Take a couple of weeks where you write as many words as you comfortably can. See what that weekly quota works out to.
Get used to writing without your “inner editor” blocking you. A pulp writer writes freely when at the keyboard.
Whatever your comfortable weekly quota is, up that by 10%. True pulp writers must feel at least a little bit of pressure.
Keep track of the words you produce in a week. Optimally, you write something every day. (I divide my weekly 6,000-word quota into six days. If I miss a day for some reason, I make up for it on the other days. And I take one day off a week. This recharges my batteries, which is necessary for the pulp writer!)
Just keep typing. And don’t complain about the odds. Your pulp forebears wouldn’t like that. They’d have a message for you.
•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 write to a quota, I have no sympathy for you.
•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.
•If you want to make it, keep working. And the work never stops!
Are you willing to sign on as a pulp writer?
Good.
Let’s set up some conditions for success.
Conditions for Success
Ray Bradbury once said, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
There’s a certain poetic truth in that for the pulp writer. The writing itself must be a sort of intoxicant. Because, when it is, it shows up on the page.
Cook/Edwards, in The Fiction Factory, put it this way:
The sentiment which Edwards has tried to carry through every paragraph and line of this book is this, that “Writing is its own reward.” His meaning is, that to the writer the joy of the work is something infinitely higher, finer and more satisfying than its pecuniary value to the editor who buys it. Material success, of course, is a necessity, unless – happy condition! – the writer has a private income on which to draw for meeting the sordid demands of life. But this also is true: A writer even of modest talent will have material success in a direct ratio with the joy he finds in his work! – Because, brother of the pen, when one takes pleasure in an effort, then that effort attracts merit inevitably. If any writing is a merciless grind the result will show it – and the editor will see it, and reject.
This joy is the necessary antidote to doubt.
All writers deal with doubt. They wonder if they’re good enough, if all the effort will ever “pay off.” For which Cook/Edwards also had advice:
There are times, however, when doubt shakes the firmest confidence. A writer will have moods into which will creep a distrust of the work upon which he is at that moment engaged. If necessity spurs him on and he cannot rise above his misgivings, the story will testify to the lack of faith, doubts will increase as defects multiply and the story will be ruined. THE WRITER MUST HAVE FAITH IN HIS WORK QUITE APART FROM THE MONEY HE EXPECTS TO RECEIVE FOR IT. If he has this faith he reaches toward a spiritual success beside which the highest material success is paltry indeed.
When a writer sits down to a story let him blind his eyes to the financial returns, even though they may be sorely needed. Let him forget that his wares are to be offered for sale, and consider them as being wrought for his own diversion. Let him say to himself, “I shall make this the best story I have ever written; I shall weave my soul into its warp and whether it sells or not I shall be satisfied to know that I have put upon paper the BEST that is in me.” If he will do this, he will achieve a spiritual success and – as surely as day follows night – a material success beyond his fondest dreams. BUT he must keep his eye single to the TRUE success and must have no commerce in thought with what may come to him materially.
So making writing its own reward is the first condition of pulp writing success.
Health
It goes without saying that the healthier your body and mind, the better your production will be. The history of pulp fiction—indeed, of writing in general—is littered with the remains of writers whose output suffered due to booze, chain smoking, or dietary overindulgence.
I’m not going to give you a master plan for your personal health. You can get that on your own. I simply mention it here as a reminder to take care of your precious brain.
Craft Study
Alongside your output of words, determine to constantly improve your knowledge of the fiction craft.
There are abundant resources available to you in books, blogs, and Writer’s Digest magazine. All of the craft of fiction writing can be placed under one of what I call the seven critical success factors: plot, structure, characters, scenes, dialogue, voice, and theme. You can go over each area with a trusted advisor and see which ones need the most improvement. Prioritize the areas, with your weakest first, then put together a self-study plan for improvement in each one.
Beta Readers and Editors
Feedback on works-in-progress is essential. Some of it’s free (beta readers) and some you pay for (freelance editors).
Beta Readers
Beta readers are those folks who are willing to give you a helping hand without compensation (though I will sometimes send a gift card or some such). These should not be close relatives, because you want honesty and no drama. With a little bit of effort, you’ll be able to find five or six dependable beta readers.
You want specifics from your betas, not generic “I kind of liked it” sort of comments. To aid in this, editor Jodie Renner suggests fifteen questions to give your betas:
1. Did the story hold your interest from the very beginning? If not, why not?
2. Did you get oriented fairly quickly at the beginning as to whose story it is, and where and when it’s taking place? If not, why not?
