The other day, I was considering the question of why I like some of Louis L’Amour’s books very much, yet others of his leave me fairly unenthused. Mentally comparing a few titles, I recognized a pattern in the ones I found less satisfying: after setting up an interesting situation in the first half or two-thirds of the book, the final section is almost entirely devoted to a long running fight, usually with the book’s hero trying to escape rather large odds of villainy. Any questions or mysteries involved in the plot have either been summarily solved or put aside, and the only question left is one of will-they-escape.

For instance, the last L’Amour I read, The Man Called Noon, started off with a fascinating premise: in the opening sentence the protagonist regains consciousness after a fall to find that he’s lost his memory…and he’s being hunted without his knowing why. The first half of the book, as he tries to piece together the clues to his own identity and stay a step ahead of whoever wants to kill him, is well-constructed and compelling. Then about midway through, the focus of the story shifts a little to a cache of money that the villains of the book are out to get. The young woman who is the rightful heir to the money is unaware of its existence, and when she does find out, doesn’t care greatly about having it; all she wants is her ranch free of the outlaws who have seized control. And that right there is as deep as L’Amour goes—he doesn’t explore in the least the drama inherent in the idea of a girl being unaware of her inheritance, or the moment of her discovering it, or why she doesn’t care about it. The only real reason the hero is fighting from then on is to keep the money away from the villains, who obviously shouldn’t have it, and of course to keep himself and the heroine from getting killed by the villains in the process.

The Man Called Noon was an entertaining read, and yet for me it lacked a certain something that I’ve found in other books, even other books by the same author. And pondering why crystallized some ideas about the Western in my mind. I like Westerns, and I’m no snob about the tropes of the genre—I’ll enjoy a good sharp fight or a suspenseful chase scene as much as anyone, provided it’s not overdone. But for a Western story to really draw me in and make me care about it, there has to be a strong human story underpinning whatever familiar tropes are used. The question of the plot can’t be as simple as whether we’re going to get the stolen money back from the bank robbers, or catch the outlaw who shot a man, or whether the cattle drive will get to Abilene. Who does the theft of the money or the death of the murdered man affect—why—how? Why are the pursuers bent on catching the criminals—simply for justice, or are there personal reasons? Who stands to lose if the cattle drive doesn’t get to Abilene, and what will they lose? Who feels the responsibility for getting it there, and why?

And I realize it doesn’t just work for me this way as a reader; that’s the way my mind works when I’m inventing a story of my own. I instinctively grab hold of the end of it that involves people first. If you can get this kind of thing in your story, and make the reader really care about the characters involved, then I don’t think you have to worry about situations being clichéd. Human nature is capable of infinite variations, and when a gunfight or a chase becomes the stage on which those variations are played out, then a Western can be as compelling a drama as any other genre.