One of the most promising new western authors is BEN BOULDEN, whose contribution to the BLAZE series has won
acclaim. Ben also keeps the excellent GRAVETAPPING Blog. He’s been kind enough
to interview me, and an edited version follows. The full interview on the Gravetapping site can be found here: https://gravetapping.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/interview-andrew-mcbride.html
What’s
your latest novel?
THE PEACEMAKER. It’s a western set in Arizona in 1871, when the
white man and the Apache Indians are at war. The hero is an 18 year old young
man who gets roped into a dangerous mission to talk peace with the most
important of the hostile Apache chiefs – Cochise. He guides a duo to Cochise’s
camp – a white man and his adopted Apache daughter. Along the way, the hero and
the Apache girl fall in love. Fans of the TV Western series ‘The High Chaparral’ will spot I’ve
borrowed the basic premise from a High Chaparral episode, but the second half
of the novel goes somewhere else entirely. I felt the original episode could be
the springboard for a tremendous adventure story. It’s published by Sundown
Press and available on Amazon and the usual outlets.
Without
breaking any of your personal taboos, would you give us an idea of what you’re
working on now?
I’m not sure I have any personal taboos, I’m not that interesting!
I was planning to launch into another novel, but finishing off other projects
has put me slightly behind schedule. Right now I’m readying a finished western
for some publishers. After that I’ve got to finish off another novel that’s
such a complete departure from what I’ve written before I’d have to publish it
under another name. Sorry about the mystery but I’m keeping quiet about that
one for now. I’ve also got a completed Robin Hood novel I’m trying to find a
home for, so I can join my heroes Rosemary Sutcliff and Henry Treece among the
ranks of historical novelists. Then I can get properly started on my next
novel: a western with an elegiac, end-of-the-west, ‘Wild Bunch’ feel.
What was
your first published novel?
(All the
details, how you felt about selling it, how you feel about it now, and anything
else you think is interesting.)
CANYON OF THE DEAD. In 1982
I submitted a western called SHADOW MAN to Robert Hale Publishers. They
rejected it – quite rightly, as it wasn’t good enough. A dozen years later an
author friend of mine – Philip Caveney – mentioned Hale were still looking for
westerns, so, rather than writing a new one I dug out SHADOW MAN from the
bottom of a drawer, dusted off the cobwebs and looked at it again. I re-wrote
about half of it, re-submitted it to Hale and they accepted it – only they had
another book called SHADOW MAN coming out. So I re-titled mine CANYON OF THE
DEAD. It came out in 1996, 14 years late. As a sort of post-script, I later
wrote another one for Hale – again called SHADOW MAN – and they published it in
2008. So getting one form of SHADOW MAN out there took 26 years!
How do I feel about it now? I do a blog which
features authors talking about their favourites of their own books. A lot of authors I contact are very often fond of their first
published works. Not only does it mark a breakthrough for us
into the public arena, we admire our early work for its freshness and energy
even if we’re still working out how to do the job properly – a bit like having
affection for your young, if sometimes foolish, self. I have the same affection for CANYON OF THE DEAD,
although reading it now, I think it’s probably too busy, there’s too much going
on, and the pace is too breathless. As I wrote more, I learned to control my
energy and settle down. There’s also one episode in the story – an act of
violence I treat too casually - that I wouldn’t include now. But what’s done is
done, and I still think it’s a good book and not just a good debut.
When did
you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
Age 7. Growing up in England in the 60s
there was a TV show called ‘Sir Lancelot’ I used to watch – I was nuts about
the Arthurian legend even then. I got hold of a notebook and started writing my
own stories about Arthurian knights, until I got that little bump of hard skin
on your finger you get from holding a pen a lot. After that I just wrote as a
hobby all the time, all kinds of adventure stories. Then I started reading. For
the authors I liked I used to think: ‘I want to be like them.’ For those I
didn’t, I thought: ‘I can do better than that!’
How do
you go about writing?
(Where
do you write, when do you write, do you outline, do you write longhand / on a
computer, how do you develop a story, etc.)
