Writing Westerns and the Dreaded Contraction

The Use of Contractions in the Old West

To use, or not to use, contractions in a western that is. I ran across a review of a new western movie with the reviewer trashing it as not authentic to the old west period. The reason it was not authentic, according to the reviewer, was that the characters used contractions when speaking, which were not used in the old west.

Long story short, this is not true, the use of contractions in speaking the English language has been around for years, some can be found in English writings from centuries ago.  Mark Twain used hundreds of contractions in his works from the late 1800s.

It was all about the rhythm and cadence of the time that made the speech patterns different, not the lack of contractions.  Oh, and the absence of modern swear words that seem to have been fit into much of today's, old west literature and movies.

Some version of the old phrase, “If you got-um, smoke-um,” seems to fit here. If you have a place for a contraction and it is set in the old west, use it.  I find myself, along with many of the authors I read, using contractions more in dialogue than in the normal telling of the story – and I think that is the better place, and sometimes the only use for them.

Just my thoughts. Enjoy winter and all the time it affords to read and write. 

Now recovering, sort of - Day five of the flu, most unpleasant few days, stay healthy everyone. 

Three Rules for Writing

I read many books and articles on writing. Something I am sure many aspiring, and some successful writers also do. But of everything I read, seems like its Mark Twain that had the most knowledge of what it took to be a successful writer.

My favorite Twain quote on writing – his  three rules for writing. “First write, second write, and the third is write.”

Doesn’t really let anyone in on how Mr. Twain did his writing but a good idea of how hard he worked at it.

Speaking of three rules, Somerset Maugham once said, “There are three rules for writing a novel, unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

So why did I think of this stuff today? I am patiently waiting for, what I hope will be my final review copy of my CCC book. I thought I was done, but I didn’t like the looks of the formatting on my last review copy. Re-formatting a book with nearly 300 headings and 200 photos is not that much fun. Thought I could do it in 10 hours or so – took about 50.

My new three rules for writing.

   - Write and write some more (this is the fun part)

   - Edit and re-edit (not as much fun, but not bad)

   - Format it correctly the first time (not fun to do this one again and again)

And, how about a number four? If you don't do number three correctly all the lines may not match up as needed and wanted. (See #3 above)

My attempt at night photography - saw this yearling moose walking up out of a creek bottom about a half hour after sunset Sunday evening. Looks like he/she is still dripping wet. This photo has nothing to do with the post but I don't see many moose and thought it might be fun to post.

Write More in 2015

Not sure my writing total of a bit over 100,000 words was enough this year. In the past couple of weeks I have read two posts by authors that wrote over a million words in 2014.  Not sure I could ever get close to this but am hoping to get close to 250,000 in 2015.

 I have an advantage over many writers and would be writers, because I don’t need to sell anything. I live comfortably on retirement and occasionally substitute teach in the local district to pick up what we old folks used to call, “a little pin money.”

I have been lucky to publish many short stories and travel pieces over the years but still have high hopes for a novel. So 2015, will be the year!

At present I have a non-fiction, local history, being edited with publishing coming, I hope, in February. When that is complete, I will work on the two novels I have completed and two completed volumes of short stories.

 Who knows? If everything goes great I might get a few books out this year – and maybe write a bit more.

“I was sorry to hear my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I am not feeling very well myself.”
- Mark Twain

Freezing up North of Town

Happy New Year!

Maybe I Am Not Who You Think I Am

Are any of you, like me, trying to decide what penname you will be using after you become famous and want to write as someone else? Just kidding, but I find pennames to be an interesting study. Why do people use them, to remain anonymous I suppose, but why? Seems I know more writers that would like to be famous than those who would like to remain unknown.

Mark Twain might be the most famous of all, but many other writers, some quite famous, have written with names other than their own. Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Benjamin Franklin, Nora Roberts, J. K Rowling, And Charles Dickens among hundreds of others wrote at times with pennames. Some, which no one would ever suspect to have used pen names, like Agatha Christie and Emily Bronte also used pseudonyms when it suited them.

A few years ago I was flabbergasted to learn that two of my favorite western series writers, Dana Fuller Ross and Donald Clayton Porter were one in the same – Noel Bertram Gerson. I guess this falls under the heading of, you learn something every day.

Now I am beginning to think many of you that I follow are likely famous and using aliases on line so that I will not find out.

Or - probably not!

 Saw this little guy last evening just before dark

 

Reading Like I Was A Kid Again

“Tom!”

No answer.

“Tom!”

No answer.

“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!”

No answer

You guessed it; I am rereading Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Authors often get into deep discussions about book openings, this one is rather unique. It really doesn’t tell us anything other than either Tom is not there or he is not about to answer. Simple, but it made me keep reading when I was a kid and it kept me reading now.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an 1876 story of a young boy growing up along the Mississippi. The story is set in the fictional St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal Missouri,  where Twain grew up.

Tom Sawyer lived with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid. Tom dirties his clothes in a fight and is made to whitewash the fence the next day, as a punishment. He cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. This is the most well know scene in the novel and often portrayed on the cover.

Tom also falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" by kissing him. But their romance falls apart when she learns Tom has been engaged before. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies his good friend Huck Finn to the graveyard at night. There the two witness the murder of Dr. Robinson. And the adventures continue.

So how did Twain write this story? I think this quote tells us.

“I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.”
- Letter to Fred J. Hall, 10 Aug 1892

Twain also ended this work in a most unconventional way, with a post script he entitled, conclusion.  This conclusion started with the words, “SO ENDETH THIS CHRONICLE.”

It was an early work, maybe he wanted to add this final touch instead of, the end.

If you haven’t read Twain for a while, might be time.

“The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”   Mark Twain