3.6 Pulp fiction, no, not the movie

image from google search

I'm low-key obsessed with the golden era of pulp fictions. The dime-store reads and the age in which books were being churned out over the period of three days. I'm too young to have any experience of this golden era... or am I?

Wikipedia says: Pulp magazines (often referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the 1950s. The term pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks".

Image from google search

The era of pulp fiction was one of huge and rapid development for many genres, niches and some of the most curious writing. It was also rife with copy and paste stories, terrible hashed up prose and plenty of cliche. Amid the muck, long running series emerged, some of which are still going to this day, and plenty of classics were born.

There's a fascinating and very divided school of thought on what it takes to produce good art. You've probably all heard about the Art Teacher experiment. Where Mr Smith divides his class in half. Half A he tells, your grade will be entirely judged on a single piece of pottery at the end of the semester. Half B he tells, every piece you make will add to your grade. Side A spend the whole semester laboriously working on a single piece, which, when compared to the pieces that side B are making by the end of the semester, are about equal in quality. Thus leading us to believe that lots of practice is probably better than trying to get it right on the first run. I'm firmly in the camp of side B, if I have a million bad words in me, I'd rather write them all out and get to through as many as I can than agonize over them. Plenty of friends and writing buddies of mine are side A, they'd rather take five years to finish their book. Neither is right or wrong, because like sculpting or painting, there's no right or wrong way- only what does and doesn't work for the artist. The era of pulp is very much one that embraces side B's like me.

I don't think the golden age went anywhere.

What I mean by that, is, I think we're still in the era of pulp, and it's only grown and morphed into something a little different.

Detective novels, cosy mysteries, thrillers, action adventures, romance, sword and sorcery- these flourished in the days of yore, and they've never stopped flourishing. I'd easily say, we've had many more additions to the genres and niche's since then and now pulp is merely... the popular market.

It's weird to think of these 'classics' as anything modern in some ways because, very much, they don't resemble their roots... well, at least that is what it looks like on the surface. I often think of the classic noir detective in nostalgic terms but I can name several books on my shelf where the Gumshoe is alive and well.

If we're going in waves, I'd wager the current generations of books coming out are very much the third wave of pulp era. Although, given it's enormity, it's hard to track. Pulp still caters to its original audience, but a second audience has joined the first- women. And women's fiction entering the pulp arena has been an impressive addition. I don't mean that nebulous 'women's fiction' which no one dares define, merely that stories written for and about female leads, as competent and independent in the same arena. While it is still blossoming, there's some movement in LGBT pulp as well; from normalising same sex couples in crime-fighting-cosies to space-pirates and dashing gentlemen.
Pulp, as we recognise it, is a fast moving creature. Readers are hungry and voracious, and with cheap and readily available access to literally millions of books, they swarm across the landscape of access. Literacy rates are higher than they ever were a hundred years ago.

The tree that still grows and what you can learn from it:

Mills and Boon covers from google search

Believe it or not, a lot of the old pulp fiction was fascinating stuff. For modern audiences, it can be a bit hard to read the 'classics' - which, while some were progressive, many exhibited the worst traits we are trying to discourage folk from getting into (chauvinism, racism, lack of diversity). And the new genres emerging in pulp are just as curious to me. I've seen a lot of the call-back to the everyman saving the world, the harems of beautiful amazoness' falling on the new king and his magic sword.
As far forward as we go, there's still this little spark that inhabits the exciting lands of pulp.

But pulp also has always stood on a very dangerous path as well, and one that we still keep forgetting about. That path is the underpaid writers who made it possible in the first place. If you've paid any attention to the Self-Publishing industry over the last 10 years, you'll know that it has experienced a lot of problems, specifically and most targetted, relating to how much they get per book. Some do well, but these are outliers, indeed, most of the successful authors I've researched have one or two big things in common.
They use old pulp strategies to succeed. A low upfront cost, serialization and huge, never-ending long series. All fantastic ways to hold readers and ensure that while each book is shorter, readers keep coming back for more because the price is low. These are good business strategies and work best in pulp genres.
I'm not saying these are the only strategies, nor is this a kitschy 'how to make X dollars in a month' endorsement.
Pulp is still going strong and while the market is mostly digital now, much of the tactic hasn't changed.
So, if you are, like me, Side B of that classroom, it's good news, there's a lot the pulp classics can offer in terms of weird and wonderful niches, curious adventures and blue-skinned alien barbarians.
It's important to understand if you are designing something for a pulp audience. Knowing your genres and where they've been are hugely influential on your ability to survive in those genres.
My own rule of thumb for working out pulp is the speed at which books are written and consumed, anything under 3 months, that's a sign you're dealing with a pulp market. It can appear and disappear overnight as niche and tastes are fickle, both from the industry and readers.
Pulp novels don't always need to be as long, especially if we're dealing with a series of smaller adventures. Characters in a lot of pulp don't always change at the end of every book, but gradually over the series arc.

Do you like pulp as much as I do? What's the best thing about it? Let me know in the comments below!