Western settings?

[scriptwriter91]

I am pretty good-- Wait I have mastered the art of asking stupid questions so here goes:

I have written a western over the past few months. The setting is southern Arizona, but I didn't use any real places. My writing partner and I came up with pretty good town names, but again they are not real.

Is it bad that I didn't use a real place (ie: Tombstone)? Should I have used real old west towns or is alright to use these?

-scriptwriter91

[Ol' Fashioned Girl]

I'd say using fictitious towns is great... if the history or actual events aren't important (as they definitely are in Tombstone) to the story, I don't see why you couldn't make up your own.

[scriptwriter91]

The story is COMPLETELY fiction so I can use COMPLETELY made up town names?

[Ol' Fashioned Girl]

Yeah... who's gonna tell you you can't? It's your world you've built. I made up some nice villages and towns in both my historicals. The problem would come if you tried to write what happened in Tombstone in one of your made-up locations. People who read historicals know and that would throw them out of the story... not to mention annoy them. ;)

[Kentuk]

Yes you bad, impure and when you die your lot will be with the heritics.

One of the strengths of westerns is the love of the grand vista, i.e. standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It implies you can't imagine something more awesome then the real thing. Not sure it this includes armpit towns but it does mean you need a strong literary reason for departing from the true path. What is yours?

Oh yes it takes a sinner to spot one. Please read my post in SYW Western.

They might just round up the possie of true believers and chase me back to the SF/Fantasy...cracking their cracker whips and 'fantasy loving infidel'!

[scriptwriter91]

Not sure it this includes armpit towns but it does mean you need a strong literary reason for departing from the true path. What is yours?


I kinda get what you mean, Kentuk. I wanted to right a fictional western and for the story it had to may I repeat had to be in southern Arizona. I needed some smal towns two kinda out of the way, yet important, and one central one. Is it OK that I did that just to get the setting right?

[Chumplet]

I see nothing wrong with just making up a town. But... if you have access to a really good computer, why not download Google Earth, then you can zoom in on the topography of the region you're writing in. You can get into your world, describing canyons and valleys, rivers and mountains. Maybe stick your imaginary town in one of the uninhabited parts of Arizona! Get your Norths and Souths sorted out, and maybe Arizonian readers will identify with your book even more.

[dpaterso]

I'm OK with fictional towns, places, anything -- as long as you stay true to the locale, no whitewater rafting in the middle of the desert, etc. When I'm placing a story in a fictional town I do what they used to do in The High Chaparral, have the characters talk about riding to Tucson, El Paso, Nogales and other nearby towns ("We should be back in five, six days") to give that hint of geographical location without being needlessly specific.

Having said that... the moment you go with fictional names and places you lose historical resonance. And Westerns, dare I suggest, are all about historical resonance. Keeping it as real as possible adds to the experience.

The above is my humble opinion as always, not gospel. :)

-Derek

[Cav Guy]

There's nothing wrong with using fictional towns. I set most of my stuff in a totally fictional county in Montana. Is it true to the location? You bet, right down to some rivers and towns outside the county. But using a fictional set of towns gives you the ability to create things that are familiar without being overly so, and it also lets you blend fact with myth.

And I'll repeat the caution I gave earlier regarding Google Earth. It's good for general layout, but remember that the terrain may have looked quite different during the time you're writing about. Trees (deforestation), water courses,and of course developments will have changed the land greatly since the 1800s.

[Cav Guy]

Yes you bad, impure and when you die your lot will be with the heritics.

One of the strengths of westerns is the love of the grand vista, i.e. standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It implies you can't imagine something more awesome then the real thing. Not sure it this includes armpit towns but it does mean you need a strong literary reason for departing from the true path. What is yours?

Oh yes it takes a sinner to spot one. Please read my post in SYW Western.

They might just round up the possie of true believers and chase me back to the SF/Fantasy...cracking their cracker whips and 'fantasy loving infidel'!
Heh. A great deal of the Western is made up, anyhow. The myth overtakes the reality more often than not. One could possibly argue that the Western is in fact the first American Fantasy work, going back as far as Cooper.

[Vanatru]

Go with a fictional town. How many po-dunk mining and cattle towns have come and gone and NO ONE remembers 'em or knows about 'em? Look up ghost towns and you'll find people have pics of buildings in the middle of no-where without knowing the name of 'em or purpose of 'em.

So, why not make up a town........it could end up being a ghost town someday.

Just follow the advice the others gave about continuity.

[Mr. Jinx]

The towns I am using are all real but I have taken some liberties with their level of development at the time of my story. I made them both a bit bigger to suit my needs (one of them was only about a dozen houses and a local store).

