How to Write Your First Western Novel Part 2

So, now, the moment has arrived. You are in front of your blank computer screen and you need to get started writing.  Did I mention that some skill of the English language is good to have as well? Don’t let this stop you though. If you have a good story there are English majors all over the place that can help you proof the book once it’s finished. Just be sure and do this before you send it out to some poor editor to try and sell it to him.

Once you are physically ready to start writing, let’s see how you can use some of the Western elements to help you write your book.

The first and most noticeable of these elements is the horse.  A horse can open a scene like few other elements can. They can bring the gun slinger into town or there can be herd of wild horses running loose across vast panoramic views. They can be carrying our hero or heroes in a chase scene or finding shelter in a storm after our hero has passed out in the saddle. Horses can be decorated with all kinds of tack and paraphernalia, from Bosils to Sawbucks, center fire riggings to saddlebags (If you don’t know what these are then a little more research should be in your future).

They can all help make your story come to life. If you want to get right down to the nitty gritty of it, horses are what makes a Western a Western.

Another key element is the guns. What would a Western be without a gun fight? The American West was probably the best testing grounds for firearms ever invented… at least for the purpose of telling a story.  

Few events can stir the reader’s blood and cause them to hyperventilate like a good shoot-out can. A Western without a gunfight would be kind of like Colonel Sanders without a chicken.

Then there is the romance. In a true Western there is always romance but it may not always be between two people, preferably a man and a woman (I won’t dignify that other book as a Western). The romance may be between the hero or heroine and the land they live on, want to live on or have been forced off of and aren’t allowed to live on. The romance has many times been between a person and a horse.  Sometimes a dog has been used instead of a horse very successfully but they are most commonly used in conjunction with each other.

In our Western, we have to have characters that come to life on the page. Heroes we can root for and villains we can hate.  We need overwhelming obstacles placed in our hero’s path, mountains, deserts or evil women or men. I have notice that gunshot wounds are a very popular obstacle for protagonists to overcome. Sometimes a good drag through the desert on the end of a rope is supplemented for the gunshot wound. Love is another common obstacle that can be placed just about anywhere in our plot. It can even tie into our romance.

Now, after you have gathered all of these elements together, the practical knowledge, the research, the horses, guns, obstacles and romance, there is only one thing left you have to do.

Sit down and write.

This simple little act may be the toughest part of all to make yourself do. Take all these elements and arrange them into a story that is uniquely your own. I was told, once long ago, that at any moment of time, there is some subject that you are the world’s foremost expert on, at that point in time. When I started to write Radersburg Gold, I had just come out of surgery for a broken back. I believe I was the world’s greatest authority on back pain at that moment in time. That’s why the first sentence in the book is one word… Pain!

Good luck writing your first Western novel. There is nothing else like it in the world.