Selfish San Francisco

Water Source for San Francisco

San Francisco supports denying water to the Central Valley so a tiny fish called the Delta Smelt has a pristine habitat. Except San Francisco gets its drinking water from the other side of the Central Valley. If the O'Shaughnessy Dam below Yosemite was demolished, the Sierra runoff would flow naturally into the Central Valley.

To further explain the source of San Francisco water, here is an excerpt from Deluge.

“The TV.” She pointed to a television mounted high on the wall. The sound had been muted, but the agitation of the newscasters was obvious. The chyron read, “O’Shaughnessy Dam collapse harms San Francisco.”  In smaller letters below, it read “Water and power at risk.

Smith grabbed the bottles and said “Come on. Let’s get back.”

When they entered the flat downstairs, Wilson and Ashley were chuckling like a couple of teenagers. Baldwin had the impression that if they hadn’t returned when they did, they might have found the flat locked, with a man’s tie hanging from the door handle.

Smith immediately went to the remote and turned on the television.

The newscaster was saying, “San Francisco receives eighty-five percent of its water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which sits behind the O’Shaughnessy Dam. A dam that no longer exists. This dam also produced over seven hundred million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year for the city. The mayor has declared an emergency, and water as of this moment is severely rationed. It appears that for the first time in a century, San Francisco will be forced to pump and filter its water. The question on the minds of nearly three million people in the Bay Area is, how long it will take to replace the water supply for the city? Our sources said months. The irony, of course, is that after over a week of nonstop rain, how can the city be out of fresh water … and potentially short of electricity?”

“Oh, crap,” Smith said. “The Restore Hetch Hetchy activists got their wish. They’ve hated that dam since John Muir fought its construction early in the last century. Now we’ll see how Sierra Club members with a 94123 zip code like rustic living.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” Wilson said. “The rich always live comfortably. It’s the peons who’ll suffer. If need be, the rich will have Perrier home-delivered in quantities large enough to shower whenever they want.”

Ashley pointed at the faucet. “This water comes from the Sierras? That’s hard to believe. Why? The Delta always has water.”

“It’s pure mountain water,” Wilson said. “We’re one of the few major cities in the world that doesn’t filter its tap water. It’s uncontaminated … and delivery is gravity fed. The city moves it from the mountains to that tap without fossil fuels.” She stroked the faucet spout. “Our pristine mountain water is a matter of civic pride.”

“As well as the pee on the sidewalks,” Smith said. “Gravity fed, pure, and one hundred percent organic.”

“Guys, quit squabbling,” Baldwin said, pointing at the television. “The Don Pedro Dam just below Hetch Hetchy also failed. Modesto and outlying areas are in the flood path. People are dying, and you’re worried about showering.”

Storms, politics, and gangs pummel California but that isn't the scary part.

Can the Bloody Benders Revive Western Film?

Bender General Store and Inn

In the early 1870s, the Bloody Benders were a family of serial killers on the Kansas prairie. The four members of the family could not be weirder. If they were a family. The only thing known for certain is that there were four of them and they killed over a dozen travelers that ate or stayed at their makeshift general store located along a popular trail to the West. One more thing is known, they escaped.

This is a fascinating story and now The Topeka Capital Journal reports that two Harvard graduates are making an independent film about this grotesque piece of Western lore. There may also be a Hollywood production about the Bloody Benders. I’m rooting for the indie film. 

When the resurgence occurs in Western film, it will come from solid storytelling. My money is on indie films because they can’t afford elaborate computer generated effects, so they have no choice but to concentrate on a great script. Western enthusiasts keep hoping that movies like Cowboys and Aliens or The Lone Ranger will rejuvenate the genre. Small films have a better chance.

Bender Knife

IMDB reports an estimated budget for Open Range of only $26 million, a pittance for a movie with two bankable stars. Dances with Wolves was only $19 million.  Quigley Down Under $20 million. And even the remake of 3:10 to Yuma was only $55 million. On the other hand, films with nine figure budgets have harmed the genre. Big losses sour Hollywood powers-that-be on Westerns and they’re too dumb to figure out they threw away their money on a lousy script because they believe CGI, fast cuts, and a pulsing soundtrack were the key to a blockbuster.

Good storytelling draws audiences into movie houses … and that’s the forte of low budget films. Since Hollywood is blockbuster obsessed, we’ll have to rely on indie films to have an enjoyable night at the movies with a box of hot, buttered popcorn.

Did I just write a Western?

Working Cover

I'm about to send The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale to my editor. One step closer to publishing, but still a ways to go.

