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The little big Badass Guide to Writing a Western: Where Research Meets Bullshit, & Both Wear Spurs
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Dec 2 2025
Pages: 370
Weight: 1.09
Height: 0.82 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Write the Western novel your readers deserve.
Not a Hollywood knockoff. Not a Wikipedia mash-up.
A real, gritty, lived-in frontier story with teeth.
In this massive, no-nonsense guide, author Robert Ford breaks down every corner of the Old West... from guns and outlaws to weather disasters, sexuality, Indigenous nations, frontier medicine, ghost stories, town layouts, transportation, economics, and the everyday lives of the people who carved out a life among the trail dust.
Then he shows you how to take that knowledge and craft compelling Western fiction: structure, pacing, characters, conflict, dialogue and lingo, themes, and the essential art of not drowning your readers in your research.
With forty-plus chapters of hard facts, practical advice, and the occasional colorful profanity thrown in, this guide is equal parts reference book, survival manual, and campfire storyteller.
Packed with truth. Seasoned with bullshit. Absolutely essential.
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