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In general, pulp fiction is: Plot-centric Easy to read (no need to run to the dictionary) Fast-paced Pulp fiction is enhanced by: Colorful characters Snappy dialogue Intriguing settings
The philosophy of the pulp writer is to make money by writing fiction. He is not ashamed of this, for it is nothing to be ashamed of. Writing is a commercial transaction under the free enterprise system. The pulp writer provides a product and wants as many people to buy the product as possible.
The pulp writer can coexist with the literary writer, but often the latter picks a fight.
All writers wish for commercial success. But at what price? If you sell your soul to the devil of profitability, you have to be able to look in the mirror every day and say, without flinching, that you’re a commercial writer.
The pulp writer responds, “I look at myself in the mirror every morning, and I like what I see. Selling my soul to the devil? Excuse me? Is a plumber who prides himself on a job well done and who gets paid selling himself to the devil? Or the writer who wants to provide what so many readers want—a dream, a distraction, some joy? Gimme a break!”
We are all dreamers. We must be dreamers before we are doers.
The Century Magazine sells for 35 cents, while The Argosy sells for 10 cents. You will be told that The Century is “high class” and with a distinct literary flavor, perhaps that it is more elevating. Even so; yet which of these magazines is doing more to make the world really livable? Ask the newsdealer in your town how many Centuries he sells, and how many Argosies.
Readers are not made for the popular magazines, but the popular magazines are made for the people.
Pulp writers are secure in knowing that they help make “the world really livable” by providing the dream-like experience of a solid, entertaining story.
We are awash in an exploding universe of stimuli, screaming for our attention.
Type hard refers to the mindset of the pulpster. It’s an attitude that says, I’m charging ahead. I don’t care about the obstacles. I don’t give a rip about the odds. I haven’t got the time or the interest to think about the “cant’s.” Writing is what I do, so I do it.
The other thing these writers did was type a whole lot of words. Some of them—like Erle Stanley Gardner and W. T. Ballard—averaged a million words a year. A million!
Take a look at your weekly schedule. Figure out the times you can dedicate to your writing. Cut something out if you have to, to get a little bit more. Do you really need to watch that Seinfeld episode you’ve seen twenty times? Is all that social media time really necessary?
Do you really need to watch that Seinfeld episode you’ve seen twenty times? Is all that social media time really necessary?
•You don’t know how good you’ve got it compared to our day! You can publish yourself, to a virtually unlimited market! Man, what we wouldn’t have given for that!
•If you don’t pay at least some attention to the market, I think you’re daft.
•If you don’t try to get better at your craft, you’d be better off as a plumber, and the sooner the better.
Are you willing to sign on as a pulp writer?
“Writing is its own reward.”
Many writers, including this one, swear by Scrivener. But just as many writers, I think, have avoided it because, at first blush, it looks “too complicated.”
Pulp fiction writers of old made much bank with a hit series character.
“Arcs? We don’t need no stinkin’ arcs.”
Readers of pulp fiction want action. Kiss kiss, bang bang as the old saying goes.
an author is free to write experimental fiction, which is also known by its unofficial name, Fiction That Doesn’t Sell.
Ohhhh
I need to have the following: A lead character I care about deeply. A unique spin on plot and setting. Death stakes. A cast of colorful supporting characters.
Would my story title make me pick up the magazine to look at it?
Therefore it seems almost essential to me that we should open our stories with some event which attracts the interest of the audience,
Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?
As a result, pulp is often charged with being hack work. Meaning that the style is too simple to be considered “literary.”
“Those big shot writers … could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar.”
“The name is Chick Agostino. I guess you’ll know me.” “Like a dirty newspaper,” I said. “Remind me not to step on your face.”
“God made him as ugly as he could then hit him in the face with a shovel.”
You know what? That still works. Readers can fill in the blanks in their own heads.
She began a tirade then, peppered with words with a hard K sound. She was a symphony of K.
Not all agents are good, and a bad agent is worse than no agent.
“But a writer writes,” he said. “So I’ve been told.”
“No,” I said. “A writer works.”
“Look, kid, it’s fine to want to write. It’s a hell of a business, though, and if you want to make any money at this thing, you have to work, and hard. You have to look at it as a craft, not some ethereal vapor dancing through your noggin, and sweat and fight until you figure out how to do it. Then you have to put your stuff out there, get rejected, fight some more and keep on writing and fighting and typing, until you die.”
“You want to be a writer, don’t state the obvious. Let the reader figure out things for himself.”
“You want to be a writer, don’t you?” “More than anything.” “Then you have to write things down.
“Up here, boy. You’ve got a muscle between those big pink ears of yours.
I want you to spend half an hour every day writing down ideas.
“Don’t you know better than to interrupt a writer when he’s typing?”
“A blank page is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
“Cool your radiator, Benny. We all have a will to fail. It’s subconscious. It’s deep in the memory banks. All of the things we tried to do in our past, and failed at, collect there. All the embarrassments we’ve suffered, all the people who made fun of us, those experiences pepper our brains. It’s human nature. We almost always act in order to avoid pain. So rather than try something and possibly fail, we freeze up. Or we choose something easy because we know there’s no risk of failure. We don’t act boldly.”
write as if it were impossible to fail.”
“Nice going, kid. Getting words on paper every day is the golden rule. You have a plot?”
“Dammit, boy, you’re a writer! There’s no can’t in your vocabulary.”
Half the problems in this world are because men don’t know how to listen to women.”
when your fingers are frozen over the keys, just bring in a guy with a gun.
