My current writing project is titled The Rise of Devils. I was inspired to write this project after a Reedsy short story challenge. Typically, I use these challenges to get out of my writing comfort zone and boy am I glad I did. The Rise of Devils is a Weird Western collection of intertwining short stories. I often get the question, “Well, what the hell is a Weird Western story?”
Weird Westerns are subgenres such as fantasy, science-fiction, and horror that are firmly tied to western genres. In this case, the sub-genre tied to my western story is science-fiction.
The best example of this I can give is the movie Cowboys and Aliens. This perfectly encapsulates the idea I am going for as far as alien technology mixed with rootin’ tootin’ cowboy shootin’.
The most important idea for me to capture when writing this Weird Western is to make the setting and character encounters so jarring and weird thus creating interest in addition to well-written dialogue and characters.
I stream the writing of this project on Twitch every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:30am-11:00am. Swing by and be sure to ask me about my project The Rise of Devils! https://www.twitch.tv/thewritingvault
Author J.M. Topp 