Westerns in Literature

Western fiction has been hugely popular for almost two hundred years. Not only were Westerns popular in the United States, but the whole world devoured them. For decades, the Western was a staple of fiction, Hollywood, television, and daydreams. Today, many think Western fiction is moribund. They’re wrong. Authors like Johnny Boggs continue to carry on the tradition, and my own novels sell well. The popularity of Westerns is often measured against the impossible yardstick of the 1950s.

Some say we’ve become too sophisticated to swallow the traditional Western mythology. Those are people who have not taken a thoughtful look at Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, or even the glut of superheroes that plague theaters, bookshelves, and toy boxes. The stories are the same, only the venue has changed. The Western in its traditional garb will come roaring back when audiences tire of yet another iteration of CSI or men in tights.

Western fiction is frequently dismissed as not being serious literature. This misconception is perpetuated by classifying literary stories that occur in the Old West as something other than a Western. Many of the smart set believe Westerns can only be dime novels, pulp fiction, or straight-to-paperback formula bunkum. But the Western has a long and valid history in literature.

James Fenimore Cooper may have been the first Western author of note. The Last of the Mohicans and the rest of the Leatherstocking Tales were told in the Western tradition. Written in 1826 about events that supposedly occurred nearly seventy-five years prior, The Last of the Mohicans incorporates all the characteristics of a modern Western.

Mark Twain is universally acknowledged as one of the great American literary figures, but is seldom referred to as a Western writer. Yet, Roughing It is a first-hand description of the Wild West of Virginia City during the heyday of the Comstock Lode. Granted, Roughing It is Twain-enriched non-fiction, but The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are coming-of-age novels set in the American frontier. (By the way, Mark Twain hated James Fenimore Cooper's writing. You can read all about it here. Pretty funny.)

When Owen Wister published The Virginian in 1902, the novel received critical acclaim and was a huge bestseller, eventually spawning five films, a successful play, and a television series. An instant success, it sold over 20 thousand copies in the first month, an astonishing number for the time. It went on to sell over 200,000 thousand copies in the first year, and over a million and a half copies prior to Wister's death. This classic has never been out of print.

Max Brand, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, Jack Schaefer, Elmer Kelton, Larry McMurtry, and Cormac McCarthy continued the Western tradition and all of them have been highly successful. Recently Nancy E. Turner (These is my Words) and Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers) have penned praiseworthy Westerns that are popular with readers.

Western literature has a grand heritage and will continue to appeal to readers all over the world.   Good writing, plots that move with assurance, and great characterization will elevate the genre back the top of the bestseller charts.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

Time Travel Anyone?

I love time travel. We’ve all experienced time travel whenever we’ve opened a book and been transported to another place and time. When you slap the book closed, it returns you to where you started. Well, sorta. You may lose a few hours, but nothing's free.

All books do this, but I particularly like the time travel genre. Two of my favorite time travel books are A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Lightening. In 1889, Mark Twain sent his character Hank Morgan back in time to the reign of King Arthur in the sixth century. Like all of Twain’s work, life lessons are delivered with humor and skillful storytelling. Another great time travel novel is Lightening by Dean Koontz. Written in 1988, Lightening takes a unique perspective that cannot be described without a spoiler. Despite being over thirty years old, the novel has traveled to the present wholly intact.

Up until recently, I didn’t believe time travel was real. Then my nephew showed me his time travel machine. After testing it, I assure you that it works perfectly. Instead of flashing lights, electric pulses, or whirling brass spindles, he made his machine with duct tape, a kitchen timer, and a bathroom scale. He duct-taped the kitchen timer to the bathroom scale. That’s it. When you’re ready to travel, you set the timer to where you want to go and then climb aboard. When you hear the timer’s ding, you’ve arrived.

Pretty nifty, huh?

Famous Last Words

The Washington Post has an article on “The 23 most unforgettable last sentences in fiction.” Many critics and readers focus on the first sentence, but the last sentence is the one that leaves the final impression. Here are a few of my favorites.

“I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

“It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

“He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.”
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

“After all, tomorrow is another day.”
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

“He loved Big Brother.”
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

I can't resist. Here are a couple of my favorites from my own books.

