Story Behind the Story: Abigail Blake Stands Her Ground

By Richard Prosch

A few different elements, separated by time and space, came together to make up this month’s story.

They didn’t all come at once. First came Abigail Drake, the grizzled old constable of Willowby, Wyoming. In my Jo Harper stories, Abby Drake is cool and experienced. But it wasn’t always so, and I’ve been wanting to visit her early days for quite a while. 

Almost a year ago, I wrote most of a story called “Abigail Drake Stands Her Ground,” but I wasn’t satisfied with it, and I wasn’t sure why. 

Scrapped and forgotten, I tossed it into a junk folder.This month, in thinking about a story for the Western Fictioneers blog, I remembered that story and pulled out the title.  Thinking about the character anew, I recalled that Abby was a contemporary of Annie Oakley.

When I was a kid visiting my grandma’s house, I used to peruse the childhood books that belonged to my dad and his siblings. My aunt had a copy of Whitman’s TV Tie-In Annie Oakley in the Ghost Town Secret, and I read it one summer afternoon.  The book stayed with me not so much because of the story, but because it was one of the first TV tie-in books I read.  Later, I read others from Whitman: The Rifleman, Maverick, and Bonanza. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, to write my own book based on a fictional TV show character?

What if Abby Drake was that character?  What would an episode of Abby Drake’s adventures be like? Surely she’d wear an outfit like Dale Evans with stars embroidered on the shoulders?  Easy enough! And wouldn’t she have a male side-kick?  Well, Abby’s already got one of those in the person of Clay Chandler.

Now all I needed was a plot. Something suitably dramatic, but sort of goofy too. Something like Beaver Cleaver getting his head stuck in a fence. Or Barney Fife getting stuck in his own jail cell.
 
Or maybe stuck in a bank safe… 

And so “Abigail Drake Stands Her Ground” came together in its second form after a couple hours and 1,800 words. Nothing too serious, but it was a fun story to write. Hopefully, you’ll have fun reading it.

Please read Abigail Drake Stands Her Ground here.

After growing up on a Nebraska farm, Richard Prosch worked as a professional writer, artist, and teacher in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Missouri. His western crime fiction captures the fleeting history and lonely frontier stories of his youth where characters aren’t always what they seem, and the windburned landscapes are filled with swift, deadly danger. In 2016, Richard roped the Spur Award for short fiction given by Western Writers of America. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com

The Story Behind Six-Gun Salad

by Richard Prosch

From an everyday greeting as people pass each other on the street, to organized community efforts, small town America often overflows with an abundance of kindness and generosity. But like anywhere else, it can be rife with contention, often hidden, often held tight just below the surface until one wrong word or action sets off a powder keg of enmity. 

When guns are involved, bad feelings can turn deadly in the space of a heartbeat.

You don't have to follow the news closely to know there's been a lot of media coverage about racial tension. 

Students of history know this is nothing new. 

The countries of origin may change, but even in the old west, old-country grudges kept new generations at each others' throats.

All of these thoughts came together writing my new Jo Harper story, SIX-GUN SALAD from Painted Pony Books. Community picnics, but arguments in the street. Individuals working to get along while others held to old their old cultural bias. 

Guns to bring destruction. Or guns to bring justice.

It all got tossed together in the bowl and served up as danger for Jo, Frog and Abby, and hopefully, a reminder of the best and worst of our natures --qualities that often aren't what they might first seem to be. 

Working through the contradictions is important for young and old alike. Another reason I like to think of these stories as good for all ages.

Blurb

Would you cry over spilled potato salad? Would you risk your life for it? Jo Harper can't contain her frustration when a determined Danish lawyer and a hard-headed German farmer get ready to square off with guns over just that.

It's an Elizabethan tragedy-in-the-making unless Jo, Frog and Abby can unravel the threads of a dangerous plot that threatens to tear apart not just two families, but the entire town of Willowby, Wyoming.

Excerpt

"Karl! Karl, that's enough."

To his credit, Svensen listened to his wife and backed away from Schultz. But not before delivering another rotten threat.

"Stay away from us, Kraut. Stay away from my family, away from my house and business. We don't need your kind."

But Schultz wasn't having it.

He stood up with a clumsy stagger and, brushing himself off, delivered a counter-threat.

"You are all mouth and all knuckles because you are bigger than me. But how are you with a gun, counselor? Let me get my gun and we'll see who is better."

Jo thought she saw where Mr. Schultz was going, and though she was an innocent bystander, she was also Abby Drake's deputy constable. She ran between the men.

