The Genre too tough to die

 "One of the most vapid and infantile forms of art ever conceived by the brain of a Hollywood film producer." ...Dwight Macdonald, The Miscellany 1929

"The western remains, I suppose, America's distinctive contribution to the film."...Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Show April 1963

Geographically and historically the concept of "The West" is very loosely defined, when associated with the literary and film genre of the western. With the possible exception of the Eastern Seaboard almost every part of the USA had been called "The West" at some stage in the country's history.

The federal government defines "The West" as including the following states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada,New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. But from the movies and books both Kansas and Nebraska can be added. And maybe Hawaii and Washington should be removed. The West of popular imagination usually contains those areas associated with the final frontiers of American settlement - anything West of the Mississippi River. An area associated with cowboys, Indians, outlaws and lone lawmen.

Amongst the earliest western literature with artistic merit were the works of James Fennimore Cooper, his most famous works being 1826's Last of the Mohicans - though by the true definition of the genre none of the author's works are strictly westerns. The books were set in colonial America and featured the British rule but true westerns are set in independent America.

EZC Judson, writing under the pen name Ned Buntline was an early writer of traditional westerns. He earned himself the nickname of, 'Father of the Dime Novel' and turned Buffalo Bill into a figure of mythic proportions. However the first western with the classic ingredients was Owen Wister's The Virginian in 1902, which largely invented the guidelines that western writers still follow today.



The names Louis L'amour and Zane Grey have dominated the genre for many years and still do to some extent. But an early European champion of the genre was Karl May with his popular Shatterhand books. He wrote over 60 books but Shatterhand remains his most famous character. Indeed Shatterhand was revived by B.J. Holmes in a series of books for the successful UK western house, Black Horse Westerns.

The cinema has always had a love affair with the western and during the silent era there were many hundreds of westerns made. Most of these have been lost but there are still some prime examples of early westerns to be sought out by fans.

Some of the most important silent westerns that still exist and can be found on DVD or in many cases for free download from archive.org include:

The Iron Horse (1924) directed by John Ford
The Covered Wagon (1923) directed by James Cruze
Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1914) directed by D W Griffith

In cinematic terms there is little doubt that the Golden Age of the western took place between the years 1940 - 1970. There were many classics before and since but during these years there was never a time when most major studios didn't have at least one western in production.

During the Fifties and Sixties in particular the western also dominated the small screen with many western TV series being aired. Among the most well known are:
Bonanza
Gunsmoke
The Big Country
The Virginian
The Rifleman
Have Gun will Travel
Wyatt Earp
Wanted Dead or Alive

The modern era has also seen many classics of the genre, both on the screen and between the covers - Lonesome Dove, Sons of Texas, Blood Meridian, Tombstone, The Unforgiven to name but a few. And of course in recent years we've seen the Coen's re-make of True Grit, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. Those though are just the tip of the hay bale - for instance check out the excellent Netflix westerns series, Godless.

The Western truly is THE GENRE TOO TOUGH TO DIE. Kevin Costner is working on a new western and there is a remake of Butch and Sundance in the works. American greats like Dusty Richards and  Larry McMurtry continue to write quality western works. And British western house, Black Horse Westerns are continuing to bring out new western fiction written by writers from all over the world. Among these you will find such loved writers as B. J. Holmes, Ben Bridges, Jack Giles,Nik Morton,  Ian Parnham, Mathew P. Mayo, Chap O'Keefe, Jim Lawless and myself, Jack Martin. And this is just a small selection of the writers producing all new traditional westerns under The Black Horse banner. And of course there is the story of John Locke who became the worlds' first self published writer to sell a million eBooks on Amazon, and several of his titles are westerns. Mind you Locke was recently discredited when it emerged that he had paid for many positive reviews which helped sell his books.

Westerns have also made the transition to eBooks and the excellent publishing house, Piccadilly Publishing is reissuing western classics in the new electronic format, and of course the popular Edge series is also available in eBook. The Edge books, for instance, are a particular favorite of mine and I am proud to say that I was instrumental in initially bring the series to eBooks, but the reissue program is now in the industrious hands of Malcolm Davy.

So if you've never tried  a western then maybe now is the time to do - they've never been so easily available and online giant Amazon has many titles at good prices.

Come on saddle up and let's ride.

