Guns and Horses: Getting it Right

Western writers are like other fiction writers in that they have super powers. They can bend time, compress space, and sweep away boring people, mundane tasks, and toilet needs.  Writers can magically have their characters do and say whatever’s necessary to incessantly move the story forward. Instead of wielding a wand, writers brandish a keyboard. No wonder so many writers are egotistical.

The exception: John Wayne got guns right

There is one major difference between Western writers and other authors—they need to get guns and horses right. Western enthusiasts will suspend disbelief in every other aspect of a written story, but not guns and horses. Odd, because Western movies enjoy forbearance that a novel does not. A film can run a horse forever, fire eight shots from a six shooter, or shoot with precision from horseback. Western readers, on the other hand, tend to be sticklers for accuracy about these two areas when they occur in print. That’s why I use gun and horse specialists to proof my Westerns.

What brought all this to mind was a Cracked article about “6 Stupid Gun Myths that Everyone Believes (Thanks to the movies).” The piece deals mostly with modern guns, but a few of the 6 myths relate to nineteenth century guns. For example, a dropped Colt Peacemaker could go off. That was not a myth in the olden days. Reputedly, it happened to Wyatt Earp when he sat in a saloon chair. That is why Westerners often kept the chamber under the hammer empty, making their pistol a five-shooter. 

“Shotguns Are Room-Clearing Murder Factories” applies equally to the Western double barreled shotgun. Marshals who held off a lynching party with a shotgun looked threatening, but could only kill two vigilantes before reaching for a pistol. As Wild Bill Hickok and Bat Masterson attested, the myth that "Deadly on the Gun Range = Deadly in Real Life” is apropos for gunfighters in the Wild West.

The article is a fun read, but unfortunately many of the movie clips have been disabled due to copyright issues. Too bad. The clips that work do a fine job of illustrating Hollywood gun myths.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

I'm not one of them!

Some people are visual. I'm not one of them. But I appreciate good design, even if I'm incapable of drawing a straight line with a ruler. In school, I took drawing and drafting. I received a dubious C in both. (I did better in English and history.)

Writing and design come together in book covers. Every book, even an e-book needs a cover. And people really do judge a book by its cover. (See Judging a Book by its cover.) I'm always interested in cover design because book covers are so key to book sales. Flavorwire has done a fun piece on 75 Vintage Dust Jackets of Classic Books. Here are a few examples that struck my untutored eye.

Not included in the Flavorwire article, but still one of my favorites.

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Book cover ... by design

Vintage Photograph to Western Book Cover

These Guys Will Kick your Butt

How about a free vacation?

Matt Haig posted an article titled “12 Years as a Writer”. It’s a lessons-learned piece. I especially like #11, which reads:

“We like stories because time moves us forward, when what we want to do is move sideways. We want to live every possible life, not just ours. Stories are how we can window shop other possible lives without committing to them. They teach us everything.”

While we’re immersed in a story, time in our world seems to stop. How often have you looked up from a book and asked yourself where the time has gone.  It is possible to time travel. All we need is a great novel. It transports us to another place and time and then quietly dumps us back into our own world without all the pyrotechnics of the movies.  As Haig says, a story allows us to “window shop” other ways of life vicariously ... and safely.

Storytelling is an art, and because everyone can enjoy it with no special knowledge, it is the universal art.

So … find a good book and take a vacation. You can visit anywhere, any time. Happy reading.

Honest stories filled with dishonest characters.

Creative Librarians

Book Riot has published a piece on Finding Libraries in Unexpected Places. There are some great pictures and an interesting narrative for each. There are some nifty ideas here that might help libraries remain as a place to check out books—real books, printed on that stuff they call paper. I would hate to see libraries turned into book museums, or internet portals for the digitally deprived. I prefer librarians information savvy rather than technology chauffeurs.

Concord Free Public Library

Boston Public Library

As you can tell, I’m a bit old fashion. I love bookstore and libraries. My favorite libraries are the Boston Public Library and the Concord Free Public Library. I like both of these because there are surprises buried in their stacks—surprises that knowledgeable librarians help you uncover. 