However, since in 1952 the creek was dammed and the little valley flooded buryining both towns under a reservoir I dont feel too bad fictionalizing them a bit. I think ghost towns under water are fair game for a little creative interpretation :) .

My manuscript is a "weird west" kind of setting so it itsnt trying to be historically perfect. The history is woven in for flavor.

[Vanatru]

The towns I am using are all real but I have taken some liberties with their level of development at the time of my story. I made them both a bit bigger to suit my needs (one of them was only about a dozen houses and a local store).

However, since in 1952 the creek was dammed and the little valley flooded buryining both towns under a reservoir I dont feel too bad fictionalizing them a bit. I think ghost towns under water are fair game for a little creative interpretation :) .

My manuscript is a "weird west" kind of setting so it itsnt trying to be historically perfect. The history is woven in for flavor.

Way cool. Now, have a story take place in the underwater town with water zombies or something. :) Have shootouts with spear guns and riding seahorses.

[Festus]

I don't see any problems at all with you using fictionized towns, etc. Don't get hung up on fictional towns, the important thing to me is to have the 'feel' right.

Looking forward to reading your work!

Kentuck: Anyone tries to run your stuff off, it won't be us!

By the way, Mr. Jinx, is your avatar a picture of you? It's really neat!

[Mr. Jinx]

By the way, Mr. Jinx, is your avatar a picture of you? It's really neat!

Thanks Festus!
Yep, its me in my younger days. I did one of those old west style photos in Sacramento with a few friends back in the mid 1980's and ran accross it again recently. I was only 20 in the picture (I'm 42 now). Its kind of fun.

[JeanneTGC]

Chiming in on the location question.

I do both, use real towns and fictional ones. Each serves a different purpose. As was said, if I want the story to feel very "real", then I will use a real town -- and I'll research it as much as possible, too. If, however, I want to do whatever the heck it is I want, then I'll make up a town.

If you're looking at Arizona, I have several good maps of the time period, all of which I got through the State Parks service up in Verde Valley. They were not expensive and they've been invaluable. If you're not in the Phoenix or Flagstaff area and want the information for how to contact, send me a PM and I'll give you the contact info I have.

BTW, for all -- what a lot of people don't realize is that most forts were NOT enclosed. In AZ and NM there truly wasn't enough wood to use as fort fencing like you see in the movies. One of the biggest shocks I had was the first time I went to Camp Verde and saw just how open it was. If you ever get a chance to go to an older fort that's been converted to a museum, do it, because it's very worth it, and the folks who work there are loaded with info and dying to have someone interested to share it with.

[Cav Guy]

BTW, for all -- what a lot of people don't realize is that most forts were NOT enclosed. In AZ and NM there truly wasn't enough wood to use as fort fencing like you see in the movies. One of the biggest shocks I had was the first time I went to Camp Verde and saw just how open it was. If you ever get a chance to go to an older fort that's been converted to a museum, do it, because it's very worth it, and the folks who work there are loaded with info and dying to have someone interested to share it with.
This is very true. One of the things that made Camp Whipple/Fort Whipple unique was the fact that it DID have a stockade. Same thing with Fort Phil Kearney in Wyoming. The average Western fort was a loose collection of picket, adobe, or log buildings centered around the parade ground. The best building was usually the hospital (if there was one, though most forts did have them), and the worst would often be the officers' quarters (especially for those below the rank of captain) or the barracks. If you want to get a feel for what the better ones looked like, go to Fort Riley or Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Fort Riley's Main Post has many of the quarters from the 1870s, and the cavalry and artillery parade grounds are still intact.

[McDuff]

I'm using a real name that's actually somewhere completely different for mine. It's set in Palestine, TX, but it's not the real Palestine, TX.

Just to mix things up a bit. ;)

[Leva]

I see nothing wrong with just making up a town. But... if you have access to a really good computer, why not download Google Earth, then you can zoom in on the topography of the region you're writing in. You can get into your world, describing canyons and valleys, rivers and mountains. Maybe stick your imaginary town in one of the uninhabited parts of Arizona! Get your Norths and Souths sorted out, and maybe Arizonian readers will identify with your book even more.

Just a comment on this -- much of the 'uninhabited' areas of Arizona were 'uninhabited' for a reason. Reasons included:

1. Lack of water. This is a huge one -- look up the history of mining in the Bradshaws, and the Impossible Railroad, for a good example of how critical water was to economic development.

2. Too much water. The reason Phoenix ended up the capital, and not Maricopa, despite Maricopa being on the main rail line and Phoenix being on a spur line, was 'too much water'. The Santa Rosa and Gila would flood (and still could flood) and drown the town. Regularly. Last big flood was in 1996. Flooding was actually a major issue in Arizona. Still is.

