Without whom....

"Without Edge there may never have been a Jack Giles." Check out western writer, Jack Giles take on the return of the ultimate anti-hero HERE

The Virtual Campfire: Talking heads with Terry Harknett (George G. Gilman)

Come on and sit down besides the virtual campfire. Take the weight off your feet and grab a cup of java. This time we’re sharing the virtual campfire with Mr. Terry Harknett, otherwise known as George G. Gilman, author of many fine westerns and creator of that evergreen loner, Edge.

And so with the Edge series about to make its explosive debut in eBook format, I thought it was a good time to chew the fat with Terry. We both invite you to share in our conversation.

Cowboys and 'injuns - not likely!

GD: Before you decided on the name Edge were there any other choices you considered?

TH: As I vaguely recall from the dark and muddy depths of my memory, the first name I came up with for the main character in my first ever Western was... Hell, I can’t remember! Because I was so immersed in American private eye fiction rather than riders of the range it was probably a variation on Hammer or Marlowe or Shayne etc. Whatever it was, Laurence James who was the commissioning editor at New English Library told me in no uncertain terms that it would not do and to come up with something more ‘Western’.

And over one of many alcohol fuelled lunches that took place in the creating of Edge, the hero’s name and most famous weapon were decided upon. Although, on second thoughts, I now seem to recall that in the initial synopsis I wrote for the first book in the series the character was called something along the lines of The Tornado Kid! Remember, a great deal of my Western knowledge came from the serials I watched as an ABC Minor at the Saturday morning picture shows

God, thank you Laurence!!!

GD: Thank you Laurence indeed!  The Tornado Kid: The Loner - doesn’t really scan.
From my understanding when the series was decided upon you outlined four Edge books at a time. Do you think this pre-plotting gave you some advantage in developing the character book from book? Even though you were only working on one book at a time in the actual writing - during the initial outlining you were working on a much bigger canvas. I imagine you must have set stages of character development you wanted to reach with each book?

TH: At the outset NEL commissioned just two books and of course nobody who was involved at the time envisaged what was to happen down the line. So the first two titles were written with no idea about developing the characters beyond how they shaped up in each of this pair of stories.

When the books were published and became instant successes the next and subsequent contracts specified four books. But even then I looked no further ahead than the end of each book in terms of where Edge was going and what he was going to do to get there! The stories just kind of built themselves up out of the bare bones of the five or six pages of each synopsis. I cannot bring myself to be so pretentious as to claim that Edge and other major characters took over the narrative and I simply reported their exploits and conversations.

So maybe I was just lucky and possessed a natural flair for storytelling that flowed from my brain with little effort on my part. I certainly never came up against what some authors term ‘writer’s block’.  Until the creative juices ran dry and I realised I had to call a halt. 

GD: That’s interesting - because there is a very definite character development with Edge from book to book, something that stopped him feeling stale. Even today the books read fresh. I would say you do indeed have a natural flair for storytelling and obviously book buyers must have felt the same. You say the stories came from your brain with little effort - maybe great work is often created in this way. It like’s when Paul McCartney dreampt the song Yesterday; it was written with no effort or work at all and yet it is as beautiful as any slaved over piece of music. And Conan Doyle often claimed to just bash out the Holmes stories. And in the field of pulp style adult westerns, George G. Gilman is the undisputed king. And, I suspect, always will be - when taken as a whole it’s an impressive body of work, and as worthy of the tag,  “literature” as any of the pulp classics.

The Edge books sold in phenomenal numbers and influenced many imitators - thankfully The Tornado Kid was not among them. Indeed you even became something of an imitator yourself with your own Adam Steele series. I’m not saying Steele was the same as Edge, he wasn’t and is an entertaining series in its own right. But the books were ploughing the same furrow pioneered by Edge. In fact in many ways Steele is a more rounded character and although successful, he never quite reached the heights of Edge. Who did you prefer writing - Steele or Edge? And don’t say Jubal Cade!

