapters. This is exciting news because Tedder did a great job on Murder at Thumb Butte. He has a long career in broadcasting and brings a great storytelling voice to the series.

In answer to some queries, I've completed ten chapters of Crossing the Animas, A Steve Dancy Tale. Darn, I sure wish I could write as fast as Jim Tedder can narrate.

Here is the first chapter of The Return.

Is it possible to stage a Inimitable western street duel?

The western fast draw setup is as well known as the title sequence for Gunsmoke. Two men face off in the street, settle their stance, flex their fingers, and bet their lives on who is quicker. Great drama, but how do you make it fresh and different. There was the knife scene the Magnificent Seven and a lifelong secret about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, but  Terror In A Texas Town outdid them all.


And for a nostalgic moment, here's Matt Dillon's famous duel, ending with a little film crew fun.



I ran across this movie clip in an interesting article by John Heath titled "Why Superhero Movies Aren't Like Westerns." I believe Heath makes some good observations.

Murder at Thumb Butte Available in Audio

The audio version of Murder at Thumb Butte read by Jim Tedder is now available. Tedder is a consummate professional with over 35 years in broadcasting. He's such a natural storyteller, you can almost hear the campfire crackling in the background.

Books in Motion published the audio versions of The Shopkeeper and Leadville, and now Tedder has added Murder at Thumb Butte to the audio series. We anticipate that sales will be good enough for Tedder to narrate the remaining books in the series. I sure hope so. He does a fine job as you can hear from this audio book trailer.

You can purchase the audio version of Murder at Thumb Butte through one of the following links.

Audio—a whole new way to experience the Steve DancyTales.

Another Remake?—The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

My last posting was about Hollywood remaking The Magnificent Seven, one of my favorite western movies. No sooner did it go to press than I hear Paramount is remaking another one of my favorites, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. This remake is still in the initial stages, so actual projection onto a silver screen remains iffy. (Boy, the digital world is making lots of stock phrases obsolete.)

The original 1962 film starred Jimmie Stewart and John Wayne, with Lee Marvin playing the heavy. Vera Miles, Edmond O’Brien, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Woody Strode, Strother Martin and Lee Van Cleef also had significant roles in this John Ford film. Hard to believe Paramount can afford to put together that level of cast today.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance had a huge influence on the Steve Dancy Tales. Ransom Stoddard and Steve Dancy are eastern educated city dwellers trying to survive a raw frontier, both stories make use of political subplots, and the movie and books present day to day life as a backdrop to the action. At bottom, the film and the Steve Dancy Tales are fish-out-of-water/buddy stories.

I hope this particular remake never gets a green light. The original is a true classic and a new production is sure to fall short. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a sophisticated, complex story, directed by a master, with a once-in-a-lifetime cast. Hollywood should quit trying to live off past glories and make new films that will be eagerly watched a half century from now.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

Coming soon to a theater near you!

Hollywood is remaking The Magnificent Seven, one of my favorite westerns. (Darn, I wished they had asked. I could have sold them material for a great, new western script.) The original film was made in 1960 and broke new ground for Westerns. The loner, with or without a sidekick, was nowhere to be found. Instead, an ensemble cast kicked up so much dust with twenty eight hoofs that filming became difficult at times. The Magnificent Seven introduced antihero gangs to theatrical westerns. Previously there were western antiheros, notably Shane and Hondo, but these were deeply flawed characters rather than outright bad guys called upon to do good. Nine years later, The Wild Bunch seems to have taken most of the credit for elevating antiheroes who flock together.

The Magnificent Seven is a buddy story which heavily relies on the chemistry of the characters. This played out exceptionally well in the original and hopefully will work for the remake as well. Of course, everything was not always copacetic on the sets of the original film. Throughout the entire movie, Yule Brynner never removed his hat to expose his bald head. Steve McQueen was such a notorious scene stealer that he exasperated Brynner, who took him aside and threatened to remove his hat if McQueen upstaged him again. Legend has it that McQueen behaved himself for the remainder of the shoot.

The new Magnificent Seven is due in 2016,  directed by Antoine Fuqua, and staring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Luke Grimes, Wagner Moura, Haley Bennett, Matt Bomer, and Peter Sarsgaard. Let’s hope it’s as good as the first one.

What makes a hero —Character or Activity?

Hondo by Louis L'Amour

In 1949, Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell studied myths and stories down through the ages and came up with twelves steps in a hero’s journey, starting with normalcy or status quo and ending right back at status quo. The Matthew Winkler animated video illustrates Campbell’s definition of the journey. Campbell made a brilliant set of observations about the striking similarities of heroic sagas told throughout time and in every culture. (Steve Dancy complies with Campbell's theoretical journey.)

Campbell also breaks some new ground in describing the universal need for heroes, albeit in a language foreign to mortals.

The first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside, and there to clarify the difficulties, eradicate them in his own case (i.e., give battle to the nursery demons of his local culture) and break through to the undistorted, direct experience and assimilation of what Jung called “the archetypal images.”

Say what?

The Hero With a Thousand Faces gives the impression that the journey itself makes the hero. It might be more accurate to say that anyone who prevails through all of the steps elevates himself or herself to heroic status. Most people retreat at Step One: Call to Adventure.

I believe heroism is more a question of character than events. Mark Twain agrees with me. He wrote:

“Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.”

Raymond Chandler also had a character-driven definition of a hero:

…down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

Joseph Campbell is popular in academia, but perhaps it's possible to get a better description of a hero by asking one of those storytellers who have passed these tales down from one generation to the next.