3. No economic reason for there to be anyone living there. Barren, desolate, no minerals worth mining, can't be farmed because there's no water, ranches cover square miles of territory to be economically viable ... no reason for a town. Most towns were on major travel routes, were centered around a mine, were there because of farming, or had other economic reasons to exist.

4. Unfriendly pre-existing populations that didn't want towns there.

Also, if you're talking Southern Arizona, when is this set? Remember, until the Spanish-American, the Mexican border was significantly farther north.

[dub]

My setting is an area in southwest Kansas; the only real town I mention is Liberal - folks are always going or coming from there. I have researched the creeks and villages of the area, and can pretty well nail down every gopher hole along the trail. Much of the manuscript is based around my cowboy dealing with the elements - spring floods, late summer dust storms, winter blasts - that little section in the corner of Kansas is pretty worthless even today.

[seven41]

Fictional towns must be OK. My idol, Louis Lamour, used them all the time.

My current story is set in a fictional town. It doesn't have a post office and the mail is delivered once a week when a stagecoach comes through. The town will die at the end of the story because the railroad is going to bypass it for a bigger town, but since it didn't really exist, it doesn't matter. Other than that, my stories must be geographically and historically accurate since what I am writing is fiction associated with historical events.

[AussieBilly]

Heh. A great deal of the Western is made up, anyhow. The myth overtakes the reality more often than not. One could possibly argue that the Western is in fact the first American Fantasy work, going back as far as Cooper.

Now wait a goldurned minute, there Billy Bob ... I'll have you know every bit of my western fiction is the blamed truth!

My solution of where to put the action is to simply google maps of whatever part of Utah Territory, or where ever, of the 1850s or whenever, find the town that's near the necessary river or mountain, or what ever, and change the name (to protect the innocent, of course). That way I maintain total control over what is in that town and nobody can argue.

Enough ... this is proving to be a good thread, so keep it up ...

[JeanneTGC]

Now wait a goldurned minute, there Billy Bob ... I'll have you know every bit of my western fiction is the blamed truth!

My solution of where to put the action is to simply google maps of whatever part of Utah Territory, or where ever, of the 1850s or whenever, find the town that's near the necessary river or mountain, or what ever, and change the name (to protect the innocent, of course). That way I maintain total control over what is in that town and nobody can argue.

Enough ... this is proving to be a good thread, so keep it up ...
*cough*

Of course, if you change the town names, then at least something IS made up...;)

The beauty of making up a town (even if you're using a real one and change its name) is that you can then change things "legally" without being called on it. The 87th Precinct series (mystery) is a great example -- it's in New York but it's not CALLED New York, so the author could move things, like the location of rivers, without being told it was "wrong".

Me, I do like using both. There's a beauty to being able to be in Dodge City sometimes. Though I like my made-up towns, too.

[HoosierCowgirl]

I blush to admit, I used my cow pasture as the setting for the item I'm working on. But ... if you look at it just right, it's all long grass and sky with a bluff overlooking the creek (well, OK, Hoke Ditch) with its cottonwoods and beaver dams.

Just have to scale it up quite a bit to turn it into the Dakotas. There's even a mountain range to the northwest -- the county landfill. ;)

As for stockades, I was surprised to read about the forts in Elizabeth Bacon Custer's books -- that all they amounted to were buildings around a square.

I must have watched "F-Troop" too often as a kid and always pictured westerns forts as stockades. Never asked myself where they were supposed to get all the logs!

Ann

[CoriSCapnSkip]

Personally I hate it when they use real place names that you either know aren't around there, or the facts of the story don't fit that place. I would rather see made-up names that suit the region. You might use one real major town and say your location was a certain amount distant to establish region.

[Cav Guy]

Personally I hate it when they use real place names that you either know aren't around there, or the facts of the story don't fit that place. I would rather see made-up names that suit the region. You might use one real major town and say your location was a certain amount distant to establish region.
That tends to be what I do if I'm not using the historical place as an accurate setting. For example, my fictional Montana county uses places like Virginia City and Butte to establish place (historically and in terms of location), but my Frontier Army novels use actual places (forts, towns near them, etc.) as accurately as possible.

[Bonner]

Take a look at some of Larry McMurtry's settings in his westerns like Anything for Billy or Dead Mans Walk. They are a mix of actual, similar, and made up places. There probably is no town or saloon named Lonesome Dove but there certainly could have been.
I guess the point is to take the license you need to move the story but dropping a name or place or event lends credibility. McMurtry wrote several pieces of Texas history and it shows in his fiction. I don't know if the need for place settings inspired his research or the research inspired the fiction.