In this episode, Dancy and his friends visit Thomas Edison in New York City and Menlo Park, New Jersey. Although the story starts in Leadville, Colorado, the plot mostly takes place on the East Coast. Louis L'Amour once said, "If you write about a bygone period east of the Mississippi River, it's a historical novel. If it's west of the Mississippi it's a Western." So ... did geography change this from a Western to a historical novel? The Return includes the same characters, they act the same, and they get into more fights. (I’m talking about the protagonists, of course. The antagonists seem to keep getting killed.)

In the end, I believe it is still a Western because the characters are Westerners through and through. Even Steve Dancy has been transformed. Everyone is a fish out of water. Kinda like Crocodile Dundee meets the 19th century.

Why did I bring my characters east? As I've mentioned previously, The Virginian was the inspiration for the Steve Dancy books. I liked the end of Wister's book where the newly married Virginian and his wife visit her family in New Hampshire. It provided a great contrast between the supposed civilized East Coast versus the values and perspectives of the frontier. I wanted to do something similar with The Return.

Novels That Will Scare You Silly

I don't write scary novels, but I read them. Done right, they can give you an adrenalin rush while your partner snores beside you.

io9 posted a list of "10 Novels That Are Scarier Than Most HorrorMovies." It's a good list and if you really like scary novels, you can discover many more in the 500+ comments. Happy reading!

Original Cover

Frederick Faust, aka Max Brand

Frederick Faust was one of the most prolific writers of all time, publishing nearly thirty million words in his lifetime. Faust had more pen names than Destry had bullets. (In the film, Destry Rides Again, based on the Faust character, James Stewart famously shoots his Colt seven times.) He wrote more than 500 novels and short stories—all with two fingers on a manual typewriter. In his day, Faust was one of the highest paid writers in the world. Late in his career, Warner Brothers paid him $3,000 a week and he made a fortune from radio, film, and television adaptions of his Dr. Kildare character. Despite writing poetry and fiction in every genre, it was Westerns that made Faust famous, albeit under the pseudonym Max Brand.

Although Faust had once worked on a ranch, he was not a true Westerner. He was born in Seattle in 1892 and grew to maturity in California. He attended the University of California at Berkeley for four years without graduating. He was enamored with the Greek and Latin classics his entire life and often incorporated ancient mythology into his stories. His real life’s ambition was to be a poet, and he wrote genre fiction in the afternoons so he could pursue his passion for poetry in the mornings.

Faust wrote his first Western as a magazine story in 1918. Faust’s editor had recently lost Zane Grey to a competitor because Grey’s Western stories had become so popular. This editor convinced Faust to try to fill his boots. Faust’s first Western novel, The Untamed (1919) was highly derivative of a 1910 Grey Western titled The Heritage of the Desert.

Grey and Faust were different writers. Grey was enthralled with the landscape and expansiveness of the West, while Faust preferred to explore internal conflicts. Grey brought setting almost to life as a character, while Faust had a knack for describing animals in a way that made them vital characters in his stories. Faust preferred pursuit plots, delayed revelation, and his fiction was character driven. Faust was a more literary writer, especially when he put his mind to it.  Jon Tuska, a literary critic/agent, wrote: “The Biblical overtones that run throughout Faust’s Western fiction are as striking and unique as his imagery from classical literature. Indeed, Zane Grey’s avowed pantheism is wan beside the vivid evocation of the presence of God in Faust’s fiction, whether as the Great Spirit of the Plains Indians or the Christian Deity … every story Faust ever wrote seems to have to a degree both surface action and a subtext, a story within the story that functions on the deepest level.”

Although Faust received praise from literary critics, his lack of historical accuracy, scant descriptions of the landscape, and minimal actual experience on the frontier generated harsh criticism by those who admire realistic detail in Western fiction. Additionally, His writing quality was inconsistent. Most of his books and stories were produced at a breakneck pace, which sometimes amounted to 6,000 words in a single day. His work has also been butchered by editors who severely abridge his serialized stories for publication as novels.

Frederick Faust was a one-man fiction factory. He was also a great storyteller who invented enduring characters. Faust believed that “there is a giant asleep in every man.  When that giant wakes, miracles can happen.”  This was certainly true for him.

Three Icons of the Western Genre

Zane Grey

The three greatest icons of the Western novel are Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Louis L'Amour. Sure, other authors have written multiple Western novels, but these three made their names synonymous with the genre.  (Actually, Max Brand was a pen name.) Together, these three authors wrote nearly 500 Westerns and countless short stories.

