While some fiction genres have no particular basis in history, and accuracy to detail is not an issue, the Western is not one of those.  A Western novel may be a story with fictional characters, but it is based in an historical time period and attention to details is an important issue.  There is nothing more annoying to the Western reader than to try and read a story where the writer has no clue what-so-ever about the time period.  The true Western fan is very much up on the history and details of the 19^th Century westward movement and is quick to cull a bad story out of the herd.

There was so much history created between the Mississippi and Pacific Ocean, from 1800 to 1900, it has to be told.  Every culture has always had its story tellers, not only to entertain with created stories, but to educate the listeners to what went before them.

I am a story teller of the Old West, and in order to be a good story teller I have to understand the world my stories are created from.  To me it is vital, to not only thoroughly research the time period, but, to actually travel the country where all this history was made.

My half-a-lifetime of being a working cowboy, horse packer, bronc buster, and guide, has given me the experience to relate to you, the reader, how a horse actually moves and behaves, or how a bronc feels when he bucks.  I can tell you how the wind sounds in the aspens, or how the high desert smells and feels.  What a .44 feels like when it’s fired, or the weight of it on my hip.  In The Strawberry Mountain War there is a scene where the cowhands are in the cook shack of the Crazy T telling stories of incidents that happened to them in the business. Each man’s story is believable because each one of those things happened to me at one time or another.

I have walked the boardwalks of Virginia City, and the tracks of Dodge City where the original infamous town actually stood.  I’ve sat in the lobby of the St. James Hotel, in Cimarron, and examined the bullet holes put in the bar ceiling by Clay Allison.  I’ve rounded up horses at Fort Laramie where Cavalry patrols once rode, and listened to the wind in the grass at the Little Big Horn.  Is this important?  Absolutely, if one intends to be a believable story teller.

In addition to this, I am constantly researching the time period, sorting through the tales and mistruths, to find the history that actually took place.  The geography, towns, architecture, equipment, tools, and language are accurate.  For instance, when a particular gun is mentioned, it is a real firearm used in the time period of the story.

So, why is this important?  Because history is filled with half truths and flat out lies.  Hollywood has been instrumental in turning the Old West into a farce and has led some to lay claim to the theory of the “western myth” because of it.  The history of the West is very real, and the reader deserves better than that.  A good story teller cuts through the nonsense and relates a realistic story and leaves his listener with some nuggets of truth and a sense of satisfaction that they have been entertained and not insulted.  The Old West was real, it was not a myth, and Hollywood is the myth, not the Old West.

Thanks for coming by the Double Diamond and letting me tell you about it.

Dave