[Pro Writer] Hondo by Louis L'Amour - Dissection, Part 6

We continue dissecting L'Amour's short story - "Gift of Cochise". Where his bestseller and movie "Hondo" came from - where his novel-writing career took off.

The spread for “Gift of Cochise” as it appeared in Colliers (5 July 1952)

OUR WORK SO FAR: Hondo was L’Amour’s big break into novels. It was based on his “Gift of Cochise”. We’re continuing to work through this short story, following W. S. Campbell’s prescribed approach. (See this Dissection Part 1 post.) Last installment examined Scenes 12, 11, and 10.

This post is too long for most email viewers. Click on the external link to get the full version - and bonuses.

Again, I found a PDF of the original short story, although I’ve not been able to find that link again - and included it here ICYMI:

The Gift Of Cochise Louis L'amour

109KB ∙ PDF file

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In this installment, we are referencing Keep ‘Em Reading Lesson 05 - The Scene and Its Sequel. Review this before continuing.

As these next three Cochise scenes are short, I’ve included them into a single chunk for study. But take your time reviewing each. They each build into the next. We are concentrating this week on the flow of ideas through words, sentences, paragraphs, and bridges.

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Dissection: The Gift of Cochise - Scene 9, 8, 7

We’ve already seen how the hero, Ches Lane, gets out of trouble and how, as well as his reward. These next ones set the stage for his later getting into trouble. Here, a few plants should show up, as well as pointers. Check your notes on what this story is still needing to hold together.

9.

Cochise had come again to the cabin in West Dog Canyon. "Little warrior too small," he said, "too small for hunt. You join my people. Take Apache for man."

"No." Angie shook her head. "Apache ways are good for the Apache, and the white man's ways are good for white men—and women."

They rode away and said no more, but that night, as she had on many other nights after the children were asleep, Angie cried. She wept silently, her head pillowed on her arms. She was as pretty as ever, but her face was thin, showing the worry and struggle of the months gone by, the weeks and months without hope.

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8.

Antelope and deer are curious creatures, often led to their death by curiosity.

The longhorn, soon going wild on the plains, acquires the same characteristic. He is essentially curious. Any new thing or strange action will bring his head up and his ears alert. Often a longhorn, like a deer, can be lured within a stone's throw by some queer antic, by a handkerchief waving, by a man under a hide, by a man on foot.

This character of the wild things holds true of the Indian. The lonely rider who fought so desperately and knew the desert so well soon became a subject of gossip among the Apaches. Over the fires of many a rancheria they discussed this strange rider who seemed to be going nowhere, but always riding, like a lean wolf dog on a trail. He rode across the mesas and down the canyons; he studied sign at every water hole; he looked long from every ridge. It was obvious to the Indians that he searched for something—but what?

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7.

Leaner every day, Ches Lane pushed on. He camped one night in a canyon near some white oaks. He heard a hoof click on stone and he backed away from his tiny fire, gun in hand.

The riders were white men, and there were two of them. Joe Tompkins and Wiley Lynn were headed west, and Ches Lane could have guessed why. They were men he had known before, and he told them what he was doing.

Lynn chuckled. He was a thin-faced man with lank yellow hair and dirty fingers.

"Seems a mighty strange way to get a woman. There's some as comes easier."

"This ain't for fun," Ches replied shortly. "I got to find her."

Tompkins stared at him. "Ches, you're crazy! That gent declared himself in of his own wish and desire. Far's that goes, the gal's dead. No woman could last this long in Apache country."

At daylight, the two men headed west, and Ches Lane turned south.

Discussion:

This week, the emphasis is on the scene and its sequel. This is the building block of all modern stories. While short stories can consist of a single scene-sequel, this only shows the power of this story structure unit. Scenes and sequels build stories on their own, but can scale up to novels and epics.

Here’s where you can second-guess my choice of scenes. Were some of these sequels? Or was their sequel a single sentence at the tail end of a scene? Even though short — do these scenes contain the defining parts of a scene, imply them, or omit them? Is the sequel part of this selection, if only appearing in a single sentence? How do these scenes interlock to build the overall story?

Each of the OU Professional Writing instructors mentioned the scene-sequel approach in their own texts. And yet, the scene-sequel approach is mentioned rarely anywhere else. Yet the scene builds the plot, while the sequel ties the scenes together. As you can see from our earlier lessons, this is how an writer develops continuity and keeps his readers reading.

