Western genre is easy to describe. What do you see when I say "wild west"? Cowboys, fights, frontier setting. And that's exactly what this genre is, with stories set in American Old West typically during the late 19th century.
Western books often explore themes of survival, outlaws, conflict & revenge.
The typical western main character is a cowboy, an outlaw, who rides a horse with a revolver by his side.
Women hold secondary roles, mostly as love interests.
To write western well, make sure to research on the historical period and location, so you get all the main details right.
Western stories often depict a conflict between good and evil or law and chaos.
SUBGENRES
NEO WESTERN
→ think John Wick, and you get what neo western is. While keeping the principles of the genre, the setting is in modern day or in the future
SPACE WESTERN
→ combines western and science fiction and uses outer space as the setting
NARCO WESTERN
→ focuses on the narcotics trade of Latin America (especially Mexico). The western tropes are reframed around drug cartels, traffickers, corruption and border violence
TROPES
Injun country: An area where Native Americans, First Nations, or other Indigenous peoples can be found; in the heyday of the Wild West, settlers often clash with these peoples during American expansion
Outlaw town: A settlement run by and exclusively inhabited by criminals and outlaws
The magnificent seven samurai: A helpless community under attack hires heroes (usually seven) to protect them
The Lone Wolf / Gunslinger: A solitary, often stoic and skilled individual with a troubled past, who usually has a hidden moral code.
The saloon brawl: usually involved an out-of-towner arriving uninvited at a dodgy saloon full of cowboys and criminals. With incredible tension, the hero usually starts asking unwanted questions, and before too long, all hell has broken loose as bottles are thrown, guns are fired, and he’s forced to showcase his skills as a superior gunslinger to calm things down.
horror • romance • adventure • fantasy • science-fiction • slice of life • historical fiction • folklore • inspirational • thriller
Comments
Post a Comment