The Teacher is Usually Right - Richard Prosch Interview

Richard Prosch is multi-talented and recently released a Western trilogy. So what brought him to this genre and place? What sparked the new stories? Read on to learn more about author Richard Prosch's journey. 

Richard Prosch - from his website

1. When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Neuharth, predicted I’d someday be a full-time writer. I liked the idea, and held on to it through an early career in cartooning and graphic design, always writing stories and nonfiction essays in my spare time.

2. Did you choose the genre you write in or did it choose you?

I first chose to write mystery and crime stories, but they always ended up in a rural or Western setting. My grandpa loved Westerns, so around ten years ago I deliberately focused on the genre.

3. What was the nudge that gave you faith that you could and wanted to be published?

I’m gonna go back to my fifth-grade teacher. She’s a smart cookie, and I had no reason to disbelieve her then, nor now.

4. Do your life experiences influence or hinder your writing?

Absolutely influence. Everything I write finds some origin point, no matter how small, in my own life.

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5. Where did you get the idea for your latest release and tell a bit about the story?

The three-book Hellbenders series from Wolfpack offers readers traditional western action interwoven with historical events and characters occurring in the months prior to the Civil War. So much happened from 1858 to 1860, and I wanted to write a narrative tying some of the events together.

6. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Pantser –absolutely. If I don’t know how it ends, then the reader won’t either.

7. Is there a writing routine you follow or do you write when the muse strikes?

I always start in the morning re-reading what I wrote the day before, incorporating notes that struck me overnight, fleshing out details, or fixing mistakes. After an hour or so, I’m ready to add the day’s entry which sometimes comes at light speed and other times takes more effort.

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8.  If you had a choice, which is your favorite to write, short stories, novellas, or full-length novels?

My first love will always be short stories.

9. Do you ‘interview’ your characters before or at any time while telling their story and what do you do if they don’t cooperate with your story idea?

No, I trust the characters to reveal themselves through their dialog and actions. When they don’t cooperate with where the story needs to go, it’s usually a sign I’m tired and need to start fresh.

10. Is there a process where you find your next story or does the idea just hit you?

The ideas come from all over—usually when least expected, but one thing I like to do to deliberately kickstart a bunch of ideas is to sit down with, say, ten different anthologies—preferably from different genres—and look at the table of contents. Then mix and mash titles. Take the first part of a western story and slam it onto the back of a crime story or SF story to create something new and intriguing. Then write the story the new title suggests.

11. Is there anything else you feel people would like to know or would be surprised to learn about you?

My collection of vinyl jazz records is closing in on 1000.

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12. Do you write in other genres?

I write the Dan Spalding mystery-thriller series and am currently writing number eight. The first six have been collected by Wolfpack in a two-volume set and the seventh, Needle Drop, is also available.

13. When and why did you start the Six-Gun Justice podcast?

Credit for the podcast goes to my partner Paul Bishop who called me up at the end of 2019 and suggested the idea. We kicked it around a bit before diving in headfirst in January of 2020. Our idea was to share our love of the Western genre through its representation in books, TV, movies, comics, and other media—but along the way shine the light on little-known trivia and real-life history. After the first month, we added our Wednesday Conversation segment where we visit with friends who work in the Western genre, and it quickly became a favorite for hundreds of listeners.

For more about Richard: 

https://www.richardprosch.com/

Amazon Author Page

https://wolfpackpublishing.com/richard-prosch/

 

RICHARD PROSCH'S SIX-GUN JUSTICE INTERVIEW WITH CHERYL PIERSON! by Cheryl Pierson

I did something so fun a couple of weeks back! Richard Prosch invited me to be interviewed for a podcast--my first! Six-Gun Justice is a fun site created by Richard Prosch and Paul Bishop, and there are all kinds of interviews they've done with western writers over the past several months Here's the link to mine, but while you're there, poke around and see who else you might find on the links of interviewees! You're bound to find a bunch of friends there, for sure! https://www.sixgunjustice.com/2020/07/six-gun-justice-conversationscheryl.html

The Story Behind the Unfinished Story

Writers have their own kind of jargon.

