Over at the Clarity of Night, Jason Evans posted a note that he reserved the right not to publish stories he found offensive for offensive's sake, right after I sent in my submission. Oh yeah, I jumped to the obvious conclusion to me, that he had found my story offensive. It was way too real, I should have gone with the romantic vision everyone has. Did I tell you this piece was a western?
There's a famous line in the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" that goes something like this. "When you have a choice between printing the truth and printing the legend - print the legend." And let's face it, most of our visions of Westerns come from movies and TV. A very highly romanticized west. Just listen to Toby Keith's song "I Should Have Been a Cowboy" and you'll hear every man's vision of the West.
I've been doing a little research and imagining about the West and the sight isn't a pretty one. No running water or deodorant which means a great many unwashed bodies. Lots of dust, prairies full of dead buffaloes filling the air with the stench of death. And that's just the smell.
Reading up on cattle drives, I discovered that most of the cowboys walked behind the cows poking them with sticks - cowpokes. Those who rode developed boils on their butts from lack of bathing and the constant rub of the saddle against their pants. And they only managed 10 miles on a good day. The reality is a dirty job that only paid a dollar a day if they lived long enough to collect their pay at the end of the drive.
Those were some of the realities of the wild west, definitely not what you see up on the silver screen. So here's the question, when you're writing westerns do you stick with the legends or do you lay out the realities of the real west?
Oh, and if you'd like to read my flash Western you can find it here http://clarityofnight.blogspot.com/2010/01/entry-66.html and while you're there be sure to read some of the other entries that are posted. There's a lot of great stories that all came from one picture. I find that simply amazing. And there's still plenty of time to enter your own 250 word story.
One more question. Has anyone read "Murderland:h8" by Garrett Cook? I found it listed at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography as one of the best experimental novels of 2009. http://www.cclapcenter.com/2010/01/the_year_in_books_2009_best_ex.html The premise of the book sounds amazing.
4 comments:
Murderland actually sounded a bit washed-out to me.
The gangs dressed like their favourite serial killers is little more than "The Warriors" from Walter Hill. The rest is... silly.
Yes, I am an old curmudgeon.
"One of the great advantages of being a genre author, and especially when it comes to inventive horror, is that the audience often doesn't need the strongest or most airtight storyline possible, as long as that author delivers a series of stunning visual images and clever concepts"
Does that not sound like a slap in the face for horror writers that actually care about plot and pacing?
Yeah, it does sound like a slap, but coming from the mystery genre which the lit folks think of as hack writing, I didn't give it a second thought.
I haven't read "The Warriors" so I can't compare that. What intrigued me was the idea that murder was legal as long as you followed certain rules. And the reality show angle just rang so true with what's on TV these days. So I was looking at it as a crime novel not horror.
Great story, Sandra. You are getting into the western thing of late. I think I would have to study it for quite a while to try one. Not that the picture demanded a western.
Thanks, Patti! The flash piece was something I'd been playing with for a couple of years, but it never felt right to me. It started out as 100 words peaked at 500. Then for some reason the picture sparked the idea of how to make the piece work. You just never know where you'll find that spark that makes a piece work. Plus I've been thinking about making this longer. Not sure if I will but you never know.
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