Where:
At home on a computer. I know some writers have to write longhand, almost as if
they have to feel the ideas coming out of their brain, down their arm, through
the pen etc. Doesn’t work for me! For me it’s all about efficiency, getting my
ideas onto the page as quickly as possible, which means bashing away on a
keyboard on a desktop PC. I feel cramped using small devices like laptops. I’ve
never tried writing in places like cafes, too many distractions. I like to work
alone in my home study. I find silence oppressive so I usually have music on –
something like jazz instrumentals that won’t distract me.
When:
About 1991 I committed to being a writer, so since then I’ve turned down
full-time work whenever I can, taking part-time jobs that free me up so I can
write at least 2 days a week. It’s not always been possible to keep to that,
and sometimes the finances have been precarious. In the last 8 months I had a
bit of luck and came into some money unexpectedly, so I’ve been able to live
the complete writer’s life, writing sometimes 4 or even 5 days a week. To me,
that’s the equivalent of dying and going to heaven! This won’t continue much
longer, alas, but it has been seriously great while it’s lasted! I tend to work
a day shift, writing from about 10 a.m. until whenever in the afternoon the
inspiration flags. I rarely write in the evenings, I like my brain to be fresh
when I’m hitting those keys.
One thing I learned from Phil Caveney, my writing
mentor, is that novelists need to have a time/ word count discipline. Give
yourself a DEADLINE. For example you may decide you want to write an 80,000
word novel in 2 years. That works out about 110 words a day. Make sure you keep
to your routine and write those words, otherwise you’ll join the ranks of
would-be novelists who spend 7, 9 or 11 years writing a novel. So hitting my
daily (or at least weekly) word count, rather than hours spent, is how I
measure my progress.
As for outlines: I usually have a (very) loose idea
of what the novel’s going to be about when I start out, a 2 minute trailer
rather than a fully developed movie. Some of my novels have been
fictionalizations of real historical events, so that helps provide an outline.
I tend to write a chapter at a time, and don’t plan much further ahead than
that. I know some writers have to get a first draft of the whole novel down
before they start revising. I don’t. I write a chapter and then revise it. It’s
usually a 3 day process. Day 1 is the grind of the first draft of the chapter,
which I find is the hardest part. You tell the tale of the chapter, you cover
the story points, but it’s a slog and the writing may not be that good. But on
Day 2 you wake up and re-draft it into shape, which in my case is almost always
cutting. I may re-write or re-arrange bits but mostly all I do is cut – like
pruning a hedge, or clearing the weeds out of the garden so you can see what
you’re after. Day 3 is usually easy – polishing, just doing a bit of tweaking
and tidying up. Then I sit back for a few days and let the next chapter simmer
in my head until it’s ready to be tackled. Which means by the time I’ve
finished the whole novel it’s about 80% done, so it only needs some tweaking
and further cutting.
If ever I get stuck, I might just write myself some
notes, along the lines of ‘what the hell happens next?’ Or ‘How do I get my
hero out of this fix?’ I do also have a good friend I’ve nicknamed ‘Dr. Plot’
who I sometimes bounce ideas off. If I’ve literally ‘lost the plot’, he usually
comes up with something.
Do you
have any specific pleasures, or displeasures, that come from writing?
I love the creative process, and the artistic side
of a writer’s life. I like the way you can sometimes find creative energy and
inspiration in adversity. I once sent off a manuscript and had it unexpectedly
rejected. I got hold of the rejected manuscript at 10 p.m. The publishers liked
the beginning and the end but felt the novel wandered too much in the middle.
Partly because I was smarting from rejection, I couldn’t sleep that night.
Instead I stayed up and re-read the whole novel end to end and went to bed
about 4 a.m. I woke up 6 hours later and immediately started re-writing, with
ideas that just seemed to have come to me. In 10 days’ I’d re-written the whole
middle section of the novel. I sent it back to the publishers and they accepted
it.
Like many authors I know, I love the creative side,
but I find the ‘business side’ a real chore – finding publishers, agents,
sending off etc. I personally don’t mind giving readings, but I find other
aspects of promotion tedious. I’ve tried to make Social Media promotion and
blogging fun, but essentially I would just rather be writing and let someone
else deal with all that stuff. And rejection remains unrelievedly horrible.