Take a look at my Jack Martin page at Amazon - click HERE

Book Review: Streets of Laredo: a fitting conclusion to the legend

'More worrisome to him was the fact that the joints of his fingers had started to swell, when it got cold. For most of his life he had paid no attention to weather; weather was just there. He never let it interfear with his work or his movements. In time, the weather would always change, but the work wouldn't wait. Now it seemed, weather was interfearing plenty. When the cold struck his wrist joints became swollen, and the joints of his fingers even more so.'

The Streets of Lardeo is the sequal to the Pulitzer Prize winning, Lonesome Dove and where it was the second book published in the series it is actually the fourth book chronologically. The author would follow this novel with   a couple  of prequel novels (Dead Man's Walk and Commanche Moon) that looked at the early days of Captain Call and Augustus McCrae. This book though is a direct sequal to that first novel and not to be confused with that TV movie, Return to Lonesome Dove which is a poor substitute to this, the real conclusion to a beautifully written, painfully realistic western tetralogy . In The Streets of Laredo, McMurtry adds the final strokes to the story of Captain Call, and gives the character a worthy if somewhat depressing send off.

The book is all about growing old - as the Wild West that needed men like Captain Call slowly fades into history then so too do men like Call. McMurtry's westerns have never been about gun blazing heroics, although there are plenty, but more about presenting in as vivid and truthful a fashion as possible the real cruelty of the period. The book opens many years after the events told in Lonesome Dove and when we meet up with Captain Call he is an aged character, someone better suited to spending his days in a rocker whittling away at pieces of wood, but Call doesn't pay much attention to his growing old and has long as he can still do what he sets his mind to he doesn't really think about the changes age brings to his once strong body.


'When she looked out the door of the rooming house and saw Captain Call coming, she had been shocked at how decrepit he looked. Pea Eye had mentioned, casually, that the Captain wasn't as spry as he had been, but the comment hadn't prepared her how the man actually looked.'


Call find himself hired by the railroad to track down the youthful bandit, Joey Garza who is making  a name for himself by striking trains across the Mexican border. Call is teamed up with Brookshire,  a man of the East who is really not suited to the harsh conditions in the West - he spends much of his time either chasing his hat which blows off in the Texas winds or pining for his bossy wife, Kate. Soon they are joined by  yound deputy, Plunkert who is no more suitable that Brookshire and also spends much of his time thinking of the young wife he felt behind in Laredo. Both of these men will lose their wives during the long journey ahead of them.

As well as Joey Garza, Call has to contend with Mox Mox, the manburner, a truly sadistic character who takes great pleasure from burning people alive - man, woman or child it matters not to the runty bandit and some of the scenes concerning the character, although largely told in flashback, are truly stomach churning. It's not all grim though - there are many great character moments. The Indian tracker, Famous Shoes offers some great comedic relief and there is a scene where a group of whores are talking about the first men in their lives that displays the author's incredible skill with character and dialogue.


In the end Captain Call is a legend and the author skilfully weaves his story around several real historical characters, Charles Goodnight, Hanging Huge Roy Bean and John Wesley Harding for instance play major roles in this wonderfully written epic of the old West.

'Call was no longer the man who had lived in the old times; he was no longer even the man who had killed Mox Mox. That man was not the cripple who lived in a granery, in a barn on the Quitaque. That man lived back somewhere in memory, across a canyone, across the Pecos; that man had been blown away, as Brookshire feared he would be, on the plains of time.'


To sum up - a wonderful book that must be read. Absoluely astounding - lyrical, elegiac and jaw dropping!


Like the other books in the series, Streets of Laredo was made into a TV mini-series, this time with James Garner in the role of Captain Call.

It's a Big Adios

A good thing about the eBook revolution is that it allows for a market that had long since vanished in the print medium to thrive. There was a time when western fiction magazines were plentiful, but those days have long gone...Those day are back - The Big Adios Western Digest is a digital magazine, the first issue is out now and available from Amazon and other eBook retailers.

