“Anytime you write in a long-established genre, the challenge is to find themes and\u00a0plots that haven\u2019t been done a thousand times already, and characters who are not caricatures,\u201d said Western novelist Cameron Judd.\u00a0 \u201cWhen you sense you are achieving those goals the writing is fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron Judd<\/a> is the author of more than 30 novels written under his own name and pseudonyms.\u00a0 He got his start in 1980, on a lark, and has referred to himself elsewhere as a sort of unintentional novelist.\u00a0 Yet, there is nothing unintentional about his historical novels set in Tennessee and traditional Westerns.\u00a0 The plotting is intricate and intense and the characterization rich.<\/p>\n

To put it poker terms: Cameron Judd writes with a cool hand, but he most definitely isn’t bluffing.
\n
\nI first met Cameron Judd in 2005 at the Kentucky Book Fair<\/a> where he was promoting the re-release of his historical novel, Boone<\/a>.\u00a0 I was struck with how simultaneously kind and no-nonsense he was as an interviewee, which shouldn\u2019t have surprised me.\u00a0 He brought the best of the Tennessee mountains into the room with him.<\/p>\n

I discovered Judd\u2019s novels at a time when a number of them had gone out of print.\u00a0 I photocopied all his OOP titles so I could study how they were put together.\u00a0 (Can\u2019t write in library books and I had a lot of notes to make!) \u00a0\u00a0When St. Martin\u2019s began re-releasing Judd\u2019s back catalogue in two-for-one editions, I re-read them all and discovered that they hold up exceedingly well to a second read.<\/p>\n

Below, Judd and I talk about going freelance, finding something new to write, and otherwise writing the West.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

And what is the biggest challenge in writing the West?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 There have been so many western stories written over many decades that it is easy to be repetitive in both plot events and character types.\u00a0 A few years ago I observed a few writers essentially trying to rewrite Lonesome Dove<\/em> over and over again.\u00a0 Not a good idea.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0What sort of Westerns do you write, and what are they key elements?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 My westerns tend to be what are usually called \u201ctraditional\u201d westerns.\u00a0 The best comparison I can come up with is that they are compatible with the kind of westerns Louis L\u2019Amour used to write.\u00a0 Not to try to compare myself with him \u2026 but people who enjoyed his books tend to like mine as well.\u00a0 A theme that often seems to arise in my novels is that of\u00a0unresolved issues\u00a0of the past arising in the later life of a character or characters, and demanding to be reckoned with before that character can move on.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Early in your career you were pegged by Bantam to be the heir to <\/strong>Louis L’Amour<\/a>. Was this a blessing or a curse? What did you learn from L\u2019Amour about writing in the genre? In what ways are you significantly different?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 I never perceived Bantam as trying to lay that mantle on my shoulders, actually \u2026 and publishers can\u2019t manufacture that kind of thing anyway.\u00a0 If they could there would be a hundred Louis L\u2019Amour replacements out there already.\u00a0 Every author in the frontier\/western area during that period heard the \u201cnext Louis L\u2019Amour\u201d thing all the time.\u00a0 The late Don Coldsmith<\/a> used to tell people that, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not the next Louis L\u2019Amour.\u00a0 I\u2019m the first Don Coldsmith.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think the lesson L\u2019Amour\u2019s writing has to teach is to keep the story in the forefront, and make your leading character someone the reader would want to be like, at least in his own\u00a0imagination.\u00a0 And don\u2019t slowly slide into the story; jump in with both feet from the very beginning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One way I differ from L\u2019Amour is that I feel free in my stories to invent communities, towns, counties, etc., that did not exist in history.\u00a0 L\u2019Amour always claimed to use only authentic locales, etc., though frankly I don\u2019t believe that was always true. By putting so much emphasis on the \u201chistorical accuracy\u201d of his stories, he opened himself to criticism when he made mistakes, and all authors make some mistakes from time to time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another difference: I don\u2019t write nearly as much in first person as L\u2019Amour did.\u00a0 A third difference: I don\u2019t wear a cowboy hat.\u00a0 I write about western characters, but don\u2019t try to be one myself, because I’m not.\u00a0 I’m a Tennessee guy.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0One difference I see between you and L\u2019Amour is that you books are more intricately plotted. How do you go about building a plot?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 Building a plot is mostly playing a game of \u201cwhat if?\u201d for a few hundred pages.\u00a0 I try to think out the logical possible actions a character might take in this or that situation, and see which one seems the most promising for building a story. That sets up a new situation, and the process repeats. But it\u2019s also important to remember that, in the real world, people often don\u2019t do the most logical thing. They get blinded by emotions, ambitions, temptations \u2026 and the characters in a story can do the same.<\/p>\n

