Every writer should follow the example of great authors. Whether they don't like them is another matter, a matter that doesn't hold up, if you like. But we must consider that, if those writers have achieved success, it means that they have been good and continue to be so. Learning to write stories like Stephen King isn't easy, but at least we can learn some lessons from his method. Today I want to talk about how Lansdale writes, an author I enjoy reading and who I also met in Rome some time ago. Who is Joe Lansdale? An author who sells. When he came to Rome he said it clearly, even if not in exactly those words: however, he said that his stories sold even if they had come out many years before.
This seems normal to me, a novel certainly cannot expire. Every now and then, however, when talking about some of my readings, I have heard the Phone Number Data response "Eh, but it's an old novel by that writer". What would they say if you read the Divine Comedy and De Bello Gallico , then? The right ingredients to craft a story Lansdale has found the right ingredients for the recipe of his novels. Ingredients that maybe don't work for other writers, because Stephen King has his own. Some, however, fit together, some are useful to everyone. I have identified five in Lansdale's works. Let's see them together.
An incipit that works Reading his latest novel, The Forest , I had confirmation of this technique often used by Lansdale. His incipits always contain the ideal elements to stimulate the reader's curiosity. Here is the one from The Forest : The day that grandfather came to pick up my sister Lula and me and dragged us to the ferry, I couldn't imagine that I would soon find myself in a worse situation than what had already befallen us, or that I would start dating a dwarf gunslinger , the son of a slave and a big, angry pig, nor that I would find love and kill someone, but that's just how things went. In a few lines Lansdale condensed the whole story, but at the same time said nothing. Do you know how I interpret this incipit? Like a kind of sketchy lineup.