3. Could you relate to the main character? Did you feel her/his pain or excitement?
4. Did the setting interest you, and did the descriptions seem vivid and real to you?
5. Was there a point at which you felt the story started to lag or you became less than excited about finding out what was going to happen next? Where, exactly?
6. Were there any parts that confused you? Or even frustrated or annoyed you? Which parts, and why?
7. Did you notice any discrepancies or inconsistencies in time sequences, places, character details, or other details?
8. Were the characters believable? Are there any characters you think could be made more interesting or more likable?
9. Did you get confused about who’s who in the characters? Were there too many characters to keep track of? Too few? Are any of the names or characters too similar?
10. Did the dialogue keep your interest and sound natural to you? If not, whose dialogue did you think sounded artificial or not like that person would speak?
11. Did you feel there was too much description or exposition? Not enough? Maybe too much dialogue in parts?
12. Was there enough conflict, tension, and intrigue to keep your interest?
13. Was the ending satisfying? Believable?
14. Did you notice any obvious, repeating grammatical, spelling, punctuation or capitalization errors? Examples?
15. Do you think the writing style suits the genre? If not, why not?
Freelance Editors
Good beta readers help you with the overall story. Often, this will be enough. But sometimes you may want to hire what’s called a developmental editor. This is someone who is experienced in handling big picture issues in your chosen genre.
How do you find such an editor?
Recommendations are best. But you can do research online. There are many freelance editors (sometimes calling themselves “book doctors”) who were once part of a traditional publishing house in New York. Downsizing over the last several years
has put many of them in the freelance market.
Look at their websites. Look at client lists and endorsements.
Before you hire, ask for a sample edit. One page. You are entitled to know what you’re getting for your money.
Not all writers feel the need for a developmental editor, but if you’re just starting out, it can be a good investment. Near the start of my career I was fortunate to work with a great developmental editor at the publishing house I’d signed with. He would send multi-page, single-spaced letters critiquing my manuscripts. These were always painful to read, but it was good pain, the kind that made me stronger as a writer.
Once you have a manuscript ready, especially if you are going to publish it yourself, get it to a proofreader. Typos are the bane of the self-publishing writer’s existence.
Again, find proofreaders through recommendations or research.
Eventually, you’ll find yourself with a team you can trust.
Market Study
A wise pulp writer looks at the market, what’s selling, what’s popular. And then puts that knowledge together with what he’s happiest writing.
Then he adds his own particular style, his voice. That’s the spice you add to the genre conventions. It’s like the banter in Raymond Chandler, or the musings on society in John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series.
It’s you on the page, filtered through your characters. (I have written a book on Voice: The Secret Power of Great Writing.)
Note: happiness in writing can also be like arranged marriage. You can learn to love a new genre as you write. The nice thing about pulp writing is that you can do a story or even a book in a new genre, to see how you like it, and also to see what feedback you get.
Technology
The pulp writers of today have so many advantages their forebears did not enjoy, nor could even conceive. Today we have:
Dictation
You can speak your text into a dedicated program, or on apps on your phone. Erle Stanley Gardner, back in his day, had a team of secretaries who took down his dictation. He would be quite jealous of us if he only knew.
I use dictation on occasion, though I prefer to type. My prose comes out differently when I speak it. But that’s probably because I’ve spent most of my literary career on a keyboard. But I’m glad the option is there.
Scrivener
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.”
Yes, Scrivener has a lot of bells and whistles. But you don’t have to be conversant with them to use the program effectively. You can start simply by using it as brainstorming partner, a corkboard to view your scenes, and an organizer for your manuscript and your research.
If you’re interested, I wrote a blog post at Kill Zone on how to get started with Scrivener.
Scapple
This is a mind-mapping app created by the same folks who gave us Scrivener. It makes brainstorming easy. I use it for thinking about the big picture, and also for preparing to write scenes. You can do mind-mapping on paper, of course, but I like having the ability to move items around on the screen at will.
Evernote
Another program many writers love is Evernote. It lets you create and organize research notes with lots of ways to collect data (e.g., text, web page, attachments, etc.) You can also import Evernote files into Scrivener.
No doubt there will be many more such apps available in the future. The point is to find and use the ones that are an aid to productivity, and not stress about the rest.
And you may simply choose the old-fashioned way—typing—exclusively.
It’s up to you. The only rule for the pulp writer is to keep up the forward motion.
Which brings me to:
NaNoWriMo
This is National Novel Writing Month, held in November of each year. The heart of a pulp writer should pound with happy anticipation at its approach. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (pulp size!) novel in one month. People all over the world participate. It’s a supportive community, and you can find out all about it at their website, nanowrimo.org.