At this point, you may want to review all the scenes up to this point, and dissect them each for their elements of meeting, purpose, encounter and final action. Then discover whether the sequel was explicit or implied, how the character resolved what happened to him and chose his next action. You want to study that sequel tied this scene into the following one. Again, my breaks in this text to discover scenes are arbitrary. Your mileage will vary — and that is the only mileage that counts.

Here, also, you can second guess L’Amour and see if you can do better. We have five scenes (per my count) left in this story. And three more lessons to take up. You have the whole short story above and can read it in order, dissecting scene-sequels as you go.

Also, take some time and start studying scenes and sequels in all you read. You’ll find them everywhere, even when the writer didn’t know to craft them. The best non-fiction also uses these, as well as copywriting. Even in real life, you want to find out what happened to that character and what made this scene plausible, how it improved the plausibility of the whole story.

Again, L’Amour is utilizing the core basics of Campbell’s effective approach. Something he’d learned 15 years prior — and which financed his storytelling all that time. He broke into regularly appearing in magazines under Campbell’s tutelage. This particular story became the basis for his breakthrough into novels.

The basic structure of all stories is in this one. As we study the successful ones, we then can “sit at the feet of masters” and continue our own writing craft learning-adventure. One that lasts the rest of our lives.

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Our Continuing Studies

The point of that first series out of Forgotten Bestseller Secrets is: Keep ‘Em Reading.

Find the rest of these lessons in their Table of Contents here:

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Coming this next week…

We’re going to examine how L’Amour flowed his stories straight out, and then started writing the next one after typing “The End” and rolling a new sheet of paper into his typewriter. Here’s where the speed of our training also picks up the pace. Three more lessons after this - in how to keep your readers reading.

We have five scenes to digest, so this is a mix-matched set. I’ll roll the last two “Keep ‘Em Reading” lessons together and bring us to three scenes next week, and two final scenes to wrap this up.

Following that will then be taking up L’Amour’s “Hondo” itself with the first lesson out of “Compelling Characters” course.

Regardless, I hope to see you here next week to continue the process of finding out how L’Amour pulled all this off in a single short story that started his worldwide fame.

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About Forgotten Bestseller Secrets

I spent years uncovering and digesting the materials produced in that first two decades of W. S. Campbell’s training course. It’s never been duplicated any where else or since.

Finally, I distilled his materials as best I could to repackage it into a modern form (mini-courses) which could be readily understood in our current culture. So you and everyone can speed up their progress in learning how write un-put-downable popular stories. While not having to spend decades re-inventing the wheel for yourself.

All until, eventually, someone brings these Campbell books back into print. For now, I’ll continue to promote him and his instructor’s works. And help people understand how to communicate better with each other through their writing.

You get certainty on your own craft by distilling other authors, both good and bad, to find what they did great and how they could do better. That’s learning. That’s evolution. That’s why we are here.

Earlier in This Series…

[Pro Writing] Hondo by Louis L'Amour - Dissection, Part 1

[Pro Writer] Hondo by Louis L'Amour - Dissection, Part 2

[Pro Writer] Hondo by Louis L'Amour - Dissection, Part 3

[Pro Writer] Hondo by Louis L'Amour - Dissection, Part 4

[Pro Writer] Hondo by Louis L'Amour - Dissection, Part 5

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For Paid Members

You can forge ahead on your own. I’ve attached everything you need for your own self-paced study.

I’ve extracted the Cochise story’s text and attached my epub file below. (Use Calibre or similar to convert it to plain text.) I’ve also recreated this short story with the scenes in reverse order - also attached.

Also included is the full Forgotten Bestseller Secrets book, which has the full mini-course, plus two additional mini-courses on characterization and plot building. We’ll need those next two courses in dissecting L’Amour’s Hondo itself. All based on Campbell’s works and those of his instructors.

As well, I’ve included Campbell’s contemporaries, Foster Harris and Dwight V. Swain in “The Basic Formulas of Fiction”. This will explain more about the technical points we’ve covered above.

That’s three books out of the Writerpreneur Series which address writing craft. You’re welcome.

In this week’s lesson, I’ve also included a collection of excerpts from Campbell, Harris, and Swain — covering what they said about scenes and sequels.

Needless to say, you ought to upgrade to paid in order to speed your progress as a professional writer.