TH: I have often told fans, not entirely with my tongue lodged firmly in my cheek, something along the lines of I was never sure if I had written over a hundred westerns or the same western more than a hundred times. For in writing book after book in double quick time to meet the publishing schedule I was always wary of the danger of sub-consciously repeating myself with certain scenes and using clichéd characters in what it seemed to me was a somewhat formula based genre. So I think I did make an effort to develop the characters of my protagonists as I related their adventures over the years in an attempt to ring the changes. This said, I certainly recall as the number of Edge books moved toward double figures abandoning the attempt to adhere to strict chronology as he aged against a backdrop of actual events and this is the reason that, apart from the Civil War stories I hardly ever incorporated such events in my books.

All of which brings me to putting forward the suggestion that maybe the character development readers are aware of is the reason for the fresh element they find in the stories. What I suppose I am saying is that this all came about naturally in the creative process without me having to think too hard about what I was writing – so lucky me, I guess! I did have to think more deeply and work harder on the Adam Steele and Jubal Cade series, always conscious of the dangers of cloning them out of the raw material provided by my experience of creating Edge. And maybe because of the blood, sweat and tears I was required to expend on the creative processes of producing these two series was the reason they lacked the magic ingredient that led to Edge being so phenomenally successful?

So, to answer the direct question you posed I always preferred working on the Edge books above all others since they were relatively easier to write. And when the spinning coin has an easy and a hard face a basically lazy feller like me has always called easy and hoped it was a winner! As I am sure you have discovered, Gary, ‘relatively’ is a word with something of an elastic meaning in terms of fiction writing.  

GD: Your wrote three team-up novels in which Adam Steele and Edge shared the limelight. Were these your idea or did the publisher suggest these? Personally I enjoyed the three books but never found them as successful as the stand-alone series featuring the characters. Do you think that with the team up’s you might have over-milked the pudding?

Even the birds dug Edge

TH: If anyone from NEL’s Editorial Department is still around and maybe paying attention to this area of cyberspace I guess they could argue the point. But I’m pretty certain the Edge-Steele team-up books was an idea that that emerged from a brainstorming session held at the publisher’s office. They had one and a half bestselling series on their hands and a tame writer ready to write anything (outside of science fiction, romance or porn) so why not lay this wheeze on him?  And it worked in terms of me signing the contract and crouching over the keyboard to provide what was required.

But my agreement was against my better judgement since I thought then (as I still do today) that ‘buddy’ stories featuring men – or women, I guess - who are supposed to be equal in prowess do not work. One of them has to be better at some skill or other. Of course, they can switch superior roles from time to time, but how can the writer divide the kudos? I never did discover how to do this with two characters so well established in their own series.

And since I have been asked this same question many times in the past, I have wracked my brain over the years trying to come up with a pairing by other writers that succeeded in being a ‘matching pair’ and have always failed. I am, of course open to suggestions that will prove me wrong!

GD:      You’ve said that you started off writing mystery fiction and that you maintained that ambition even after the westerns took over. Did you in any way resent the success of your westerns and feel that they stopped you working on your first love, the mystery novel? Did you ever think of Edge in the way Conan Doyle thought of Holmes - that he was diverting your attention from what you really wanted to write? Yes I know that’s the same question asked two different ways but you sure know what I mean...

TH: Here we return to my contention that I am a hack in the true definition of the word that implies somebody who writes for money – and I cannot accept that there are many writers who do not! Certainly I would have preferred to write private eye mystery fiction in the same style as Chandler. And I tried in ten books to do this. Probably halfway through this attempt I came to the conclusion that my ambition was for many reasons doomed to failure.

For starters, I did not attain his level of education and certainly did not have his  talent for prose writing. Also, I was not American and had little chance of living in the US. So I lowered my sights and reverted to simply wanting to be a professional writer in whatever genre (with certain exceptions) would make this possible. This genre turned out to be Westerns that on reflection was a fortunate turn of events since it meant I was able to the best of my ability to write in an American style against a US backdrop – albeit in a different century!

No, I never resented the success of my Westerns that provided me with a pretty decent living doing a job that I loved. Remember, I was a hack! But even when the success of Edge was demonstrating which side of my bread was spread with butter, I did once attempt to revert to the American mystery in the regrettably short-lived and unlamented Chester Fortune series!

