Western Help?

MissKitty,
I got started by visiting Cripple Creek, CO, Deadwood, SD, and Tombstone, AZ. They are fascinating western towns. A little weekend excursion like that might inspire you to dig deeper and spin a yarn around something that strikes yer fancy. Maybe even a trail ride or a drive through the desert might do it. Or a walk through a ghost town or an abandoned shack. For example: there is not a building left in Bachelor City, CO, yet I could see it all in my mind as I tramped the grounds. You just need something to spark that interest -- and then run with it.

Getting out there is what did it for me.

My advice for anyone starting out - any genre. Figure out your plot. There are so many posts that show up in SYW showing tremendous research into the period, costumes, customs, etc., but totally lacking a plot to keep readers interested. There are websites that list plot possibilities - everything from simple love stories to quests and in between. Plot is the most critical element of any successful (or unsuccessful) story. Work on that first and hopefully that will lead you in the direction for time period, location, characters, ect. Good luck! Puma

Read tons of good western novels. Watch every episode of Firefly. Come up with your own twists and turns.

But more than anything, sit down and start writing. It's the only way to figure out exactly what you want to do, and how you want to do it.

Read some steampunk. What you're describing sounds like it would more likely fit into that genre, which is growing, as opposed to the Western genre, which most decidedly is not.

I would go to the library, into the western section, and just start pulling out all kinds of books that sound interesting. I think that is the absolute best way to start getting ideas. After you have a hefty stack of books, walk over to the movie section, which I'm hoping your library has, and check out any movies with John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. They made some awesome, historically inaccurate westerns over the past 50 years. You can't go wrong there.

In writing westerns it is easy to fall into cliche plots. Not that they don't work but we strive for something fresh. What I started doing is looking at plots from the current contemporary novels and movies and asking the question, "What if?" and place it a western. Classical or contemporary is your choice. You'll never run out of ideas.

Then you can move into sub genres like Steampunk, or on the lines of Jonah Hex (which I watched last night, so very cool). Lastly, western romance still sells too.

MissKitty said:

I've been wanting to write a Western-ish novel, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Can anyone give me some tips or advice on how to get started with some ideas? I'm going for a more "Firefly" type thing, without the space travel. Like, Western meets futuristic technology, that kind of thing.

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Sounds sort of like a post-apocalyptic kind of approach.