“Death and the Dreaming” draws on a lot of different Western tropes - the “soiled dove” with a heart of gold, the mysterious gunslinger, saloons and brothels and the casual violence of the frontier. But the fantasy aspect owes debts to the unlikely duo of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and Edward Gorey’s very peculiar illustrated piece, The Nursery Frieze.
I’ve mentioned Gorey’s work before, I’m sure. His pen and ink illustrations are both whimsical and wickedly dark, rather like what you’d see if Tim Burton were an artist instead of a filmmaker. The Nursery Frieze has always been one of my favorites — panel after panel of large lumbering beasts trundling across a desolate landscape. Each one solemnly speaks a word as it passes through the scene.
Image: Goreyana, The Nursery Frieze
Although Gorey apparently actually intended the piece for use in a nursery, the surreal setting inspired the Boss’ home territory, which Sixkiller usually glimpses in dreams and the occasional waking vision. Argentine, too, is inspired by the many 1880s era photographs of prostitutes and performers in places like Tombstone’s Bird Cage Theater.
What’s in a Trope?
You can usually tell a genre by its tropes. They’re the shorthand of storytelling - plot structures, character traits and other elements that pop up so regularly that they become identified with specific types of storytelling. When writers lean too heavily on genre tropes, though, it can result in some lazy storytelling that’s rife with stereotypical characters and predictable outcomes. But maybe tropes have some hidden powers of their own.
I’m thinking about this because of a newsletter I just got from Book Brush, talking about tropes and why you might want to explicitly lean into genre tropes, rather than run from them. If you aren’t familiar with Book Brush, it’s a graphic design site for writers, with book cover templates and batches of other assets to help display your books. They’re introducing a new feature now, a way to add little arrows to your book cover image to identify the tropes featured in the book.
That’s useful because, according to Book Brush, tropes offer readers a feeling of familiarity and quickly lets them know if the book might be to their taste. By alerting readers to the trope ahead of time, they say, it’s even more satisfying when they encounter your unique spin. But the most important thing is that tropes speak directly to feelings - and create an immediate emotional connection with the book.
Turns out, working with beloved tropes just might be the shortcut to a reader’s heart. I’m still not sure about the flirty little arrows, though.
Image: Book Brush
What’s In the Works
I’m getting ready to complete the saga of Longman the bounty hunter in “On Crow Water,” with Part Two, “Stolen Souls” to be serialized here later in October. Part One, “Bridie’s Song” first appeared in Black Moon Journal in four parts. In preparation for Part Two, I’m making Part One a standalone story in flipbook and PDF formats, so if you want to catch up, you won’t have to click through to the links for each installment. Here’s a preview of the cover.
Image: Dusty Moon Media
This is the last installment of “Behind the Scenes” as a piggyback on the main issue of Black Moon Journal. Starting on October 1 it’ll be a standalone section about art, inspiration and this whole writing thing. If you want to receive it, no need to do anything special. If not, you can deselect it in your subscription settings.
As always, let me know what you think — or what you’d like to see coming up in Black Moon Journal.
Till next time —
JM