AN INTERVIEW WITH IAN PARNHAM
Ian Parnham is the author of three Black Horse Westerns (with more on the way) and an Avalon Western. "Last rider From Hell", "Death or Bounty" and "The Outlawed Deputy" are due for release in Large Print in 2003, along with his new book "Bad Day In Dirtwood".
Tell us a little about yourself.
Full name Ian Joseph Parnham, early forties, married, with three furry, mice-catching children. By profession I'm an accountant. Born and lived most of my life in Nottingham, England, but now live by the Moray Firth in the NE of Scotland.
When did you start writing?
Someone once said that all writers should decide whether to date writing or marry it, and be aware of the consequences of either. I have dated writing all my adult life but only married it a few years ago.
While dating I published nothing. Marriage has produced several novels.
What made you decide to write Westerns?
The short answer is that I love Westerns. But I'll give a longer answer.
I inherited my love of Western movies from my father. But I discovered Western novels by accident. I was ill and off school, listening to the local radio, Radio Nottingham. The guest on a morning show was the prolific Western writer JT Edson. For the next few hours, he chatted to the host about his life, fielded a phone-in, and generally entertained.
JT came across as a very nice man with a good line in self-deprecating humour about his writing talents. But what impressed me the most was that he only lived about ten miles away from me. I'd always thought of writers as strange, other-earthly creatures, but realizing that a nice man from just down the road wrote Westerns, convinced me that one day, I'd write Westerns too.
And it only took me another twenty-five years to do so.
Encouraged by the radio appearance I purchased a JT novel — in those days all UK bookshops had a Western section — and putting aside its literary merit, I was highly entertained. So over the next few years I read many of his books, along with classic authors such as Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour.
But as the eighties arrived, Westerns disappeared from the bookshelves, so when I turned to writing, I didn't consider writing them. Instead I wrote my other great genre love — SF and Fantasy — without success.
It wasn't until the late nineties that I visited a library for the first time in a long while and discovered a whole section devoted to Westerns — all Black Horse Westerns. I borrowed one, loved it, and decided to try writing a Western. I loved doing that too. End of story.
Who/what are your influences?
The SF author EC Tubb influenced me the most. His fast-paced, action-packed novels told entertaining stories with minimal fuss and maximum impact. Incidentally one of my happiest moments as an author was searching for Westerns on Amazon. A list of novels appeared on the screen and one of my novels was next to one of EC Tubb's Westerns.
It doesn't get any better than that.
As most of my Western reading has been of short, pulp-style stories, I tend to write about a mythological West rather than the actual one — tales of the way the West never was, but should have been.
And with good cause. Within a few more novels I reckon I will have killed more people in gunfights than died in the whole Wild Western days.
Do you plan out your books before you write or do you just start and see what develops?
No plans. I start with a snatch of conversation, a single image, sometimes even the title.
The Outlawed Deputy started with the image of a lawman locked in his own jail cell. I didn't know how he got there, but the situation intrigued me and it just had to cause problems. And it did.
Death or Bounty started from a brief conversation between an outlaw facing the noose and a man who offers him redemption if he helps track down another outlaw. The condemned man agrees to help. But he has to think about it first. I had to write the novel to find out why he balked.
The Legend of Shamus McGinty's Gold started from the title.
From those simple beginnings I nudge outward in all directions, feeling for the characters involved. When they emerge, they take over the tale and take it where they will. I often get to the last chapter, sometimes the last page and in one case the last line without knowing how things will turn out.
Then the real work begins, as I redraft, redraft and redraft some more.
Which of your books are your favourites and why?
To date I have four Westerns in print. Three Black Horse Westerns, soon to be Linford Westerns, and one Avalon Western, which is only available in the US. Two more novels are awaiting publication.
Most of these novels are straight action novels. And although I will always include plenty of gunfights and adventure, I have increasingly enjoyed placing a mystery at the core of my stories. So my favourite two books are those that introduced me to the additional dimensions that mystery elements can present.
In The Last Rider from Hell an amnesiac pieces together his life, not knowing if in the life he cannot remember he was a hero or a bad guy. I enjoyed writing this because I was as confused as the amnesiac was. I just had to continue writing to unearth the truth. Periodically clues arrived but it wasn't until the last few lines that everything came together to tell another, hidden tale.
The Legend of Shamus McGinty's Gold starts with an odd mixture of situations. An old-timer is nearing the end of a forty years quest to solve an old legend and find the huge stash of hidden treasure — Shamus McGinty's gold. But he's dying. In desperation he turns to a devious huckster who sells a tonic that he misrepresents as a universal remedy to cure all ills, but which only gives its unfortunate victims diarrhoea. The old-timer takes the bogus medicine. But this time, the medicine works. Why?
From this odd premise, the story takes multiple unexpected turns because the lead characters are such a devious and conniving bunch.
I am indebted to this novel, because it proved to me that filling a tale with odd, unpredictable characters takes a story to places that straightforward characters never can.
Which of your covers are your favourites and why? 
I love Hale's covers. Even the generic Western images are evocative.
If a cover's main purpose is to hint to the prospective reader what you'll find within, they all succeed. One look at any cover will let you know that if you read the book you will get action, adventure, and a bit more action.
Of my own covers, I like The Outlawed Deputy because it gave me an image of one of my main hero Cassidy Yates. And The Last Rider from Hell presents an image, which I feel hints that there is a mystery within the covers.