It was not to be but no tears were spilled!

GD: Does it surprise you this continued interest in Edge? Are you ever shocked by the prices some of your books fetch on sites like Ebay?

TH: I’m one of those people who are very easily led and an American devotee who has been a fan of the series for many years directed me toward killing off Edge.  And I toyed with the idea of rounding off the series many times until I finally got around to stating to write the book, which had many working titles until I settled on ‘Detour to Destiny’. Maybe because I had not written any fiction since completing the six titles in the ‘Mini Series’ I became something of a dilettante as I worked on the book. And I only returned to the work in progress when the mood took me – a method of writing that was far removed from the professional attitude I had to adopt when I was tied in to contacts with their tight delivery dates.

And when I was getting close to the near 200 typescript pages that now exist - reading and re-reading them several times (a novelty for me!) I became increasingly dissatisfied with the material I was producing and it was easy to blame Edge for refusing to die while in my heart of hearts I knew the fault was mine because I had quite simply run out of creative juice. So the work I was doing was not up to the standard I had set myself and I thought it best to go out on whatever level I reached in ‘The Rifle’ and not push my luck any further. I am sorry if my fans – one in particular - feel let down because the series did not reach the conclusion I and my American fan had in mind for it, but that’s the way this cookie has crumbled I’m afraid. Sorry Trever.

When I see copies of ‘The Rifle’ selling for silly money on e-bay I am pleased for the lucky sellers and stunned by the enthusiasm of the buyers. Although I have a sneaking suspicion many of those involved are wheeler-dealers rather than fans seeking to complete their collections and the books that change hands are never read by their new owners. I also regret that I only have one copy of the final published book on my vanity shelf so am unable to make any extra loot myself!

GD: Ahh yes of course the six novels you wrote featuring an older Edge and then gave them away free online. I keep forgetting about those when I think of the Edge series – I’ve always been of a mind that only the 61 books in the regular series are really canon, but I suppose the six online books, given that they are written by yourself are very much a part of the story. Was there never any attempt to publish these later books conventionally?

TH: I had ‘retired’ from writing westerns (or so I thought!) and attempted to return to my first love in fiction. But after I struggled with total lack of success to come up with a half decent private eye mystery I had to face up to the fact that it was - as it always had been - not what destiny had marked me down for.

But at that time I still felt an urge to write and had the time to indulge the need so decided it would be an interesting exercise to continue writing about Edge as he aged and became even less of a violent character than he had developed into over the final few published books.

By this time the era of the Piccadilly Cowboys was over so I knew there was little or no chance of these books finding a publisher. But I thought, what the hell, I had a fan base of loyal readers who had stayed with me over many years, shelling out good money to read what I wrote. So as a thank you to all those people who had ensured there was always bread on my table and whisky in my glass over so many years, I decided to offer the ‘Mini Series’ for free on the Internet.  So that is what I did, without any sense of regret that no royalty cheques were going to roll in!

But I was rewarded in one way. For I was able to despatch Adam Steele in one of the final six books to neatly round off this Gilman series.  Which just leaves Edge to get his comeuppance (for did not Barnaby Gold go to a better place in the sixth book of The Undertaker series - or did he?)

GD: Somehow I think the day of Edge’s comeuppance will be a long time coming. The Edge mini-series is still available to read on the Internet – find them HERE. And later this month the first in the regular series, Edge: The Loner will burst back onto the western scene in all new eBook and print-on-demand paperbacks.

Edge is back – twice as mean!

WRITING A WESTERN BY GEORGE G. GILMAN PART 3

Writing Western by Terry Harknett Part 3


PART ONE

PART TWO

RESEARCH - What about research? Which brings us back to my early point about writing of what one knows little.