 

Of paramount eImportance

Chap O'Keefe

"The fact that nothing ever needs to be out of print is, as far as I’m concerned, a big plus to digital publishing. It means that in theory everything ever written can be easily available. I also think that genres such as the western can reach a bigger audience as ebooks. I don’t really think there is a downside to ebooks themselves, since traditional books should be able to co-exist with this new technology. The ease of self-publishing means that at the moment there is a lot of swill about, and that could be seen as a downside, but quality will out and in time the bad writing will simply vanish. So long live the ebook." Jack Martin/Gary Dobbs


eBooks V traditional books - the debate has been raging for some time now, but why should the two mediums be in competition with each other? For many years we've had hardbacks,paperbacks, audio books and now eBooks are just another option for writers to reach an audience.

David Whitehead

"Ebooks are not demons, or replacements for books. They’re another outlet for creative writing. As before, the reader needs to be aware that not all books will live up to their promise in the blurb." Nik Morton


The latest Black Horse Extra eMagazine there's a great round table discussion, featuring three big names in western fiction today,  which really does look at both the pros and cons of eBooks and its relation to genre fiction. I urge anyone and everyone to read this interesting and illuminating article.

Nik Morton

"If we are to encourage this market to grow, and in the process see a resurgence of interest in the western and earn something extra from our labours, we must all always endeavour to make paramount the quality of our writing, and the presentation and affordability of our books." David Whitehead.

Direct link to ARTICLE
Link to entire MAGAZINE

Only the finest western writers....

Details HERE

Writing western fiction

Why write western fiction? By western we mean novels/stories set in the Old West - usually, but not exclusively between the years immediately following the civil war and upto 1890. Who would want to read western fiction in the world we live in today?

Many people clearly do - the western provides a form of escapism, a comfort zone that is becoming more and more important in the frantic world we live in today. There is an enduring quality in taking the imaginative leap to a time long gone and finding that the issues facing people were remarkably similar to those we face on a daily basis, it is inspiring to read about people facing up to life's trials and tribulations and standing resolute against anything thrown at them.

The western as a literary genre had its golden age sometime around the middle of the last century and indeed the writers of that period are still widely read today - L'amour, Zane Grey. But to find the roots of the genre you have to travel further back, much further - in fact to the Old West itself when hack writers were mythologising the West even as it was going on around them.

Perhaps the defining classic of the genre is Owen Wister's The Virginian, first published in 1901. The book sold 300,000 copies in its first year, led the American bestseller lists for most of 1902 and by 1968 had sold over 2 million copies. It is perhaps the most widely read book about that period we call, "the wild west" and shaped the conventions of the genre for generations of writers to follow. Anyone wanting to write a western simply must read this seminal work.

There was a time when everything was clear cut in the western - the hero always wore a white hat, the baddie a black one. Right and wrong were clearly defined and there was a code to be followed but these days practically anything goes in a western. Modern issues can be tackled and many writers cleverly disguise the concerns of the 21st century within their narrative. In short there is no kind of story the western can not tell - crime, romance, horror, comedy. The western is versatile enough to accommodate them all.


SO WHERE DO I START ? Research is very important in the westerns. You must get the details right, particularly with guns and location. I've often been enjoying a book and then I notice some mistake the writer has made and it drags me out of the story. Even minor mistakes can ruin a story. However the aspiring western writer should take heart in the fact that mostly everyone knows what the west would have looked like. This makes the writers' job that much easier and with the advent of the internet any required information is usually only a few key-strokes away.

THE ACTUAL WRITING. There is no one way to do this. Some writers like to rush through the first draft and then take care of structure, style and plot problems in the re-write. Others are more cautious and will plod along, revising as they go and when that first draft comes out it needs very little tweaking. I hop between both camps but I do like to keep the story moving along, to give it pace and I actually look forward to the revising once the first draft is complete. For me the first draft is a necessary evil and getting it out of the way is all important.


CHARACTERS. It is good characterisation that can turn a good story into a great one. Try and put yourself in your characters mindset and think what you would do in a given situation, however it is important to put modern inhibitions aside. You would have been a very different person had you been alive in the 1880's. Perhaps the single most helpful piece of advice for creating characters is READ, READ AND READ. Only by studying the work of writers you admire can you ever hope to understand the process involved in creating realistic people to populate what is after all an outlandish fictional landscape.

STOP PROCRASTINATING AND GET DOWN TO IT. The biggest thing is to stop talking about it and get on with it, as difficult as it can be to find time in our hectic lives it is important to be stubborn and get down to the actual writing. You must make time - no matter what- or your creation will always be a pipe dream. Remember it is no different writing a western to any other form of genre fiction and the tools used will always be the same. Behind every successful (define successful as professionally published)writer is a person who was pig headed enough to get on with writing no matter what was going on around them.