I’ve had many rejections, and it never gets any easier, or hurts any less.
That’s when you cling on to the old writing adage: ‘What do you call a writer
who never gives up? Published!’’
Are
there any writers that inspired—or continue to inspire—your own writing?
(Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc. Any
forgotten writers you would like to discuss here would be welcome.)
Many writers have inspired me. My first literary hero was Captain
W. E. Johns, who wrote the ‘Biggles’
series, which I just devoured in my early teenage years. He gets a lot of stick
now for not being very PC and maybe he isn’t but back then I enjoyed his books
as your archetypal ‘cracking adventure yarns’ – they were a kind of junior
level James Bond.
CAPTAIN W.E. JOHNS with a portrait of his fictional hero 'Biggles'
Then I moved on to the historical novels of Rosemary
Sutcliff. Getting into early adulthood I was a big fan of Ian Fleming and
Raymond Chandler.
Mostly, I read/still read westerns, thrillers and historical
fiction, all of which you could call ‘adventure novels.’ In the western field
that would include Gordon D. Shirreffs, Lewis B. Patten, Robert McLeod, Fred
Grove, Louis L’Amour, Glendon Swarthout, Thomas Berger, Jack Schaefer, Will
Henry, A.B. Guthrie jnr. and Dorothy M. Johnson. Thriller writers would include
Walter Mosley, (earlier) Patricia Cornwell, Robert Harris and W.R. Burnett.
‘Classics’ would include Robert Louis Stevenson (he’s still unchallenged, IMHO,
as writer of the world’s greatest adventure novel) the Brontes, Dickens, H.G.
Welles and Graham Greene.
Forgotten writers I was a big fan of include Alexander Knox (who
was also an actor) who wrote a tremendous novel about modern-day Eskimo life
called THE NIGHT OF THE WHITE BEAR; Desmond Corey, who wrote spy thrillers with
a hero called Johnny Fedora who was like Bond only cooler – he played jazz
piano to wind down from the stresses as a ‘licensed to kill’ secret agent; and
Henry Treece. Treece wrote for children and adults. He wrote two novels on the
Arthurian legend – THE GREAT CAPTAINS and THE GREEN MAN - which are still startling
in their originality.
I’ve discovered some good writers since engaging with Social Media.
For example I gave a 5 star review (something I almost never do) to WHILE
ANGELS DANCE, a novel about the James Gang, by Ralph Cotton. I also gave a good
review to MERRICK by some chap called Ben Boulden…
(Find Ben’s work here https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Boulden/e/B075K2WZTC/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
and here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ben-Boulden/e/B075K2WZTC/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1)
3 writers I have to single out are Elmore Leonard, Matt Chisolm and John
Prebble. I’ve discussed these authors on other blogs. See my blog about Elmore
Leonard’s ‘HOMBRE’ here:
What do you find appealing about
Western stories, as a writer, reader, and viewer?
As a
writer I’ve always been drawn to adventure stories set outdoors. I can’t see
myself writing an urban novel. I like having my characters tested by the
struggle to survive in a wilderness. For me westerns
ticked every box – they not only had conflict and action in plenty but also
strong dramatic tension because they’re essentially morality plays about
the fight between right and wrong.
They deal with a broad range of moral dilemmas that
the settlement of the West threw up: How do you tame a wilderness without
destroying it? How much violence is necessary (and how much is excessive) in
creating a law-abiding society? How can diverse cultures (for example the white
man and the Native Americans) co-exist? All painted on a canvas of great
physical beauty and diversity. Which of course is an added strength to the best
western TV shows and movies, where the landscape itself almost becomes a character.
Look how ‘The High Chaparral’ used Old Tucson and John Ford used Monument
Valley. And there’s a lot of tragedy in western history – what happened to the
Native Americans, for example, and to the basic environment – that’s the stuff
of high drama. Some of the best westerns have an elegiac quality – a sort of
lament for a paradise lost. There’s also beauty and poetry in the language, not
only the laconic speak of everyday westerners but even in real names. When I
first read about the Alamo, and people called Travis, Crockett, Bowie, Santa
Anna etc. I was hooked. And you can add to that Custer, Earp, etc., wonderful
Native American names like the Comanche chief Talks-with-Dawn-Spirits (also
translated as Hears-the-Sun-Rise) the Kiowa medicine man called Sky Walker a
long time before ‘Star Wars’… names to die for!
If you
could write anything, without commercial considerations, what would it be?
You don’t need to ask me about that, I’m doing it! Anybody who
writes in the western genre is writing without ‘commercial considerations’ –
but if you love westerns and have to write these books you will. I have written
in other genres, two historical novels and some contemporary thrillers/outdoor
adventures, but so far it’s only the westerns, which I’d have thought were the
least commercial of my product, that have been published.
I
know you’re a fan of both Western television and film. Do you have any
favorites?
Actually I’m not a huge fan of TV Westerns. There were lots of them
about when I was a kid growing up in England in the 1960s, but I always
thought them the ‘poor relation’ of western movies. I don’t like being too
negative but they did tend to accept and re-cycle clichés about the western,
rather than challenging them. Some of them could also get very soap-opera-ish.
You’d catch ‘Bonanza’ for example and
half the time the episode would be about a father’s relationship with his son,
and didn’t need to be set in the Old West at all. Sometimes you’d catch
episodes that were entertaining, occasionally excellent, but not essential
viewing. But my biggest beef against
them was their cheap production values. Because of their low budget, many of
them were filmed on familiar Hollywood backlots or sound stages, and made
little of what is a key western element in my opinion – the landscape, and its
physical magnificence. Given my taste in westerns has always run to the outdoor
and the primitive that frustrated me. The exception – the one TV Western series
I loved – was ‘The High Chaparral.’
It did ‘jump the shark’ sadly, but for its first two seasons the HC was an
outstanding show – not only strong scripts and a superb cast, but the location
shooting, in Old Tucson, Arizona. That gave the HC not only physical beauty but
grittiness and authenticity – the sweat and dust were real! I’ve blogged about
my admiration for the HC here: http://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/
As
for film: People ask me ‘What’s your favourite western movie?’ and I can’t
answer – there’s too many great ones. A golden period was the 50s so maybe it’s
hiding in there. But there were great westerns before – ‘Red River’ etc. – and after - ‘Hombre’
‘The Wild Bunch’ ‘Unforgiven’ and more. If you had to
narrow it right down, I think the two most important people in western film
were John Wayne and John Ford, separately (so you could look at movies like ‘My Darling Clementine’ ‘Wagon Master’ and ‘Rio Bravo’) and together. Of the joint Wayne-Ford westerns it’s
hard to find a more perfect script IMHO than ‘Stagecoach’- the 1939 version – and I’m especially fond of ‘Fort Apache.’ But I can’t pick an
absolute favourite.
JOHN FORD and JOHN WAYNE
If you
were stranded on an island and you had only one book, what would it be?
SWORD AT SUNSET by Rosemary Sutcliff.
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF
She was a writer for children
who ‘found her voice’ writing about early history – the Romans, the Vikings
etc. Here she went into adult fiction with the definitive take on the Arthurian legend IMHO, depicting Arthur as a Dark Age British war leader fighting barbarians, rather than a medieval king. It's incredibly deeply wrought, what one reviewer called 'a bracing plunge into the heroic world.' She gets to the essence of the story, which is the universal theme of the sacrificial leader who buys the life of his people with his own life. You find that theme in 'Beowulf' too, and in the story of the Alamo. It's deep stuff, with great battle scenes!
If you
were allowed only to recommend one of your own novels, or stories, which one
would you want people to read?
THE
PEACEMAKER. I like all my first five published books, but they were of
necessity short, which meant they had to be action-centric, dependent on a fast
pace. With a longer book like THE
PEACEMAKER, I could slow down a bit, spend more time on character and
atmosphere. I could get into Native American culture. I got to play around with
a real historical character (in this case, Cochise.) I was able to write a
proper love story, and flesh out the women characters. I could provide what
John Ford called the ‘grace notes’ in his movies, quiet, reflective bits where
not much happens, but they give the story added richness and depth. I was very
grateful to my publishers for letting me do that.
and here