When I wrote the first two Edge titles my only sources of reference were a map of present day United States and my recollections of movies I had seen. Since then, I've built up an extensive library of reference books on the Old West. But I use them sparingly, and only when I'm engaged it writing an outline of a book. Thus, if I should need to set a scene in a train or a mine, in an actual town or perhaps feature people who actually lived, then I will pull the necessary books from my shelves. Doing research on the hoof, as it were, keeps me from padding out my westerns with unnecessary detail, which almost strikes me in a lot of other books, a pretentious airing of knowledge that only serves to slow down the story.


On my desk when I'm writing are a half dozen dictionaries, because my spelling is bad. Also Roget's Thesaurus, because although invariably the first word a writer thinks of is the best, there are times when no one can delve deeper enough into the memory to find the right word.

I did finally go to the United States, to the Southwest, where the majority of my books continue to be set. And what did I get from the trip that will be of use to me in writing my westerns? A whole pile of source books to add to my library. Plus, I have to admit, a sense of the vastness of the place; first hand knowledge that the big sky really is big.


Now it may seem that because of the facile methods of my researching and writing, the quality of my work would be higher if I researched at great length and depth and took three months to write the books I produce in three weeks. That may well be so. But I subscribe to the school of thought that if one takes one's produce to the marketplace and it sells, one would be foolish not to return as soon as possible with the same brand. Crass commercialism and now the view of an artist? All I claim is that I am successful because my products sell on a free market and that I work as hard as I can to do the best I can within my known limits.

PERSPIRATION: - Should you wish to tread the same path I do, I cannot teach you. All I can offer are the following rules:

1 - If you are in an ivory tower about getting published, climb down out of it. Writing books is a public service job. And if you want people to pay good money for what you are producing, you have to give them what they want and not what you think they should want.

2-Do not only write in a field you enjoy reading, unless you can totally forget what you have read before you write. It is impossible for me to be this objective and I guess for most people.

3-Polishing is something you do with wax and a cloth. Writing is not an exact science, so forget about trying to write the perfect sentence, let alone the perfect novel. If what you first put down makes sense and advances the story, your readers will not mind half a dozen split infinitives.


4-Research as you write. That way you do not overload your story with too much irrelevant material just because you spent a great deal of time digging for it.

5-Write each novel as if it were the first one in a series. Which simply means leaving it open ended. If you are doing a series or serial, allow your central character to develop a little with each story.

6-Pay no attention to other people. Ignore people who look down on you because you write westerns. Just enjoy your royalty cheques. These will not be for large amounts but they will be regular. Western readers are very loyal.

7- Never set a Western in the East. Never set an entire series during the Civil War.

8-Write fast. That way the action comes fast.

9-Write - to apply that first cliché I mentioned - apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and write.

10 - Not a rule, but I wish all of you to be visited by that very important percentage of luck.



ORIGINAL ARTICLE TERRY HARKNETT (c) 1979
This revised edition 2010

HOW TO WRITE A WESTERN BY TERRY HARKNETT PART TWO

I would like to correct an error (mine of course) from the first part of this article. I stated that A.S. Burack edited the piece when in fact Mr Burack passed away in 1978 after editing The Writer magazine for a great many years. Terry's original piece was edited by Sylvia K. Burack. Thanks to Keith Chapman for the correction.

And now back into the time capsule and over to Terry:


Writing Westerns by Terry Harknett part two


Why this success with Edge? And why have not Adam Steele, Jubal Cade and Apache (three more westerns series I created?) achieved the same bestseller status?

Because Edge was an original. He had to be, since as I've said, I had never read a western in my life before I wrote the first two Edge books. The sole influence I had was the movies and TV series - preconceptions from another medium unlike all those unsuccessful mysteries I had written previously (and which I continued to write for some time after Edge was a success). They had been very strongly influenced by my ceaseless reading of Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Mickey Spillane, and all the other American hard-boiled school of writers that I tried to emulate. And then when I wrote my other western series I was subconsciously influenced by myself. Certainly I had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time and to know the right people. That was part of having the forty nine% luck. After that I sat down and perspired my forty nine% working in a field that initially had no appeal to me, and set aside what I wanted to write in order to give the public what they wanted to read - or, in the first instance, what a publisher thought the public wanted to read.