"Go home, Mr. Schultz. Go home, before you say something you'll regret."

"Stay out of this, Jo," said Svensen, reaching out to brush her aside.

Jo sidestepped the lawyer's reach and again tried to appeal to Schultz.

"Think of your family, sir. Think about Buster. You don't want to do this."

For the first time that night, Schultz seemed to see Jo, really see her, and the look in his eyes didn't belong to a bleary-headed drunk, but to a hurt man hoping to regain his pride.

"I have to, Jo. Sometimes, a man has to do these things."

Jo let Schultz gently push her aside. He stood tall and, in front of her and Mrs. Svensen, said, "Tuesday morning. Seven o-clock in front of the Filter Building. Find a weapon, you scurvy Dane. Find a weapon and prepare to pay the price for your insults."

It wasn't going to be such a quiet week, after all.

Schultz had just challenged the lawyer to a gunfight!

 Leave a comment for a chance at a free copy of Richard Prosch's Six-Gun Salad.

 Buy Links  B&N Nook   Amazon   Smashwords    Kobo

Meanwhile, the first book in the Jo Harper series, WAITING FOR A COMET, is free for Kindle until August 14.

After growing up on a Nebraska farm, Richard Prosch worked as a professional writer, artist, and teacher in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Missouri. His western crime fiction captures the fleeting history and lonely frontier stories of his youth where characters aren’t always what they seem, and the windburned landscapes are filled with swift, deadly danger. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com

Building Worlds in the Dark by Richard Prosch

I’m currently writing stories set in three different worlds. Not at the same time, but one after another. First I write about Jo Harper, the young protagonist of an adventure series set in 1910 Wyoming. Then I write about Whit Branham, the matter-of-fact deputy sheriff living in Holt County, Nebraska during the 1880s. After that, it’s a story about John Coburn, a wandering gun with roots in the high plains but no permanent home other than the late 1800s. Then back to Jo. 

Each character’s world contains a string of friends, foes, and familiar “landmarks” to help ground the reader in whatever new adventure unfolds. 

And that’s where things get tricky. Really fast.

When I first started writing fiction, I outlined every bit of my stories, practically down to the sentence. In those days, world building wasn’t a separate concept from writing the story. In fact…I indulged too much in that part of it. 

Years of comic book reading trained me well in lining up the continuity of my universe. (And if you’re familiar with Marvel or DC super heroes, in print or the current TV shows and movies, you know what I mean.) I planted, tended, and pruned family trees. I researched details and wrote ‘em in stone. I imposed traits on my characters like iron handcuffs. 

For example, if my outline or bible said Biff was the stoic one, well then, Biff never smiled. If, by 1890, all Native Americans were supposed to be living on reservations, well then, my Indian character wouldn’t appear without a long-winded explanation as to why he wasn’t on the rez. Pretty soon, things got heavy. 

And no fun.

So a couple years ago, I stopped outlining and started just writing stories. After all, the story was the fun part! So, writing without an outline. Some people call it pantsing, but I like what Dean Wesley Smith calls it: writing into the dark. For me, the story became the thing. And, like all of you know, the story often sweeps you along, taking you on its own merry way. 

Along that road, the devil really is in the details. Especially when writing a series.

Does Jo Harper’s friend, Frog, have black hair or brown hair? What kind of gun does Whit Branham carry? What’s the name of John Coburn’s horse? Keeping track of details isn’t too hard for one story, but over the course of a series (and during several months in the real world), it can be tough.

Here’s two things that help me. One is practical. The other might seem sacrilegious. 

First, I have an app on my phone that lets me record voice-to-text memos. So when I introduce a new character, I pick up the phone and say a little about him or her. That becomes a text message that I send myself and include in a story file. It’s quick and I don’t have to open a different program on my writing computer. 

Second, I don’t worry about it. (That really would’ve seemed sacrilegious to me a few years ago.) 

Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t mean I’m deliberately sloppy or that I don’t care. What I’m saying is, I’ve taken those iron handcuffs off my characters. In the real world, people change, settings change. The same holds for fiction. Details are important, but the story takes priority.

So what techniques do you use to keep things straight? How much weight do you put on the details of character or setting? Do you outline, or do you write into the dark?

I’d really enjoy hearing about similar experiences in world building from you Fictioneers.


After growing up on a Nebraska farm, Richard Prosch worked as a professional writer, artist, and teacher in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Missouri. His western crime fiction captures the fleeting history and lonely frontier stories of his youth where characters aren’t always what they seem, and the windburned landscapes are filled with swift, deadly danger. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com