Hey 3.5 Readers.
Writing How the West Was Zombed has made me realize I don’t know a lot about guns, be they from the past or the present. Kind of difficult as I’m not really a gun person. I’m clumsy and accident prone, thus fairly certain I’d shoot myself if I ever had one.
It dawned on me it might be worth a trip to a gun range for an afternoon some day if I’m going to persist in my attempts to become a novelist, seeing as how characters often end up shooting guns no matter what time period the novel is set in.
But I’m certain I would shoot myself in the foot so studying the subject from afar will have to do.
But I’ve seen something in many cowboy movies that I’d like to incorporate into the novel but I don’t understand it.
Below is a video of the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral” scene from Tombstone starring Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp.
Tombstone – 1993 – Posted by Thell Reed, Gunman on Youtube
See around 1:40 where Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday slaps the back of his gun a bunch of times real fast? Clint Eastwood did that in his movies too.
Why did they slap the back of their guns so fast? I assume it was some kind of a trick to make the gun shoot faster. If you’re a gun person, please explain it to me.
I’ve searched the Interwebs and alas, there’s not much info about old West shooting.
Part of me wonders how much I need to learn, another part wonders if the reader cares to know much more than a zombie was shot.
By the way, this movie is badass. Can’t believe it is so old now I remember watching it when it came out like it was yesterday. This was probably one of Val’s best performances.
Rewatching it this year made me realize I needed to keep pressing on with writing Zombed. Westerns seemed like they were going out of style even in the 1990’s though movies like this one still managed to keep people interested.
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