I became a commercial writer, writing for money and, as it turned out, for more pleasure than I ever got from writing those unsuccessful mysteries. For I can ensure you sitting down at a typewriter with a virtually pre-sold project in mind is much more fin than working in limbo with only a hope and a prayer for company.

Now to the mechanics of how I, as a commercial writer, produce my books (a technique that is much the same as when I wrote those first two Edge books).

I start out with an outline of the projected story - a chapter by chapter breakdown, which may be as few as three or as many as eight pages long. (Nowadays I write eight such breakdowns each spring - four each for Edge and Steele, the two series I presently do. And the publisher gives me contracts for these eight books. Thus, my year's writing and publishing schedule is set). I then write the books at a rate of at least 15 pages a day, or about 3,000 words, come hell or high water, five days a week. And in three weeks I have a finished manuscript of from 225 to 260 pages.

At the end of the working day I read through the work I have done, and then at the end of the book I read the entire typescript. On books that do well, I need only to correct typing and spelling errors. On the books that go less easily, I may have to rewrite ten or a dozen pages before I am finished.


NEXT IN PART THREE - TERRY TALKS ABOUT RESEARCH AND THAT PERSPIRATION FACTOR.

HOW TO WRITE A WESTERN BY TERRY HARKNETT PART ONE

The following article was originally published in the August 1979 issue of The Writer Magazine, edited by A. S. Burack. Thanks to Keith Chapman for bringing the article to my attention and supplying scans of the piece.

WRITING WESTERNS - PART ONE BY TERRY HARKNETT

The essence of my advice to would-be writers of any kind of category fiction, i.e, Westerns, Romances, crime novels or any sub-division of these, is related to the fact that I wrote successful westerns before setting foot in the U.S. Contrary to what the textbooks may say, my advice is to write about what you don't know.

Sounds crazy? Do you think I am putting you on while my tongue is lodged firmly in my cheek? Well, I can only speak with authority on my own experience. Which will not teach you how to write but which, I hope, will help you to achieve success with your own writing by adopting a fresh approach.

Initially, a couple of cliches about writing, which like most cliches on any subject, contain more than a mere grain of truth:

1) There's only one way to be a writer - apply the seat of your pants to the seat of the chair and write.

2) Writing is ninety eight % perspiration and two % inspiration.

If I paraphrase the second point I think it puts in a nutshell the "secret" of my own success - 49% perspiration and 49% luck.

Because, you see, I am a frustrated mystery writer who has achieved success in a field that I have no particular penchant. For fifteen long years, I wrote mystery novels that were published twice yearly - and sank without trace at the same rate. This taught me how to sweat as I wrote five pages a night every night after completing a day's work on one or another fringe of journalism.

Then luck took a hand, when I got a job on a book trade journal. There, one of my chores was to write a weekly review of new paperback titles for the retail trade, and this inevitably brought me into contact with people in paperback publishing. One such person heard of my evening fiction writing and gave me my big chance - i.e., he commissioned me , for little more than pocket money to write a novel of a movie, i.e., a paperback original based on a screenplay.

The movie happened to be a western. I had not seen it and I had never read a western novel. But I had seen my fair share of oaters on the big screen and TV - enough, anyway, to know what the western landscape looked like.

This was William Terry (the name I used on the book) born. And after my first western was well received, commissions for four more books from movies followed. Then the publisher was struck by that 2% inspiration - this all happened when the screen westerns were heavily influenced by the Italian movie makers and had hung up the guitar in the cozy bunkhouse and come out with blazing guns onto the dusty streets and wind blow high plains. Clint Eastwood did not wear a white hat, and when he shot a man, the blood flowed - and showed. The movie west was suddenly tough, but nobody was writing books like that.

So William Terry/ Terry Harknett was asked to write a couple to test the market. But for these he was called George G. Gilman. And thus my protagonist, Edge, came into being, destined to appear in from four to six books per year (current number of titles available, twenty nine) and would chalk up sales of more than 10 million in the five or so years since his inception.


NEXT IN PART TWO - THE BRITISH WESTERN BOOM