Continuing my chatty talk about my novels and their inspirations.
Sometimes when you write a novel, you plan it – and three sentences into the first scene the novel is going somewhere else.
Let’s take Josiah Bratton and the gunslinger series. I had only a concept and a box set of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, and fading memories about the LucasArts Outlaws game.
Really, all you need right there. I’ve never read Clive Cussler or Louis L’amour. No clue. But I’d watched all the Leone movies with Eastwood many times. Hard to tell which one I like the most. I’ll have to watch them and get back to you.
I patterned Josiah after (of course) King Josiah. I then stuck Douglas Mortimer in the mix. What would the smartest, toughest, fastest gunfighter on earth do if someone innocent had gotten hurt during one of his gun battles?
Answer – he’d get religion and want to hang up his guns.
Problem – US Marshal’s refused his resignation. “Go here. Go to Lincoln.”
Sure. And Tuco Ramirez’s gang is waiting there. But I changed Tuco Ramirez for Jesse James. I borrowed his easy going ”I believe in you” style and his mind games, and voila, I’ve got him facing Jesse James with another name.
I borrowed the gang from “a fistful of dollars”, and stuck them onto James instead of the Dalton gang.
Here’s where King Josiah gets in the mix. I’m going to warn you. If you don’t listen, the war starts, and it doesn’t stop until everyone is consumed.
And of course, the entire novel changed three sentences into writing. No problem, but this was NaNoWriMo. I had one day to decide – do I steer this back the way it should go? Or hang on?
I chose to hang on. Rough decision. I had literally to write during breaks at work to keep on target. But I finished Blazing Glory three weeks into NaNo. Despite a major computer crash.
How did I come up with the ending? Well, the scene with Mortimer where he has a derringer hidden in his sleeve. And of course, loading a gun in those days was a long drawn out affair. The cartridge had come out, but something else happened at that time. The first double action revolver.
Josiah literally could shoot without warning. Combine that with the fastest shot in the west, and there you go. To me, the ending was the first thing I saw in my mind. Two of the toughest guns in the west facing off. BANG!
The scene with Frank I initially wrote with Frank essentially walking into gunfire and dropping to the ground surprised. That was less than satisfactory, so I had to work in the whole “Draw. I mean it.” Duel. This sets you up for the Wharton shootout, and you think Josiah’s going to do it again. But he doesn’t.
Horace. How in the world did I come up with Horace? Easy. Piglet from Winnie the Pooh. I borrowed the actor who did the voice. And of course, if you’ve seen The Untouchables, you know the character. The guy who looks weak, given the chance. BANG.
I just didn’t want him dying. I wanted Horace being as tough as Josiah, just nobody suspected it. The David and Goliath fight literally got me so amped up, I couldn’t sleep that night. MAN! Horace turning tough guy, and shooting Goliath. Yes!
The Horace’s of the world will thank me.