Your characters Cassidy Yates and Nathaniel McBain from Outlawed Deputy also appear in two other books - Yates in Last Rider From Hell and McBain in Death or Bounty - was this a conscious decision to bring more synthesis to your books? Will they be appearing again in future titles?
Right from the first few words of my first Western I never questioned that my books would fit into my own invented, larger framework. So some characters' tales end in one novel, but others have longer journeys and will reappear later, just as some characters who are only referred to in passing or who only have small parts, later appear as central figures.
Although in keeping with my failure to outline I have no grand design in mind. It'll just depend where the characters take me.
Both Yates and McBain will return, probably in 2004.
Do you research extensively before you start a book?
No, but then again yes. Like all Western writers I'm drawn to the genre because I love both the myths and the truth of the Wild West. I therefore read extensively, but would never term that reading as research. To me that word sounds like a word to describe a task that you have to force yourself to complete.
While writing I don't cramp myself with worrying about reality. If I don't know something I just guess and carry on, concentrating on the drama not the facts. With a first draft complete I will then check facts and amend where appropriate, while avoiding getting the story bogged down in unnecessary detail.
Your first three books are all being released in Large Print in 2003, and Bad Day in Dirtwood is coming out in hardback. An exciting year ahead for you?
Just like buses. You wait twenty five years then four come along at once.
Yes, hopefully the growing weight of my books will draw the attention of the Western reading public. But what excites me more is the confidence that grabs hold of your writing when you've published novels. I now have a clearer idea of what works and what doesn't, and what types of story I enjoy writing the most.
So in 2003 mystery elements will be at the core of my writing, and as I successfully sneaked comedy scenes into The Legend of Shamus McGinty's Gold I will also allow more humour to appear. Also, without planning, most of my books have had a trinity of good, bad, and ugly characters. And although Westerns need good guys and bad guys, I have seen how the uglies, the guys that don't fit the mould, take stories in unexpected directions and they will increasingly dominate my writing.
In a time when more and more publishers are pushing authors away, what do you think of Hale's “author-friendly” approach?
All authors know the pain of working on a project for months, sometimes years, then sending it to a publisher and waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
You sort through every post, hoping that you'll get the answer. It doesn't come. So you wait. Then you wait some more.
Then you get an answer.
With shaking hands you open the letter. Inside is one sheet of paper. It's badly photocopied. It's crunched up, dirty, and has a footprint on it. It's addressed Dear Author. It isn't signed.
And it's bad news.
Even worse, that frustrating door is gradually closing as more and more publishers will only talk to agents, and those agents will only talk to published authors.
Then you discover Hale. You send your ms to Hale. You blink twice and you receive an answer. The letter isn't a photocopy. It's a signed letter. The letter is addressed to you and not to Author. It's written by someone who's read your ms. And it's courteous.
It might still be bad news, but it is courteous and helpful.
And when it's good news… To put it simply you'll never hear the phrase unhappy Black Horse Western writer.
What do you enjoy most about being a writer?
Contentment is doing what you want to do. Happiness is getting paid to do what you want to do. Nirvana would be getting paid more, but I'll settle for being happy.
Feedback from readers is always a joy. Knowing that you entertained someone that you've never met completes the writing process: You think of an idea. You write it. You get it published. Someone picks up the book, reads it and enjoys it. Process ends.
But I derive the simplest pleasure from the act of writing. There's no point doing it if you don't enjoy putting words on paper.
And I do.
Tell us about your upcoming projects.
Hale have recently agreed to publish another of my Westerns Devine's Law, a tale of dark family secrets and a sadistic lawman. It'll probably appear in early 2004.
I've almost completed a Cassidy Yates tale Wendell Moon is Back. In it Cassidy must solve an old crime while keeping the peace between a man with a past, a revengeful outlaw and four rule-breaking lawmen.
And I've just finished the first draft of a, as yet untitled, comic Western tale of unrequited love, scientific exploration, theatre and sarsaparilla. In it, I've rectified the high death count of my previous novels by having nobody die. In fact not a single bullet gets fired. Neither do any fist fights, chases on horseback, or battles atop speeding trains take place. But it does have a lot of tough cowboys drinking sarsaparilla.
I have no idea what I'll do with it.
Beyond that I will be starting a new book early in 2003. I'm torn between two projects.
For one I have an image of Nat McBain sitting on a train. A lawman joins him and asks him to help stop an approaching band of raiders. Nat shrugs, rocks his feet on to the facing chair and pulls his hat over his eyes.
Why a decent man like Nat would refuse to help a lawman, I don't know, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
The other potential project is the second sequel to The Legend of Shamus McGinty's Gold. For it I have a silly Western novel title and an even sillier joke, which I'm looking forward to inflicting on unsuspecting readers. Although whether I'll write it will depend on whether Avalon publishes the first sequel.
Any advice to aspiring writers?
Write from the heart and write the books that only you can write.
Don't let anybody tell you that you're wasting your time, that you don't have the talent, that the odds are too great on publication, or any one of a dozen other downers.
It's your life, so follow your dream. And if you do, you'll be successful.
And if you aren't successful, so what? You'll have enjoyed yourself.
Anything else you would like to add?
Yes. If you're looking for entertainment, get down to your library and borrow any Black Horse Western or Linford Western. They're short — 2-3 hours reading time — ideal for reading in a single night. They're full of vivid scenes, colourful characters and non-stop action.
But above all else, they're fun.
Thanks, Ian
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