In the Boston Public Library I found a Roger Sherman doctoral thesis by Christopher Collier, the author of Decision in Philadelphia. In Concord, I found a one hundred and sixty year old biography of Roger Sherman. Both finds were invaluable for my research for Tempest at Dawn. Since I was not a resident of Massachusetts, I was further surprised when the Concord Free Public Library issued me a library card on the spot and let me walk out of the building with this valuable book. Free library cards for everyone is a longstanding tradition of this charming bastion of American literary history.

Bookstores are great, used bookstores are fun and great, but libraries are indispensable because they come equipped with tour guides called librarians. I sure hope the digitization of books doesn't cost us this valuable resource.

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I just gave away over 300 books

Buddies in the Saddle reviews The Return

Ron Scheer writes reasoned and comprehensive book reviews, so I was a little nervous when he accepted a review copy of The Return. I needn’t have worried. 

“You know you’re in good hands with James Best. This new 'Steve Dancy Tale' is told with the usual economy, clarity, and attention to detail. Best’s characters are fully three-dimensional and spring to life in a few words of dialogue. Best of all, you enjoy their company.” That last sentence is a great compliment to a writer.

You can read the complete review here. 

I also suggest you wander around Buddies in the Saddle. You’ll find descriptions and reviews of Western fiction, nonfiction, and film.

The complex lives of common people

Shane is one of my favorite Western films. The Jack Schaefer book is also one of my favorite Western novels. There are great films and there are great books, but Shane is a rare instance where both the book and film are distinguished in their own right. The movie is an honest rendition of Schaefer’s story, while artfully making adjustments for a visual presentation of a novel.

In honor of its 60th anniversary, Andre Soares wrote a Alt Film Guide piece about the movie. I didn’t like the article. Among other things, Soares seems apologetic that he admires the film. After all, this is an art film site, and how could a Western be art? The following paragraph reveals his prejudice.

“Now, what makes Shane special is that while Stevens and Gurthrie Jr.’s movie feels like a paean to the Old West and to Western movies in general, it actually demythologizes both American history and the film genre that turned into stars the likes of Tom Mix, John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and, later on, Clint Eastwood. Read between the lines and you’ll see how subversive Shane is — how unheroic its heroes are, how complex the lives and minds of its "common people," how civilization can be just another manifestation of barbarism; and, no matter their righteousness, how hollow human victories can be.”

What claptrap. This is basically a glass-half-empty view of humankind. The film I saw was far more uplifting and hopeful. Shane is a story of redemption, not the barbarism of civilization. To justify his admiration for Shane, Soares basically claims there is a depth to the story that is uncharacteristic of the genre. He needs to read and watch more Westerns. Sure, there are lots of junky Westerns, but despite Raymond Chandler writing great fiction, a lot of crime drama is also unmemorable. The depth and nuance of Schaefer’s story is not uncommon, nor are instances of quality in Westerns any more rare than for other popular genres.

Shane is a great story, presented admirably in the print and film versions. Just ask Clint Eastwood and Robert Day, the directors of Pale Rider and The Quick and the Dead, both basically remakes of Shane.

"Mike Reads" reviews Tempest at Dawn

The "Mike Reads" blog has reviewed Tempest at Dawn. This is not exactly a New York Times book review, but I liked it because Mike took away from the book what I intended. I love writing Westerns and like the freedom to plot my own stories, but Tempest at Dawn was a five year labor of love. It was a huge responsibility to write about the founding fathers and such an important event in American history. I read or seriously scanned over 100 history books on the Constitutional Convention, and used at least 3 biographies for each of the major characters in the story. And yes, it was a story—a great story with great characters, intense conflict, and hopeful resolution.

Tempest at Dawn continues to be well received by readers and historians. At the time of this writing, and five years after publication, the Kindle version is still ranked #28 for books about the U.S. Constitution. 78 Amazon customers have reviewed the book for 4.5 stars, and 185 readers on Goodreads have given the book an average rating of 3.84.

I'll probably never again tackle a book as challenging as Tempest at Dawn, so it's gratifying that it still sells well and continues to receive attention from readers and reviewers. Thanks.

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.