Zane Grey published Westerns from 1908 until his death in 1939. Actually, he left such a large stockpile of manuscripts that Harper & Brothers published a novel per year under his name until 1963.

Frederick Faust, aka Max Brand

Max Brand published his first Western in 1919 and continued writing in the genre until his death in 1944. Similar to Zane Grey, publishers continued to bring his work out in new editions. For example, in 2007, Five Star Westerns published Acres of Unrest from a 1926 magazine series.

Louis L'Amour published his first Western in 1951. His last Western published  while he was alive was The Haunted Mesa (1987). Like his genre predecessors, books under his name continued to be published long after his death, many of which were short story collections.

Louis L'Amour

These three may not have been the greatest authors who have ever written about the American frontier, but they were great storytellers. (Okay, my vote would actually go to Mark Twain as the best Western author.) Storytelling has always been a revered art form and has been around since man first exaggerated his hunting prowess. In fact, storytelling might be the real oldest profession. 





In the early days, stories were spoken—handed down generation to generation. Cave dwellers began the notion of illustrated stories with petroglyphs, while during the middle-ages; stained-glass served the same purpose. The novel came to fruition only after widespread literacy and it nurtured its own artistic standards. Have these three authors ever met those artistic standards? I believe the answer is yes, especially in their best work.

Steve Dancy Tales -- Kindle Bargain

 

                   The Steve Dancy Box Set

Books provide hours upon hours of entertainment. If you're looking for rousing fiction, consider the Steve Dancy Kindle Box Set. The set includes The Shopkeeper, Leadville, and Murder at Thumb Butte, all three for $8.99, which is five dollars less than buying each book individually. Together, the three Western novels have 790 Amazon Customer Reviews for 4.4 stars and 1,878 Goodreads ratings for 4.0 Stars.

How do you pick your next book to read?

I'm a compulsive reader. I read everything and I read all the time. I suspect it started when I was in the fifth grade and I spent my breakfast reading the shredded wheat box. I even read the dividers that separated the rows of three biscuits. Nabisco sponsored the television program Sargent Preston of the Yukon and my hero was all over the box and dividers. That's how I ended up owning one square inch in the Klondike. Darn, I wish I still had my deed.

You'll be pleased to know I've graduated from cereal boxes to books. First the Hardy Boys, and then mass paperbacks. I was a junior in high school when I discover nonfiction with Theodore White's The Making of the President 1960. College introduced me to classics.

In adulthood, I wandered books stores and paperback racks looking for my next read. Bestsellers lists had already down-selected which books got prominent display, and I usually picked by author or back cover copy.


The publishing world has changed. Bookstores are becoming rarer, yet there are tens of thousands of more books available. The shelf-life of a book has been extended well beyond presence on a bestseller list. Electronic books are increasingly taking over fiction and narrative prose. Old book selection tools like magazines and newspapers are withering. Literary reviews are being displaced by reader reviews.

So how does a person pick their next book to read? For me, it's easy. I carry my Kindle with me almost everywhere. Writing has crowded out my reading time, so I read in line at the airport, in my doctor's lobby, in the car as my wife runs into a store, or while eating breakfast or lunch. I also have my Kindle with me when I watch television. It's always around when I use my computer. Why? It has to do with how I pick my next book to read. Whenever I hear or read about a book that sounds interesting, I immediately download a sample onto my kindle. I do this while talking to friends, watching television, surfing the Internet, attending book events, or when reading a periodical. After I finish a book, I metaphorically thumb through my samples, usually reading a chapter or two, then select my next book. At any point in time, I probably have twenty books queued up.

Electronic reading devices have changed the publishing industry and reading habits. It has also changed the way we chose books.

1. Back copy is less important than the opening of the book 
2. Bestseller lists mean less than frequent mention on broadcast and cable outlets
3. Social media builds name recognition
4. Word-of-mouth is even more powerful

This means emerging authors have tools to compete with famous authors. More important  sales can occur a considerable time after a promotional event. Book sales are now a long-haul business. Someone might download a book sample weeks, or even months before they make a purchase decision.

In fact, you might consider downloading samples for these books.

Happy reading.

Click to download samples.

Books are a perfect gift.

Some people can be hard to buy for—unless you give them a book that matches their special interest or taste in fiction. Suddenly, your thoughtfulness becomes part of the gift. Whether your relatives or friends are interested in the Civil War, romance novels, Westerns, railroads, guns, cooking, collecting old comic books, or some hobby, there's always a book around that will bring a smile to their face.

Books are the best entertainment value around. They provide hour after hour of personal pleasure, and then they can be passed on to another person. I also like that when I give a book as a gift, I can write a personal note that won't get tossed out like last year's Christmas card.

