The Epic Nature of Storytelling: Russell Davis on Writing the West

“In a lot of ways, Westerns are the most American of stories,” said novelist and editor Russell Davis, “but I think what any writer might gain in reading good westerns is a sense of landscape and how important, even critical, landscape can be to a story.”

And in Westerns, that landscape is often presented on an epic scale, regardless of how short or long the novels is.

Russell Davis writes across the genres under his own name and a variety of house names.  I first encountered his fiction with Fire Zone, an action-adventure novel in Don Pendleton’s Executioner series.  A new writer to a long-running series, Davis brought a Western feel, including richly descriptive prose, hard-hitting action, and a sureness, to a series that can be a little uneven from month-to-month. 

After I read Fire Zone, I looked up Russell Davis.  And that’s when things got interesting…

Davis is a Midwesterner living in Nevada where he trains horses for endurance.  He is (as of this week) a former president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, as well as an active member of the Western Writers of America.  So he writes Westerns, too.

Pretty much, too my thinking, that means that Russell Davis writes action novels.  Fortunately, he also writes novels with compelling characters and beautifully real landscapes.

Davis has published more than 20 novels and edited more than a dozen anthologies.  He’s got a stack of contracts sitting on his desk and more titles on the way.  Below, he and I talk about the “western sensibility” he brings to all his stories and the epic nature of storytelling.  Oh, and common sense, too.

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What do you enjoy about writing the West?

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Russell Davis:  I grew up hearing stories about the West, and reading a lot of Western novels. I can remember visiting my grandfather and him giving me several large grocery bags full of paperbacks by Elmer Kelton, Louis L’Amour, and many others. So, for me, writing about the West is like coming home. I like how it feels to journey there, and I enjoy the legendary nature of it.

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What is the biggest challenge in writing the West?
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Russell Davis:  I suspect it’s avoiding the easy clichés we’re all familiar with – the gunslinger at high noon, the prototypical gambler, the fast-talking snake oil salesman. Sadly, these clichés, so overused, are difficult to avoid, since they’re part of the story landscape we all grew up with.
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How have your novels and/or your approach to writing them changed over the years?
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Russell Davis:  I’d say the process is smoother from a technical standpoint, but realistically speaking, it changes every time because every story is different.
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Action-adventure, science fiction, western… whichever genre you are writing in, your books all seem to have that “western sensibility” (as the name of your blog suggests). What does it mean to have a western sensibility in writing?
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Russell Davis:  Hmmm. It’s funny that you mention the blog. I started with a blog called Western Reason, which was strictly focused on western-related topics. Then I went to Western Sensibility because I wanted to expand to broader topics like politics. My feeling is that a western sensibility in writing means an appreciation, perhaps, of both the mythic or iconic or even epic nature of storytelling, but also an appreciation for common sense. I try to bring a “cowboy” approach to my work, no matter what genre it is I’m working in. Interestingly enough, I’m launching (yet another) new blog this summer, because I’m expanding again — but the sensibility of the blog will still be very western.
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What are you working on now, and what’s next?
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Russell Davis:  I’m very busy at the moment, having just signed to write four more books for Gold Eagle. In the western-related field, I’m working on a Jesse James novel that I’m very excited about. I have several young adult projects in the works as well. In July, and then again in November, I have western anthologies that I edited with Martin Greenberg coming out – the first one is Ghost Towns and the next one is called Law of the Gun.

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Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and part-time professor.  Jones is a frequent contributor to Clarkesworld Magazine.  He is also the director of Shared Worlds, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and Jeff VanderMeer designed in 2006.