At minimum, pulp fiction has a straightforward, storytelling function. Isaac Asimov had some thoughts on this in his memoir I. Asimov. Reflecting on how to be prolific, he said: If you try to turn out a prose poem, that takes time, even for an accomplished prose poet like Ray Bradbury or Theodore Sturgeon. I have deliberately cultivated a very plain style, even a colloquial one, which can be turned out rapidly and with which very little can go wrong.