People who write without a formal outline on hand sometimes refer to themselves as “pantsers” as in “writing by the seat of the pants.” Or we say that we “write into the dark.”

This month you might hear your normally lucid and rational writer friend start babbling about “NaNoWriMo” —which stands for National Novel Writing Month, a time when some hunker down during the holidays to finally finish that WIP.

And there’s another one! (WIP is—of course—an acronym for Work in Progress.)

The piece of jargon I’ve been thinking about today is “Trunk Story.” How many of you reading this have a trunk story you could dredge up, probably within a few minutes? How many of you have more than one?

Here’s another question. Should a Trunk Story be complete?

Is it a finished work, but put away in the trunk—nowadays usually an electronic trunk—because it didn’t find a home or was deemed unworthy?

Or, like old scraps stashed away in a quilter’s horde, is a lot of the material in your trunk in pieces?

Three years ago, I started on one such scrap, a story called “If Stars Hate Wire.”

It started off well enough. It ended without an ending. Or and ending that left me thinking...what next?

Tuck O’Brian and Ron Bruce are two cowboys in 1903 Nebraska, working on the Graham-Jessom spread. Like a lot of ranch hands at the time, they’re forced to deal with a changing landscape. The Kinkaiders are coming, and these new settlers (often called “nesters”) seem to be getting all the breaks.

And all the sympathy.

I had two reasons I wanted to explore Tuck and Ron’s story. One was to take a look at the traditional rancher vs. farmer conflict from the POV of a typical cowboy of the times. I also wanted to write about the general development of the Nebraska Sandhills.

I got a few pages in, enjoyed what I had written.

And just stopped.

Sometimes we stop because we can’t see light at the end of the tunnel.

Sometimes we’re just not happy with what we’ve done. We don’t like the characters. Or maybe the setting seems wrong.

In this case, I stopped because I realized early on that this was going to be longer than a few thousand words. The scope of the story was more than I was comfortable committing to in the few days I had to write.

Now that it's back out in the open...I'm not so sure.  Please give it a read and tell me what you would do. Would you wrap it up, or continue? Or put it back in the trunk?

Please share some comments, and your own Trunk Story stories below.

You can read the unfinished story “If the Stars Hate Wire,” 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 the Story: Tell Tail

by Richard Prosch

When I was little, the house we lived in was situated next to a grove of trees. Well kept with a floor of pine needles, the little forest had a variety of trees—all relatively short in stature.

In fact, you might call it an orchard since it featured an apple tree, cherry trees and a raspberry bush.

And right along our sidewalk, with dozens of branches hanging overhead, a mulberry tree.

Every spring into summer, the mulberries fell like rain.

Fun for a kid on a hot afternoon. Scrumptious to be sure.

Fun for the birds too, who plopped their colorful calling cards onto the sidewalk amidst the purples and blue stains.

I’ve always wanted to write a story about those trees, and the headache it caused for my mom when I would come in with a stained shirt, shorts or shoe.

Fast forward to a few weeks back when, walking along the Missouri River, I found myself once more under a canopy of dropping mulberries, dodging the little landmines on the trail even while I enjoyed the shade against the afternoon heat.  Ahead of me, a young woman with a Great Dane was pulling mightily on his leash, scolding him for scarfing up the free fruit.

And just like that, the following story came together.

So I was again surprised by how stories can spring into life. But another surprise waited when I sat down to the keyboard.

As the first few sentences came out, the voice seemed familiar.

Sensing, er…”Poe-tential,”  I listened to the voice and ended up with one of the few pastiche stories I’ve ever written.

As you know, a pastiche is work done in a style that imitates another work, artist, or period (Thanks, Google!).

If you don’t get it from the title, it won’t be hard to quickly see where “Tell Tail” got its last bit of inspiration. 

It was a fun one to write. I hope you have fun reading it. 

You can read Tell Tail by clicking here. Please drop a comment and let me know what you think.

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