Alan Ladd and My Writing

It's Alan Ladd's birthday today :-D 

This year, to celebrate, I'm going to share about the ways that Alan Ladd has shaped my writing and my books.

When I write fiction, I see and hear the story in my head like a movie.  I can replay scenes, move the camera angles, rewrite lines, and so on -- I see and hear it all in my imagination, and I write it down from there.  Because I love movies, I tend to use actors and actresses as a kind of jumpstart for my imagination, and often "cast" specific stars in different roles.  Eventually, the characters step a bit away from who I have cast as them and come to life in their own ways, but it's a good way to get a book started, for me.

(If you're ever curious about exactly whom I have cast as different characters in my books, I have Pinterest boards for all my books with character choices, pictures of setting and clothing and objects that I have saved as I research, and so on.)

I fell for Alan Ladd hard back in February of 2016.  At that time, I was working on rewrites for my Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Man on the Buckskin Horse, which had won a contest and was to be published in the anthology Five Magic Spindles.  I didn't actually recast any of the characters as him, since they were all very much themselves by that point, but he did help me out with one scene.

One of the changes the editors had me make after I won the contest was to give my "handsome prince" character, the gunfighter Luke Palmer, a backstory.  And I needed to write a scene where Palmer explains his past to Miss Emma, my "fairy godmother" character.  I banged my head against that scene for the longest time because Palmer Did Not Want To Share His Trauma.  At all.  Not a bit.  And I finally threw my hands up in disgust, booted my usual actor for him out the door, and tried running the scene in my head with Alan Ladd in the character instead.

And the character sat down, got a little quiet, and then reeled off this heartfelt speech about how his experiences as a Civil War surgeon had led to his present job as a gunfighter for hire.  One writing session.  Bam.  Whole scene, perfect and complete.  And, when I reread that book (because, yes, I do reread my books -- I write them because I want to read them!), I see and hear Palmer as his tall, dark self... except for that scene, where he flips into quiet and fair Alan Ladd.

Well, I had such a good time working with an imaginary Alan Ladd in my head while rewriting The Man on the Buckskin Horse, I knew I wanted to write him again.  So, when I was casting my Little Red Riding Hood retelling, Cloaked, I put him in as the woodcutter character, Hauer.  And Hauer absolutely stole my heart.  This is Alan Ladd in his 50s, which he never quite reached in real life, and I loved getting to imagine him a bit older and with a lot of life ahead yet, even if only as a fictional character.  (Hauer would obviously be a bit older than in the photo above, but it captures the Hauerness of Hauer too well to use something else.)

I even dedicated Cloaked to Alan's memory, and a tradition of dedicating my Once Upon a Western books to a Classic Hollywood actor or actress was born.

It's pretty easy to know which character I cast Alan Ladd as in my Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling, Dancing and Doughnuts, if you know his full name is Alan Walbridge Ladd.  I gave Sheriff Gideon Walbridge that last name as a placeholder because I didn't have a name for him initially, and it stuck.  Sheriff Walbridge is Alan in his 40s, wise and starting to mellow, but still sharp and ready for trouble if it comes his way.

I was so giddy when I realized that Hauer could show up again in One Bad Apple, my Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs retelling.  It takes place a decade before Cloaked, and I spent a long time scrutinizing the personal history I have for Hauer to make sure he could be there in Missouri in 1873.  I tried not to tell too many people ahead of time that he was going to show up again in it so he would be a fun surprise for initial readers, and the reactions I got to his return were everything I hoped for.  

Because I love Hauer dearly, I am especially pleased that he got to be the first character to show up in more than one Once Upon a Western book.  The little ties and crossovers will keep coming as the series lengthens, I promise!

Dan McLeod in my Beauty and the Beast retelling My Rock and My Refuge is the kind of friend we all should have.  He's had so many sad things happen in his life, but he never lets them get in the way of being a good friend to those around him.  I love his quiet dignity, his determination to do anything rather than lose another son, and the fact that he is both soft and resilient.  I want to write more characters like that.  

I have loved the last name McLeod since I was a kid and first saw the movie El Dorado (1966), in which John Wayne's character has a frenemy named McLeod.  I only heard it pronounced, I didn't see it spelled, and thought it must be spelled McCloud, which seemed to me like the absolute coolest name ever.  I even gave it to a character in a story I was writing at the time.  I was super disappointed to later learn how it is actually spelled... but I still love the way the name sounds, so I used it here for a character with lofty ideals and a high moral character, who lives high in the mountains.  Like a cloud.

If you look at the Pinterest board for A Noble Companion, my Ugly Duckling retelling, you'll see lots of photos of a young Ewan McGregor, and not one of Alan Ladd.  That's because Alan was my original casting for Javier Moncada, the love interest.  I wrote the first couple of drafts with him in mind, but then switched Javier to Ewan McGregor because he was a better physical fit for what the character as I was writing him.  But I still hear all of Javier's dialog in Alan's voice when I reread the book.  I loved finally getting to write him as a younger character!  