“I kept my head and Chestnut facing east.”
The Shopkeeper by James D. Best
(I didn’t want my hero to ride off into the sunset.)

“And then he was gone.”
Tempest at Dawn by James D. Best
(James Madison, an old man had left the room, but he soon after left the stage as our last remaining Founding Father.)

In truth, neither the first nor last sentence can make a good story. The entire narrative has to pull the reader forward until they read the last sentence. A story told properly will cause the reader to seek out another book by the same author.

Mark Twain's 10 Writing Tips

Curiosity.com published a list of writing tips from Mark Twain. Now, Twain never actually published a list, but his letters provided plenty of tips that just needed to be gathered up in one place. 

Here they are:

1. "Write without pay until somebody offers to pay."

2. "Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream."

3. "Great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter, and not the trimmings and shadings of their grammar."

4. "The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction."

5. "If I had more time, it would have been shorter."

6. "The more you explain it, the less I understand it."

7. "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very.' Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."

8. "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

9. "Use plain, simple language, short words, and brief sentences... don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in."

10. "As to the adjective: When in doubt, strike it out.”

Good advice, but I believe scrutinizing Twain’s castigation of James Fennimore Cooper provides even more guidence. Among other things, Twain wrote “Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.” 

If the criticisms of Cooper were rewritten as positive statements, they would make a great guide to great writing. Which I took the liberty of doing here. You may also want to check out my catalog of writing advice from the masters. 

How to Sell a Half Million Books—After You’ve Been Dead 100 Years

Dead people publish new books all the time. Some of these books are unfinished manuscripts. Others are ghostwritten from scratch to take advantage of a famous name like Robert Ludlum. But there is one book composed by the actual author that was purposely withheld from the market for one hundred years, and after release, sold over a half million copies. Now that’s quite a feat.

Click to buy at Amazon

The author, of course, is Mark Twain, and the book is his autobiography … Volume 1. (The New Yorker has a fine article about Twain’s autobiography.) The second volume has just been released and is also projected to sell well. 

Twain specified in his will that his autobiography could not be published until 100 years after his death. He claimed that time would heal the wounded egos of those he assaulted. There is a lot of vitriol aimed at long forgotten people, but the only controversial aspect of his own life is an atheism well known by his contemporaries. In typical Twain humor, he wrote, “I have thought of fifteen hundred or two thousand incidents in my life which I am ashamed of, but I have not gotten one of them to consent to go on paper yet.”

The delayed publication was a grand publicity stunt by one of our nation’s foremost self-promoters. Twain believed, no, he knew that the great great grandchildren of his current readers would be interested in his life. He expected immortality of an earthly variety … and he was right.

The meandering style of the book has not garnered good reviews. Twain wrote that other autobiographies “patiently and dutifully follow a planned and undivergent course.” His own, by contrast, is “a pleasure excursion.” It “sidetracks itself anywhere that there is a circus, or a fresh excitement of any kind, and seldom waits until the show is over, but packs up and goes on again as soon as a fresher one is advertised.”

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A Writing Cheat Sheet

Many seem to believe if they just got a proper set of instructions, they could be a good writer. Many famous writers like Mark Twain, George Orwell, and Elmore Leonard have even provided aspiring writers a list of rules.  Here is a Writing Tips PDF that collects rules from George Orwell, Edward Tufte, Strunk and White’s, and Robert Heinlein. I especially enjoyed Evil Metaphors and Phrases. These clichés are definitely cringe worthy, if I can be allowed to use yet another cliché.

(Here is my collection of writing advice.)

There's a problem with all of these lists. If hard rules were all that was necessary to become a great writer, then we’d be awash in breathtaking literature.  We have writing tips, rules, and guidelines aplenty, yet they don’t seem to convey the masters’ magic. What gives? All of the rules are good writing advice, but first there must be compelling content.

I used to golf until I realized I pretended to enjoy the game. Prior to making this discovery, I took a lesson with two friends from a teaching pro. We spent about two hours on the range and putting green. Lots and lots of tips and advice. My head was swimming. I couldn’t get my grip right for fear my backswing was too fast. 