Children's books are great gifts. We always search for autographed storybooks for our grandkids. A great find is when the author and the illustrator both sign the book. We've done this for several years, so now our grandkids' bedrooms have dedicated shelves for signed books. The icing on the cake is that we get to read them a story from one of these books whenever we visit.

Here are links to bestselling books in a few categories. There are many categories a click away, but you can also search for books on a specific subject.

Children's books

Cook books

Crafts & Hobbies

Action Adventure

Romance 

Westerns

Amazon Bestsellers

By the way, if you're thinking about a gift for me, I collect vintage Western books from the first half of the twentieth century. I especially like the ones with great illustrations on the dust cover. But if you give me one of these, do me a favor and write your personal note on a Post-It.

 

Saddle Up ! Denver Post article on resurgence of Westerns on TV

Joanne Ostrow writes a article summarizing television networks new fascination with the Western genre.

"The rugged individualism of myth, the challenge of uncharted territory, the bad sanitation and awful racial stereotypes ... the TV Western is back in the saddle."

Read more ...

Read related article on popularity of Westerns

A Great Tribute to Westerns

Westerns Forever by MarkmBonner

'Bout Books Reviews the Shopkeeper

Read the review

The Future of the Western Genre

For the last couple of decades, enthusiasts have lamented the demise of Westerns while the rest of the world has gone about its business, ignorant that anyone might care about a genre relegated to a few obscure shelves at the local bookstore. Westerns were hugely popular for over a hundred years. Not only were they popular in the United States, but the whole world devoured them. The Western was a staple of fiction, Hollywood, television, and daydreams. What happened?

Read entire article at Ezine

Western Genre Article Trilogy

I've completed a triology of articles on the Western Genre and posted them on Ezine.

Is the Mythology of the Old West Dead?

The Future of the Western Genre

The Virginian, A Classic Western Revisited

Link to all three.

The Shopkeeper trailer on YouTube

Do book trailers help people select books? I haven't a clue. Even though I don't know if they provide value for book buyers, I went ahead and had one made for The Shopkeeper.
If you have an opinion about The Shopkeeper trailer or book trailers in general, I'd sure like to hear your thoughts.

"Evil be to him who evil thinks" Edward III (1312-77)

The Western Writers of America reviewed The Shopkeeper in the August issue of the organization's Roundup Magazine.

Best, James D. The Shopkeeper, A Steve Dancy Tale. Wheatmark. Trade paperback, 233 pps., $18.95. ISBN 978-1-58736-922-3 

Steve Dancy is set on experiencing the West. At first glance, he is nothing more than a dilettante Easterner intent on writing a journal about his adventures on the frontier. He’s not running away from a hopeless life. To the contrary, he’s educated and seems to have enough money for his simple needs. Although anxious to avoid trouble, he can be pushed only so far, and when he chances upon some bad men doing unspeakable things to a woman, he feels he must take a hand. It isn’t long before he’s caught up in gunplay, which leads him into taking desperate measures, including buying a bank and a hotel, and influencing the upcoming gubernatorial elections. Dancy is a far different man than these Westerners think he is. Wealthy after selling off his Eastern businesses, maybe he should have told them what kind of goods he sold, because he’s sure not like any other shopkeepers they know. This is a fast paced tale with an interesting hero. In structure, with short chapters, crisp dialogue, and lots of movement, it’s reminiscent of a thriller. Sadly, neither of the women in this story were enduring, the older too evil and crass to believe, and the younger far from worthy of the infatuation the hero apparently feels toward her. The motivation seems weak for all the mayhem that ensues. Still, you’ll certainly find enough twists and turns to provide an entertaining and exciting story. 

I loved the review, but… "the older too evil and crass to believe?" This worries me because Mrs. Bolton was the only antagonist to survive in The Shopkeeper. Steve Dancy certainly finds her evil and crass ways unbelievable, but Mrs. Bolton has a villainous nature that might crush our gifted Mr. Dancy. I just hope that he wakes up and sees her for what she really is before the climax to Leadville.

Characters Matter

Characterization is a crucial aspect of fiction. We know this because it's drilled into us at school, in workshops, and in all the how-to books and journals we read. The protagonist must come across as real and interesting enough to pull the reader through to the end of the story. A common mistake, however, is to focus too much attention on the protagonist. When you read a great book or watch an outstanding film, it's usually the antagonist that lifts the story above the ordinary.

