Western Fiction

Are there Any Good Westerns Out there Anymore?

That depends on what you believe a “good” western fiction story should be. Some believe a good western is an “authentic” western. They are convinced that the writer was obligated to “tell it like it was” and not add the glitter and glamour, nor romanticize.  They seem to forget that the main reason so many writers of western fiction became popular was because they did add some of those elements to their stories. Zane Grey was one of the first to brush broad colors across his canvas and inflame the imaginations of tens of thousands of readers. James Fenimore Cooper did it a generation or three before him.  Others are firm believers that a good western ought to be decent, without the sex, without the language and coarseness and vulgarities that were, of course, prevalent. There is much to their argument and frankly, where the western story is littered with corpses and sex, many minds simply become turned off and the writer’s story is ultimately one of those corpses.

The Dean of Western Fiction, Louis L’Amour once said that a writer of westerns should simply tell a good story. Of course, he did that better than just about anyone else when it came to writing westerns.  That really is the essence of it all: telling a good story. A writer who wishes to have a following, to have readers who desire to read the next western that comes from the writer’s pen, has to tell a good story. That, of course, involves some mechanical skills, but mostly, it involves the writer’s imagination, his or her ability to create scenes that are acceptable to the reader, scenes which enhance the story and make the reader want to turn the page.

Ultimately, every reader will decide for himself what a good western story is or should be, and they will do that by not purchasing certain books that don’t measure up.

The character in a western fiction novel may not have to conform to any particular description of his or her features, but if you want to lend credibility to your character, you’ll put some description that conforms to the period as well as to the culture, and to the kind of work done by the character. Read the rest of this entry »

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