The all-day lesson included a round of golf with the teaching pro. We presumed he would critique our play as we went along. No way. On the first tee, he told us he wouldn’t comment on our play until we were ensconced in the clubhouse for refreshments. He said we should forget everything he had told us. Forget it all. His advice was meant for the driving range and putting green. He reiterated that as we played this round, we were not to worry about grip, swing, or stance. We should concentrate on one thing and one thing only—keep our eye on the ball. Simple. Keep focused on the primary basic of all the basics. It was a fun round of golf with one of my lowest scores.

My point is that when you write a first draft, forget the rules. Focus solely on the story. Telling a great story is the real magic the masters have mastered. Don’t pull out the rules until you start the second draft, then use them ruthlessly on the third and fourth draft. Hone and polish your manuscript until it’s as bright and shiny as a new penny.  (Sorry, I couldn’t resist closing with an “Evil Metaphor.”)

Banned authors clobber the banners!

I was unaware that my favorite library once banned a book by my favorite author. In 1885, the Concord Free Public Library banned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. You should never slight Mark Twain. He responded immediately to the ban by declaring:

“Apparently, the Concord library has condemned Huck as ‘trash and only suitable for the slums.’ This will sell us another twenty-five thousand copies for sure!”

Too bad Twain is not around to chasten those who still want to condemn Huck. Nowadays, they want to ban the book for using the n-word. Ironic, since his intent was to expose and ridicule racism.

Flavorwire has published 10 Famous Authors’ Funniest Responses to Their Books Being Banned. The moral of the story is to never attack someone who knows how to wield a keyboard. My favorite is Ray Bradbury’s reponse.

“… it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmild teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. ”

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Mark Twain Tells Us How to Write

Mark Twain didn't like James Fenimore Cooper’s writing. Wait, that was far too mild of a sentence. In his article “Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses,” Twain ridicules, lacerates, and skewers Cooper.

Here’s a small sample: 

Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them.

This 1895 article made me laugh out loud, but besides humor, I saw something else in the article. If all of the criticisms of Cooper were rewritten as positive statements, they would make a great guide to great writing. I believe this list can stand prominently next to Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing.

So … with clemency from Twain, I present the "18 Commandments of Writing," by Mark Twain.

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
2. Episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.
3. Personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
4. Personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.
5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.
6. When the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.
7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven- dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel in the end of it.
8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.
9. Personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
11. Characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.
12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Do not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

Great list, huh? Anyway, I’ll let Twain conclude this post with his conclusions about Cooper: 

I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Deerslayer" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Deerslayer" is just simply a literary delirium tremens. A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! Indescribable;  its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.

Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.

Remind me never to get on the bad side of Twain. 

Best Western Writer of All Time?

Mark Twain as a young man

Mark Twain is one of my favorite Western authors. Whenever I tell someone that, their immediate reaction is that Twain was not a Western writer. When I point out that his nineteenth-century stories take place on the frontier, skeptics usually make some comment about the lack of six-guns, cowboy hats, and black-hearted desperados.  I suggest they revisit the books. Injun Joe wasn’t sitting in the pew next to Tom on Sunday mornings, and poor Tom got shot in the leg in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Mark Twain knew the real West as few other authors. His memoir, Roughing It, tells about his experiences as a newspaper reporter in Virginia City when it was as rough as any cow town and six-guns were always at the ready. Twain actually lived the Wild West and wrote about the American frontier. That makes him a Western writer in my book.

Owen Wister was another great author who experienced the real western frontier. In fact, many scenes in The Virginian come directly from his notes taken during his summer sojourns to Wyoming in the late 1880s. Currently, I’m reading An Editor on the Comstock Lode by Wells Drury. Drury was a newspaper editor in Virginia City after Mark Twain had departed, but the hillside town was still wildly fun and dangerous as hell.

What struck me is the common cultural trait that permeates the writing of Twain, Wister, and Drury. It appears the most common characteristic of the real Old West was not gun fights, but practical jokes. All three authors relate yarns about hijinks and pranks, some of which required the participation of a large number of people—sometimes almost the entire town against one or two people not in on the joke. Westerners evidently loved practical jokes; the more elaborate the better.