While many—perhaps most—of the writers who take the challenge just wing it (this is called “pantsing,” as in flying by the seat of your pants every day), I think there is a better way.
Spend the month of October (in addition to your writing quota) to draft a very simple plan for your novel.
Start by creating what’s called an “elevator pitch.” That is, a three-sentence squib that gives you the basic, high-concept spine of your story.
Sentence one is character + vocation + current situation.
Sentence two starts with “When” and is what I call the Doorway of No Return––the thing that pushes the Lead into the main plot.
Sentence three begins with “Now” and the death (physical, professional, or psychological/spiritual) stakes. Here’s an example based on The Insider by Reece Hirsch:
Will Connelly is an associate at a prestigious San Francisco law firm, handling high level merger negotiations between computer companies.
When Will celebrates by picking up a Russian woman at a club, he finds himself at the mercy of a ring of small-time Russian mobsters with designs on the top-secret NSA computer chip Will’s client is developing.
Now, with the Russian mob, the SEC and the Department of Justice all after him, Will has to find a way to save his professional life and his own skin before the wrong people get the technology for mass destruction.
This foundation will keep you on track as you write.
Now, there are many ways to go further in planning your novel. Some writers like to be rather extensive with outlines, others are scared of them, and still others are somewhere in between. For NaNoWriMo try, at the very least, my 3 x 5 card exercise.
I love doing this in the early stages of my own novels. I take a stack of 3 x 5 cards to my local coffee joint and just write down scene ideas. Random. Whatever vivid scene comes to my mind. I might prompt myself by playing the dictionary game (opening a dictionary to a random page, picking a noun, and riffing off that). When I have 30-40 scenes I shuffle the deck and pick two cards at random and see what the connection suggests.
Eventually, I take the best scenes and put them in some sort of rough order.
NaNoWriMo is, at the very least, a great way to up your tempo and production. That’s entirely worth it for the pulp writer.
The Top Pulp Genres
The golden age of the pulps was also the great era of the mystery. Readers couldn’t get enough of them—nor could the movie studios, which often based B pictures on stories plucked from one of the pulp magazines.
Two types of mysteries were featured regularly. The so-called “cozy” type, wherein a somewhat benign sleuth navigates clues in a non-threatening environment to find the murderer. This remains a popular mystery sub-genre.
The other type popular in the golden age was one featuring a hard-boiled detective. To this day that influence is felt. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch probably wouldn’t be around if it hadn’t been for Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Robert B. Parker’s Spenser was admittedly in this tradition.
The mystery genre works because crime never goes away. Readers love to see justice done in the pages of fiction.
Note, this category does not have to give us a professional gumshoe. Perry Mason, the lawyer-hero created by Erle Stanley Gardner, was really a detective in disguise, solving mysteries and then engineering a successful courtroom defense. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple was a kindly old lady who just happened to have tremendous powers of observation.
The basic plot pattern in a mystery is simple.
Somebody is killed (or kidnapped).
The Lead character has a reason to solve the murder. Sometimes it’s his job. Other times because it’s personal.
The Lead asks a lot of questions, and gets a lot of the runaround. In the hard-boiled genre, he may also get be
aten up, or shot.
The Lead eventually solves the case.
Today, this genre is usually placed under the Mystery/Thriller umbrella. While popular, there is one genre that exceeds it—Romance.
According to the 2017 survey of Smashwords authors, romance represented 73% of its top 200 bestselling titles.
So if you’re just starting out in pulp, and want to get in on the most profitable segment of the market, you can start with Mystery/Thriller or Romance. Or both! Many a successful author has combined the two, in a genre called Romantic Suspense.
Note, however, that in such a crowded field you need to make your work stand out in some way. The most important consideration here is your characters. (See the next chapter for tips on creating a compelling series character.)
What are the other most popular genres today?
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Young Adult/Teen
Historical
Action/Adventure
Horror
While there is still a small niche market for Westerns, this category does not show up on most lists of bestselling genres. But if you love it, why not try to bring it back? I write the occasional boxing story set in 1950s Los Angeles. That sort of “men’s action” was big back then, not so much now. I don’t care. I like it. I just don’t do it exclusively.
So here is my advice. Either write what you love, or choose a popular genre and learn to love it. (Remember my “arranged marriage” analogy? Well, here it is again). When you love what you’re writing, your writing will be better, and it needs to be in this era of so much digital content.
How to Write Pulp Fiction Page 2