Nov 28, · Sean Drummond is a filmmaker from South Africa who strives to make movies that appeal to his home country and a global audience as well. His latest work is The Western is often paired with the internal genre of Morality. But your protagonist might have an internal Worldview Genreinstead. If you are writing a Traditional Western, consider the Status Genre. Any of the three internal genres could be paired with any of the subgenres of the Western. You can also add a Love Genre subplot to your blogger.comted Reading Time: 8 mins How to Write Western Novels (Genre Writing Series): Braun, Matt: blogger.com: Books. Buy used: $ Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime. FREE delivery: Get free shipping. Free shipping within the U.S. when you order $ of eligible items shipped by Amazon. Or get faster shipping on this item starting at $/5(28)
How to write a Western story | Help for Authors
This article was originally published on June 22 nd Western fiction is something special. Where sci-fi stretches into the future and fantasy sprawls across how to write a western worlds, the traditional Western concerns itself with events in one specific part of the world over a handful of decades.
Clearly, how to write a western, then, the Western has something special to offer — something beyond the seemingly narrow confines of its time and place. When we think of the Western genre, the first thing we picture is its unique aesthetic. Dusty Old West towns, sheriffs wearing tin stars, and cowboys with wide-brimmed hats, how to write a western, spurs, and trusty six-shooters.
The reader always knows how many bullets the hero has left, and the gun has to be loaded manually. In constructing the fictional cowboy from his real-life counterpart, culture has stripped away what it considers insignificant and codified all those aspects of Western life that matter on a symbolic, thematic level. The first part of this statement is easy to embrace. This was possible because these very different figures are used to tell the same sort of story — the aesthetic varies, but the themes explored are constant.
And, while it may boil the blood of cowboy purists, understanding the ideas behind a Western is a lot more useful to authors than enforcing strict rules about the time, place, and aesthetic a Western has to have. Well, the traditional Western deals with ideas of masculinity, self-sufficiency, and frontier living. When we talk about Westerns, we talk about movies that take place in the American West from toand that is going to fade with time.
Similarly, the very idea of living on the frontier is malleable. The American West is a perfect setting for these themes since it presents a situation in which modernity, as we understand it now, was beginning to overtake a more traditional and less complicated kind of life. Here, we can see the roots of the relationship between cowboys and samurai; in both cases, the iconic figure is an individual suited perfectly to an older version of the world.
The cowboy is a hero of the desert, the samurai a brave knight, but the cities overtake the wilderness, the feudal system withers, and the protagonist is marooned in a new age, becoming a bastion of tradition just by staying the same. This is the core of both Western narratives and anachronism fiction as a whole — conflict between the insistent new and the persistent old.
McCarthy asks hard questions, leaving it unclear whether society has changed for the worst, or if it has just left his characters behind. I got set next to this woman… She kept on, kept on. How to write a western want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. Which pretty much ended the conversation. The protagonist, a young girl at the start how to write a western the story, is now a grown woman and has sought out gunslinger Rooster Cogburn to thank him for his help during the events of the story.
She arrives too late — Rooster died a little while ago — but it would have been impossible for the story to work in any other way. Western heroes work as a counterpoint to the new way — for them to live on comfortably is to suggest that society might someday stop changing. Their real triumph is to make the point that the old ways still have value and should not be forgotten completely.
Instead, the reader is shown that her life has been influenced by him — the past has shaped the future, but it is still irrevocably gone, how to write a western. Portis underscores this by pointing out that another character, younger than Cogburn, is himself now an old man:. I heard nothing more of the Texas officer, LaBoeuf. If he is yet alive and should happen to read these pages, I will be pleased to hear from him.
I judge he is in his seventies now, and nearer eighty than seventy. They too can benefit from understanding that Western fiction means more than just the Western aesthetic. Shane follows the titular gunslinger as he gets bound up in a conflict between honest homesteaders and a gang of criminals.
First, through the potential revenge of the criminals he confronts, and then later through the more complex idea that his perfect masculinity is tempting the married Marian. Interestingly, Marian, her husband Joe, and Shane all understand why this is, and work calmly to negate its expected outcome.
Shane selflessly leaves the family, how to write a western, his old-fashioned masculinity having been the perfect tool to get them out of trouble but also something which has no place in their everyday lives. He was a man like father in whom a boy could believe in the simple knowing that what was beyond comprehension was still clean and solid and right.
The truth is that any changing way of life maps brilliantly onto the themes and structure of a Western narrative. All you need is a lone protagonist, emblematic of a changing system of belief, who can be used to explore both the benefits and problems of a set of ideas.
A bastion of the traditional idea that priests should bind and nurture their community, Father James is viewed with new suspicion and hostility in the wake of the sexual abuse revelations surrounding the church. Westerns offer a perfect canvas on which to interrogate and explore the place of how to write a western values in a new world, but they also offer the temptation to get lost in your own ego.