Thinking on this brought to mind the Earps. They are often criticized by their detractors as small-time swindlers. Besides some more serious accusations, the Earps supposedly rigged bets to determine who would pay for drinks. Some biographers use these accusations to illustrate an unsavory aspect of their character. Perhaps. On the other hand, maybe these authors didn't understand the culture of the real Old West.

Jane Austen is finally in the money

I guess it would be more accurate to say Jane Austen is on the money. I’m proud of her since she didn’t make a fortune with her writing while she was alive. Starting in 2017, the author will be the image on the ubiquitous £10 note. If authors didn’t self-doubt enough, now they won’t receive full validation until their visage is in everyone’s wallet or pocketbook.

Pride and Prejudice Quote on note - "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!"

Evidently, there was a hue and cry by Caroline Criado-Perez to have more women on British currency. To heck with that, what about authors being eulogized on the most important thing in many people’s lives? Ms. Austen is actually the third writer to grace a British note. William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens preceded her. And how many authors have been on United Sates Currency? None. That’s right, none. Politicians hog all the space. William McKinley has even graced the $500 bill. Now, I ask you, who has done more for Americans, William McKinley or Mark Twain?

Whoops, I just realized something. One of the top selling authors of all time is on American currency. His books were the number 2 bestseller for twenty-six years. (The Bible was number 1.) His writing made him one of the top 100 richest Americans in history. Every school kid can recite his words. It’s easy to forget that Benjamin Franklin was one of the great authors of all time and that there were few homes in colonial America without a copy of Poor Richard’s Almanac. In fact, Ben is not only on the $100 bill, it is popularly called a Franklin. So we do have a great writer on our money. Take that England.

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Mark Twain in Virginia City by Andy Thomas

My favorite Western writer is Mark Twain. Owen Wister is second. These are probably not names that come immediately to mind when thinking about Westerns, but both of these authors actually experienced the American frontier. They were there and they wrote about it so fondly that the Wild West became a cultural icon. The whole world devoured Western stories. The American Western became a staple of fiction, Hollywood, television, and daydreams.

In Roughing It, Twain tells tall tales about his time in Virginia City. It is supposed to be a nonfiction memoir, but is probably about as truthful as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I suspect the two men would have admired each other's ability to make a point by telling a story.

Philip Pullman said, "Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever." The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a perfect example of this axiom. Below are a few handwritten pages from this great American classic. 

Handwritten manuscripts fascinate me. I used James Madison's convention notes when I wrote Tempest at Dawn. His notes were over 230,000 words; all recorded by dipping a quill into an inkwell. I marvel that in olden days, authors  maintained continuity without the cut and paste capabilities of a modern computer. Before word processors, writers had to keep future sentences in their head as their hand scrambled to keep up with their thoughts. Tough work that required exceptional mental agility. I thank Bill Gates daily for MS Word. 

Note: the original title does not include the word The. Recent editions have generally added The.

Touchy, Touchy, Touchy

Snobs come in every variety

At Booktrust, Matt Haig started a cross-pond rhubarb with a post belittling literary snobs. Haig's article was less interesting than the responses. Dozens of people who wouldn't think twice about disparaging writers of popular fiction took umbrage that someone might criticize them. To prove elitism is not restricted to the U.K., Andrew E.M. Baumann in Georgia responded to Haig’s post with a 7,446 word diatribe of his own.

Personally, I define a book snob as someone who dismisses a work merely because it's popular. My definition would put Andrew E.M. Baumann in the snob camp because he wrote, “The demonstrated truth is that “popular” equals mediocre, or worse.” Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Ben Franklin, Owen Wister, and many others would disagree that popular equals mediocre. Raymond Chandler wrote, “It might reasonably be said that all art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment, and that if it does not it dies and is forgotten.” Every book that is popular is not literature, but it’s snobbery to assume that anything popular is unworthy of admiration.

So what qualifies as literature? Again, Chandler’s definition. “When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over a ball.” That pretty much does it for me.

If this debate interests you, here are the links to the two referenced postings.

30 things to tell a book snob

"30 things to tell a book snob" -- A Literary Elitist's Response