\u00a0*<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0How have your novels and\/or your approach to writing them changed over the years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 I\u2019ve become more confident and natural in my own writing style over the years.\u00a0 And I\u2019m more prone now to introduce unusual elements into my stories \u2026\u00a0elements you don’t\u00a0necessarily expect to find in a western story in the way you expect to find saloons and ranches and gunfighters and railroads\u00a0and saddles, etc.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had stories featuring unexpected things such as traveling \u201cghost shows,\u201d an embalmer who figures out the secrets of Egyptian mummification and applies them to the preservation of slain outlaws he can then display for profit, and a murderer who actually manages to get himself killed by the first man he murdered years before.\u00a0 I\u2019ll not say here how that comes about.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0You recently quit your day job. Has being a full-time writer changed things much for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 Definitely. Most dramatically it changed things on the personal level for me. I was in a job that I had held for nine years and which at one time had been a job in which I fit quite well. That changed over the years and I began living in dread of going to work every day. Leaving that behind was quite important to my mental and physical health. Of course it did involve leaving behind my monthly paycheck, but on the other hand I now have more time for writing.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are you working on now, and what’s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 I\u2019m completing a traditional western called Spurlock<\/em>, a story involving a home invasion in the old West. Next is a frontier historical novel, The Long Hunt<\/em>, set on the frontier of Tennessee and Kentucky in the late 1700s. It will be published in 2011 by Signet.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Which of your books is a good one to start with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 Mr. Littlejohn<\/em> is a good choice, as is Timber Creek<\/em> or The Hanging at Leadville<\/em>, the latter being kind of a mystery story with a western setting.\u00a0 My most recent title, Outlaw Train<\/em>, is a fun read.\u00a0 Among my historical novels I suggest The Shadow Warriors<\/em> or The Overmountain Men<\/em>, both of those being the first novels of trilogies.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

What can a writer who doesn’t usually read Westerns learn from reading within the genre?<\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Cameron Judd:<\/strong>\u00a0 Good writing is good writing regardless of genre. Writers should read many different kinds of stories, particularly those by authors of good reputation as storytellers. For western storytelling, I recommend reading Loren D. Estleman<\/a>. For more\u00a0general storytelling, I recommend Mark Twain,\u00a0John Grisham and Charles Dickens.\u00a0Stephen King’s On Writing<\/em> is great … a high-quality course in writing in a small, fun package.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jeremy L. C. Jones <\/em><\/a>is a freelance writer, editor, and part-time professor.\u00a0 Jones is a frequent contributor to <\/em>Clarkesworld Magazine<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 He is also the director of <\/em>Shared Worlds<\/em><\/a>, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and <\/em>Jeff VanderMeer <\/em><\/a>designed in 2006.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Anytime you write in a long-established genre, the challenge is to find themes and\u00a0plots that haven\u2019t been done a thousand times already, and characters who are not caricatures,\u201d said Western novelist Cameron Judd.\u00a0 \u201cWhen you sense you are achieving those goals the writing is fun.\u201d Cameron Judd is the author of more than 30 novels written under his own name and pseudonyms.\u00a0 He got his start in 1980, on a lark, and has referred to himself elsewhere as a sort of unintentional novelist.\u00a0 Yet, there is nothing unintentional about his historical novels set in Tennessee and traditional Westerns.\u00a0 The plotting is intricate and intense and the characterization rich. To put it poker terms: Cameron Judd writes with a cool hand, but he most definitely isn’t bluffing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/1527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}