And then I went right back to writing him older in my short story "Safekeeping," which is in the anthology Follow the Lonesome Trail.  He just has a bit part, and barely any lines, as the weary Dr. Masterson who drinks too much.  In a way, that's me kind of addressing Alan Ladd's own struggles with alcohol, which is also something a lot of people I know have dealt with.  It's not a big focus of the story, but it's there, and my own headcanon involves Dr. Masterson eventually moving away from town and getting (and staying) sober with the help of his daughter-in-law.  

Those last two books are not part of my Once Upon a Western series, but the book I'm about to start writing is!  It's a retelling of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, it involves a Civil War veteran amputee, and Alan Ladd is once again playing a supporting character in it.  I think his character is in his late twenties, a bit older than the main character, and again something of a mentor, because I just really love writing him that way, I guess!

Beyond that?  Who knows!  Will I one day write a book without Alan Ladd in it?  I mean, yeah, it could happen.  It probably will, one day.  But for now, you can expect to keep seeing characters show up in my books who look, sound, and behave like characters he often played.  Because my imagination isn't tired of him yet :-)

"The Journey of Natty Gann" (1985)

The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) is one of the first movies I remember my parents renting when our tiny Michigan town got a video rental store.  I don't actually have a clear memory of the first time I watched it, just that I did -- I remember really loving "that movie with the girl and the wolf," and asking my mom repeatedly what it was called, but she usually didn't remember.  

We rented it again a few years later, when my brother had a stomach bug, and he ended up getting so sick that my parents left me alone to watch the movie while they took him to the emergency room.  I was probably 8 or 9, and it was the first time I got to stay home all by myself.  (Don't worry, our town was 5 minutes away, I knew how to use the phone, and I knew how to call the neighbors who lived a quarter of a mile away if I had an emergency.  The '80s were a good time to grow up.)  

As a young girl, my interest in this movie was mainly centered on how cool it would be to have a wolf for a friend.  When I got to my tweens, my attention switched more to how gutsy Natty Gann herself is.  And in my teens and twenties, I focused more on how cute John Cusack is in this.  And, now that I'm in my mid-40s, I kind of just love the whole package!  And the music!  We'll circle back to that.

The Journey of Natty Gann takes place during the Great Depression, almost a hundred years ago now.  Natty Gann (Meredith Salenger) is a tomboy living in Chicago with her widowed father Sol (Ray Wise).  Sol has trouble finding work, like so many others, and when he hears about plentiful jobs in the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest, he decides he can't pass the opportunity up, even though he doesn't have time to explain to Natty that he is leaving.  He leaves her a letter and convinces their landlady to look after Natty, and then he has to leave.

The landlady is a bully and a thief, as it turns out.  As soon as Sol is gone, she decides to put Natty in an orphanage and pocket whatever money Sol sends for Natty's care.  She hits Natty and tries to keep her locked up until someone can take her to an orphanage, but Natty cleverly escapes and sets off for Washington State to find her dad.

The bulk of the movie is about Natty's journey, as you might expect, given the title.  She helps a caged wolf escape from someone who has trapped him to sell to a dog-fighting ring, and the wolf becomes her traveling companion.  Natty and Wolf (Jed) help each other out, sharing food and shelter.  Wolf also protects Natty from a man who offers them a ride when they are hitchhiking, but then tries to molest Natty.

Natty stumbles into a hobo camp and acquires another protector in Harry (John Cusack), a young hobo a few years older than she is.  Harry helps Natty and Wolf learn safe ways to ride the rails and avoid railroad enforcers.  

Natty's dad Sol is devastated when he calls the boarding house and learns that Natty has run away.  Even worse, her wallet is found under a train wreck, and he has no way of knowing Natty escaped the wreck unharmed.  Assuming his daughter died, he throws himself into doing the most dangerous logging jobs, obviously trying to work until something happens to end his pain.

I won't totally ruin the ending for you, but you do know it's going to end happily, right?  This is a Disney movie for kids!  From the '80s!  Obviously going to end well.

Also, Wolf doesn't die.  I'll spoil that for you.  He's fine at the end.  The dog who plays him, Jed, was a Northwestern wolf-Alaskan malamute mix who also starred in the 1991 version of White Fang opposite Ethan Hawke.  

Anyway, I said I would talk a bit about the soundtrack.  The score used in the movie is by James Horner, one of my BFF's favorite film composers.  But there is another complete score for this film that was recorded but not used, which is by Elmer Bernstein, who is my favorite film composer!  I have both soundtracks on CD, and they are both amazing.  I listened to Bernstein's on repeat while writing my book A Noble Companion because it was just exactly the jaunty outdoor adventure sound I needed.  You can listen to the James Horner soundtrack here on YouTube, and you can listen to a suite from Bernstein's rejected score here on YouTube.  

Is this movie family friendly?  I mean, it IS a Disney movie meant for kids.  It actually has a handful of cuss words, and there's some pretty dangerous stuff here and there.  Like I mentioned, there is some physical and emotional abuse toward Natty, and a grown man does try to molest her, though that takes the form of him trying to scoot her toward him in the cab of the truck he is driving while saying things about just wanting to be friendly.  His meaning is clear to an adult and teens/tweens, but smaller kids might not understand anything more than that he's trying to make her do something and she is struggling against him.  It's rated PG.  

This is my contribution to the Hit the Road Blogathon hosted this weekend by Quiggy at The Midnite Drive-In :-)