Chigurh From No Country for Old Men

Protagonists, especially those of the heroic breed, are bound by rules and common perceptions that somewhat inhibit creativity. Antagonists, on the other hand, are wide open for manipulation. They can be bad to the bone like Hannibal Lector or Chigurh. They can be nasty or evil, but mend their wayward ways like Ebenezer Scrooge or Darth Vader. The reader may be misdirected to believe the antagonist is bad and then everything is turned around like with Boo Radley and Mr. Darcy. Antagonists can make a story memorable, even when the antagonist isn't even human— like Moby Dick or Christine. The one thing these antagonists all have in common is great character development.

Your concentration on character development shouldn't even stop with the protagonist and antagonist. Nobody willingly hangs around boring people and nobody wants to read about characters with cornmeal personalities, not even bit players. Everybody inside the covers of your book has to be interesting. Give each of them a distinct personality. If you have a character like a postman or waitress that only appears for a couple pages, don't describe their personality, show it. You need to do it with dress, movement, or dialogue. Show, don't tell, is more difficult with the brevity of a minor player, but you only need to spice the character enough to make him or her three dimensional.

Here's an example from my novel, The Shopkeeper. 

I asked the hotel clerk for the best lawyer in town. He directed me to a man named Jansen who had an office across from the Capital building. I then asked to see the chambermaid in my room so I could give her some special instruction. After a brief wait, an exceptionally skinny girl arrived whose cheap dress fell straight down from her narrow shoulders.

“You sent for me?” she asked.

“I would like you to do me a favor. I’ll pay handsomely.”

“All right.”

“I haven’t told you what I want yet.”

“Tell me … and then I'll tell you what handsomely means.”

That took me aback, but I plunged ahead. “I want you to write a letter and sign it with another woman’s name. Can you write?”

“You mean can I forge?”
________________________

Speed Demons vs. Slowpokes

Open Range

The movie Open Range started me thinking about plot pacing. Westerns films are supposed to be action/adventure, but Open Range is not Silverado—which opens with sudden gunplay and corpses thrown in every direction. In Open Range, the audience never sees nor hears any shots until the end of the movie—when all hell breaks loose. The intent is to shock the audience with a tardy eruption of violence that puts the main characters into mortal danger only after the viewer has learned to care about them.

Which technique works? Both. The correct pacing depends on what the storyteller is trying to achieve. The storyline in Open Range is a set-up for the finale. The scenery, characters, and the depiction of the fabled Old West lifestyle are just enough to keep the viewer’s interest until the big payoff. Open Range has a well-conceived plot and a strategy for developing that plot—something that can’t be said for every hyperventilating action flick.

Ever since the movie Speed, the audience at an action/adventure film expects to get their adrenaline pumping within the first 180 seconds. Hollywood does this with rapid-fire cuts, pulsing music, a banging soundtrack, and life-threatening scenarios that are frequently just a preamble to the real story. (Actually, the credit for heart-throbbing openings probably belongs to the James Bond series, but Speed found ways to twist the knob to the right.)

Dan Brown did the same to novels. He opened da Vinci Code with a gruesome murder and then slammed his foot on the accelerator until the reader felt breathless while lying in his La-Z-Boy recliner. Brown uses one hundred and five chapters for a relatively short novel—some chapters are as short as a single paragraph. This is the equivalent of a film editor making forty-five cuts in a one-minute action sequence.

Silverado

A downside of this trend is that critics assume that anything done with deliberation must be art—or worse, that art in film or literature must be painstaking slow. (Once Upon a Time in the West must be art because it moves slower than a septuagenarian fastening his seatbelt in a parking slot you want.)


The speed of the story should match the subject matter and the predilections of the target audience. Whatever pace you choose, it should be a choice, not an unwitting byproduct of the other story elements. The only hard and fast rule is that a plot must never come to full stop. Plots move or die. Even dialogue must always move plot or characterization. (People don’t want to watch or read the banal things we say to each other.)

When you read your next book or watch your next film, stay aware of the pacing. If you enjoy the experience, chances are that the story is told at the right speed to properly draw the characters and develop the plot for the genre’s audience.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

What makes an appealing hero?

I asked myself this question as I tried to figure out why the Western genre had been relegated to a couple of obscure shelves in most bookstores. I tried to noodle this out for myself until I came upon Raymond Chandler’s 1950 definition of a hero. He was describing a detective hero, but it fits nonetheless. Here is my abridged version of Chandler's hero.

Raymond Chandler

“…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.”

When publishers and producers abandon their penchant for off-putting antiheroes and return to this model, the Western will leap back to prominence.

People want heroes they can admire and long to emulate.