THE BEST ADVICE. And here it is, the best advice anyone can give someone wanting to write for a living, anyone wanting to hone their craft and create readable prose. It's nothing mythical. no arcane knowledge belonging to a select few. It is this - READ. Read everything you can get your hands on, devour every western that comes your way. Pay attention to the accepted masters of the genre and read classic as well as modern westerns. Look at what contemporary authors are doing with the genre. Just because the lone gunfighter is becoming a cliché doesn't mean you should forsake him or even her as the case may be. There are certain conventions the western fan demands and only by being familiar to the genre can the writer hope to recognise what these are.

So get writing, you've an arduous trail ahead of you but with stamina and a self belief as wide as the prairies you can do it.


My novel, The Tarnished Star is available now.

SMALL PRESS WESTERNS PUBLISHER

The following post was actually a comment on The Wild West Monday fun - however I'm posting it here so as many peeps get to read it as possible. It's exciting news for western buffs.


Take it away Kirby -

Well, in my neck of the woods (SW Oregon), the booksellers are not the problem.

Our local Walmart recently had a makeover and moved a bunch of stuff around. While they did knock out a bunch of bookshelves and eliminate some genre sections, Westerns still have a well stocked section. (I really thought they were going to be gone). There are mostly well known names on that shelf; L'Amour, Gray, Cotton, Kelton and the stuff brought in from the major publishers, but you'll also see a lot of Leisure Westerns in there. Our other "new book" store is Oregon Books, a really great locally owned book shop. In addition to specializing in local and regional non-fiction, not only are the shelves well stocked with Westerns, but they are well stocked with books on the Old West too.

Our library is on its last legs (we have the only public library system in the U.S. that doesn't receive federal funding) and though the shelves are heavy with books, operating funds are the problem.

Beyond that, our used book sellers still carry A LOT of Westerns. Our best used bookstore actually belongs to one of my mother's friends and she has told me several times that Westerns outsell everything else.

I also know that a lot of everyday people are still interested in reading new westerns. My own site, www.western-stories.com has some pretty high search engine rankings and though I don't get as many hits on a daily basis as I'd like to see, I do get a lot of e-mail from people who read my work and I get new subscribers for my opt-in newsletter on almost a daily basis (sometimes more than one a day). That's despite not making a great big effort to attract potential readers - yet. So there is still interest out there for Westerns.

From a personal standpoint, I believe that the real issue is that editors/publishers have this weird idea that the Western is dead. With the exception of Leisure, who still devote a large portion of their Western line to reprinting work by folks long gone, mass market publishers just don't seem to be interested. Agents are not interested.

To make matters worse, there is no Western small press movement to speak of. If you're a writer and you look at fiction markets like Ralan.com and others pretty regularly, you know what I mean. The markets to sell (hell, even give away!) your Western work are barely existing. By contrast, when I wrote horror under a pen name, when I made a moderate effort, I could get work into over 100 markets in a year.

Those of you in the UK are lucky in having Hale around, but here in the U.S., we have no equiviliant to Hale's Black Horse imprint. But even then, Hale's reach is still limited and doesn't really extend outside the UK.

We've got to come up with something all of this.

So what did I do for Wild West Monday?

Well, it's still Monday here in the Far West. The day isn't over yet and so there is still time for me to do something.

That "something" is an idea that I have been hashing over for awhile. For a long time I have beeen saying that what the Western really needs is a small press movement. Some of you writers who frequent here know that I have a little bit of background in the publishing world.

With that in mind, I think it's time to launch a Western small press specializing in traditional length Western novels (100 to 140 pages), as well as anthologies of Western short stories and getting new books out to readers. And why not non-fiction about the Old West too?

Those of you who are interested, please drop me a note:

kerby@western-stories.com

I'll be interested in hearing not only from writers looking to get their work out there, but also from readers who just want to read more Westerns. For the writers, to start out, we'll be looking at copy + royalty share for anthologies and a small advance + copies + royalties for full length works.

If you own a blog or website, please cross-post this or slap together a little news brief.


Thanks Kerby - check him out HERE