The Old West is a peculiar time period for fiction because it is defined by its own deliberate mythology. This is neither a wholly good nor wholly bad thing. Few periods of history are remembered with exacting accuracy by the layperson, and society needs both fictional and ideological stories to function.
Where things get tricky for authors is when common fictions or persistent tropes are assumed to be historically accurate.
An obvious example is the simplification of the relationship between Indigenous American tribes and frontier settlers, with the former group often depicted as mindless savages. The solution is to do your research, even if you think you already know everything you need to about the Old West.
What does this mean for a traditional Western? Well, it might influence how you understand the economy and history of your Western town, as well as how you think about certain characters. I started by saying that it can seem strange that Westerns are a fully formed genre rather than just a niche topic. Either way, let me know in the comments.
Rob has yet to encounter a bookshop he can walk past, a habit which has become deadly now that you can buy the newest releases digitally at 1am. Thankfully, it also comes in handy for providing the best advice on writing your book. Hence, a western is cowboys with stetson hats, six guns, horses, cattle drives, rustling, stage coach hold ups, etc. This is what envelopes an American western. Learn your history.
Gunfighters, marshals, bad guy, ranchers, townsfolk. Wow, your advice is bdly tainted. You need to get educated! As I said in the article, I think it makes more sense to focus on the ideas behind the genre than a strict time period and aesthetic style — having partially created how to write a western idea of the Western setting, it seems odd to then declare it hallowed ground. At face value, it fits your definition of a Western, but there are enough odd elements how to write a western it might get itself disqualified.
An interesting read, if nothing else. No Country for Old Men is certainly a western. As Wood elaborated on, a big part of the western genera is the imagery, but it is also the themes. NCFOM uses less of the imagery whilst there still certainly is someand more of themes. NCFOM is meant to be a somewhat subversive take on the western genera. I mean. Sherriff Ed is the most obvious example of this in how to write a western movie itself.
I think your staunch dislike of this film is entirely misinformed and misguided. It severely undermines your points when you take such a staunch stance on something without being able to acknowledge the good points about a film.
I have ventured a YA book which I deliberately designed to be read which calls the classic western to mind; a reboot of the Lone Ranger, but with all the identifying serial numbers carefully scoured off — and revamped as an adventure set in Texas when it was an independent republic.
I think most people when then think of a classic western are also being pretty specific as to time and place; post Civil War, and set somewhere west of the Mississippi. My own books aside from Lone Star Sons are sometimes classed as Westerns, how to write a western, which is some ways is a bit limiting. I prefer to think of them as historical novels set in the 19th century American west; a wagon train on the California trail, with nary a six-shooter in sight, the life of a woman during the Texas war for independence and running a boarding house in Austin — no cowboys there although there is a company of early Texas Rangers.
The settling of the Texas Hill Country — with immigrant German settlers; eventually some cattle drives, with cowboy hats and six-shooters, how to write a western, plus a conflict with a vicious horse-thief and all-around baddie. A Harvey girl from Boston, working in a railroad restaurant in New Mexico. Two Englishwomen settling in Texas in the s — some classical elements of the Western there, how to write a western, but with a twist.
A fantastic question, and certainly one which seems to arouse strong views. Personally, I try to adopt the mindset that genre — like language itself — is just a tool we use to better understand and explore important ideas. Hi Rob, this is interesting. I write westerns and love the wide range of stories I can tell, but all with a Stetson and a six-shooter.
mainly the villains! LOL I love the genre. Thanks for the kind words and for commenting. Much, much more. It was a definite time in history how to write a western the American West was being settled and it dealt more with the struggles in trying to tame the wild land and about the dreams of those men and women to carve out a place where they could set down lasting roots than it ever was about an idea.
The western is not an idea. It was a way of life—trying to make something from nothing. History is full of the men and women who sacrificed everything in order to reach their goals.
These are kind of people who are in my stories. They have depth and heart and goals to achieve. From your picture, you appear really young. Have a good day. Robert, I live in cowboy country. I know two things—cowboys and ranching. I know how they think and how they feel. And how dedicated they are as caretakers of this Texas land.
And this is what I try to portray in my stories—not how many bullets are in their guns. They wear their how to write a western hats and boots and they do it with pride.
Screenwriting Tips: How to Write a Western
, time: 19:01How to Write a Western - Rachelle Stewart Ramirez
Nov 28, · Sean Drummond is a filmmaker from South Africa who strives to make movies that appeal to his home country and a global audience as well. His latest work is If you are writing a Traditional Western, consider the Status Genre. Any of the three internal genres could be paired with any of the subgenres of the Western. You can also add a Love Genre subplot to your story. Most Westerns weave in a supporting Love blogger.comted Reading Time: 8 mins Apr 04, · it takes place in the west. and that makes it unique. Here are some things you’ll want to consider when writing your Western. This is in the format of the journalist’s “5 Ws and H”: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. If you have any questions, please put them in a comment or email Editor@blogger.com I
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