Being a Better Writer: Westerns · 11:26pm Feb 6th, 2018
Just in case you missed it, there was a quick news post that went up just before this post. Be sure to check it out! It's got all the news you need to know!
Welcome back readers! Again, apologies for the lateness of this post. I had an all-day shift yesterday (my job is back in the trend of loving all-day Monday shifts) and have been struggling to fight off a throat and chest cold that's been disrupting my sleep schedule something awful. Anyway, that's why this post is a little late.
Moving past that however, let's talk about Westerns. This is almost a bit of a topic shift, if I'm honest, as BaBW hasn't usually talked about specific genres before. I've talked about bits and pieces of genres, sure, but a full genre itself? The only time I've actually sat down and talked about a genre, it was mystery. Not a mystery, but the genre of mysteries.
Granted, I didn't talk about everything to do with a mystery. Nor, likewise, will I talk about everything to do with Westerns. For a start, that would fill books. Also, you could just as easily type "Westerns" into wikipedia and skim over a good summary of just about everything the genre has ... which, since I've looked at the page myself, is a pretty long list.
So I'm not going to talk about everything. For example, you won't see me discussing staple tropes like lariats and cowboy boots. And in fact, I'm going to expand on things a little. See, the wikipedia page for "Western" defines a Western as films (or in this case, stories) that are "set in the American West that [embody] the spirit, the struggle and the demise of the new frontier."
Right away, there's one bit of that I don't see quite perfectly eye-to-eye with. In fact, I'll state outright that I don't agree with it. That bit is the "set in the American West" bit.
Heh, this has changed how I see the show Firefly.
Before, I had thought of it as a Western/SciFi crossover ... but now I realize it really is just a Western in space.
This makes me wonder what you think of Bulletproof Heart so far as it qualifies as a Western, since that is the general idea I was going for. Heck, I can't help wondering if this entire blog wasn't inspired by my amateur attempts at it. That's probably giving myself too much credit, though.
4791183
Well, it is Sci-Fi ... But first and foremost it is a Western, you are 100% right.
4791212
Bulletproof Heart is very much a Western so far. Though, sadly, it did not inspire this article. This one's actually a request from way back that I finally got around to.