Saturday, May 26, 2018

A Writer Reads. And Should Help His Readers See A to B.

It’s clear in reading Louis L’Amour’s “Education of A Wandering Man” that Mr. L’Amour read a lot of books.

That’s as it should be. A writer ought to read a heck of a lot more than he or she writes, just so there’s enough information inside one’s head to draw on when the writing begins.

One thing I felt lacking, however: A connection between A and B.

It would be highly valuable for any aspiring writer to see how an idea gleaned from a book helped influence something an author writes.

For instance.

On page 198 of this very book, L’Amour writes:

I believe that man has been living and is living in a Neanderthal state of mind. Mentally, we are still flaking rocks for scraping stones or chipping them for arrowheads. The life that lies before us will no longer permit such wastefulness or neglect. We are moving into outer space, where the problems will be infinitely greater and will demand quicker, more accurate solutions. We cannot trust our destinies to machines alone. Man must make his own decisions.

What an inspiration and motivation for the Hermit of Iapetus. If I ever get back to that book, this passage will be a big guiding post as I work on it.

That being said, L’Amour’s book is still a valuable one for the writer, even if the how isn’t explained all that well. What’s important is the example. One might think that writing for the “frontier” or the “West,” as L’Amour did, would be easy, as there are a thousand tropes enough for a thousand novels per author. Nevertheless, L’Amour hints at how his long studies and experiences helped him shape his stories into something more than they would be if he had to invent every damn thing out of whole cloth.

Next time, take a few of the hints into a deeper look, just to help a fella out.

No comments: