 Action/Adventure: October 07, 2009 Issue [#3310] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Greetings, I'm honored to be your guest host for this week's WDC Action/Adventure Newsletter.
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Greetings,
They say it's not the lions, but the gnats that get you. That's what they say
Well, whoever 'they' are haven't walked long enough for gray grit to etch red rivulets between swelled toes across a gray terrain of jagged rocks and gray skies and gray tumbleweed. They haven't tasted a blue horizon; yes, somewhere there's a blue horizon that's wet and refreshing. They haven't grumbled with hunger so loudly that they almost stepped on a rattlesnake rolling in the gray dust while they were trying to smack one of those gnats, maybe a snack?. They haven't realized that the mountain lion padding silently in gray shadows among the gray rocks would more likely make a meal of them if they keep pontificating and not pay attention to the whispers of a trail.
Yes, a western adventure can entertain drama, romance, history, mysery, and always action. Traditional western stories were set in the American (and Canadian) wilderness in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The first western stories were embellished or romantcized stories of the cowboy in the wilderness. The stories were embellished, the cowboy's work-a-day life embellished with drama, constant action, and adventures to sell on the east coast. but there was some base in fact. The interaction alluded to betwen the normally flawed protagonist and the enironment, the terrain, which became a focal character in the story itself, in the development of the protagonist.
Pulp fiction magazines and short novels were driven by the western action adventure stories during a large part of the first half of the 19th century. What made these stories so compelling to readers for whom 'the west' was nearly as 'alien' as the moon.
In a traditional western action adventure, the story is character-driven. The reader gets to know the protagonist, with his/her flaws, in considerable depth as he interacts not only with human, but environmental antagonists. There is one main quest, with few distractions, but with obstaces to battle and surmount to attain the quest. In attaining the quest, the protagonist is fundamentally changed somehow. The reader grows along with the character, gets to know him, inside his head and in relation to others sentient and non.
Consider The Searchers, a story by Alan LeMay about a retired soldier who undertakes a quest first to find his niece, kidnapped in a raid where her family was killed; then the quest becomes more sinister as years of seeking are fruitless and it becomes one of revenge. He develops a prejudice that nearly results in the death of his niece by his hand, but he is changed over the course of the journey and acts to save his niece and take her home. But he's not perfect, taking a scalp in retun for one taken from his kin.
A western adventure story is character-driven. The actions and reactions of the protagonist directly impact others in the story, either sentient or inanimate. There is an overlying quest, be it searching for someone/something lost or treasured, saving a town, herding a drive to market; you get the picture. There are obstacles human, animal, and/or envionmental on the way to attaining the quest, and the quest attained is secondary to the ultimate change in, or development of, the flawed protagonist. If you like to write with scenic or esoteric description and can keep the action going along the way, consider reading and writing your own western action adventure story or poem.
Yes, the west lends iself to verse as well as prose, Some of the most beautiful, lyric poetry is Cowboy Poetry, set in the wilderness of the west; embracing both the loneliness and comaraderie of life on the range. Louis L'Amour's first published work was a poem, and he was known as an avid reader of history and biography, which literate accuracy shows in his work. So, if you enjoy reading adventures of the west, and it's not just the traditional western we've explored, but can have a strong element of romance, detective (consider Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest), why not try your hand at creating a character with a quest that compels him/her to surmount obstacles, attaining (or not) the quest while becoming a stronger person for having made the journey.
If you do have a western adventure you're ready to share in print, here are the guidelines for Big Sky Journal, accepting currently both stories and poetry for publication in print and online:
And now I ask you to spend a little time with members of our Community sharing western adventure stories and verse.
Until we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Share the adventure and action in prose and verse, offering in return your comment or a review perhaps
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ready for some action ~ check out the 'forbidden' words here ~ inspire a western adventure perhaps? or else?
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Thank you for this respite around your virtual 'campfire.' As a guest host, I don't have a formal ask and answer, so I will ask you to keep reading the adventures of the pioneers and trail blazers; and writing your 'adventure' because aren't we, as writers trail blazers of a sort?
Until we next meet,
Enjoy the adventure of creating your own trail with your words,
Keep Witing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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