Reviving Pulp Era Writing Wisdom #DentSeries

July 13, 2022 by Nissa Annakindt

#DentSeries #LesterDent #PulpRev .

Lester Dent’s Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot was written for the pulp era, when men and women made a living writing stories for dozens of different pulp story magazines. The first pulp-type magazine took all sorts of stories, but later specialized pulps came out for adventure stories, love stories, Westerns, detective stories, war-air stories…. There were even romantic Western pulps as well as the standard Western ones.

Lester Dent describes his formula like this:

“This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. It has worked on adventure, detective, western and war-air. It tells exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely just what must happen in each successive thousand words.

No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.

The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.”

The original pulp era, is, alas, over. There are very few anthologies or periodicals to which to submit shorter works of fiction, which most of us need to do before we can write longer works, and even if we sold everything we wrote, we wouldn’t be able to make any sort of living at it.

A limited anthology series I liked was the Planetary Anthology, each one named after a planet of the Solar System. I have Mars and Luna of that series, since I know some of the writers involved. But the anthology series got ‘unpublished’ and is no longer available, due to poor sales. Compared to the pulp era, when there were pulp magazines for a nickel or dime at every newsstand (there were newsstands back then, too,) not enough people learn about any anthology or e-published zine in time to make reading these things a habit.

But the pulp-era’s habit of pushing reader-friendly stories that the ordinary guy could use as a form of entertainment is a good one to continue. People these days are more accustomed to television or movie entertainment. But as the moviemakers and television industry go ‘woke,’ the consumers are left behind. We don’t want a lady Captain Marvel who is unlikeable, and then when we complain we get called sexist for not supporting the movie industry blindly.

In the pulp era, writers knew better. If they wrote a story that most readers thought was a stinker, you couldn’t complain that the readers were not ‘good enough’ for the story. The pulp editor paid you for stories that readers would like. If your stories were unlikeable, they would not buy. The pulp writer had to work out for himself how to make his stories reader-friendly, or he wouldn’t get paid and his typewriter might get repossessed.

This is post 2 in the #DentSeries – read Dent Series post #1 here.:https://myantimatterlife.wordpress.com/2022/07/10/how-does-a-newbie-writer-get-started-dentseries/

~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~

“Knitting patterns” for creating fiction #writing #AtoZChallenge

April 18, 2016 by Nissa Annakindt

When I was a child, a kind neighbor, Mrs. Young, taught me to knit. Later, when I was a bit older, I bought some how-to-knit booklets from Kmart’s yard department (they had one back then.)

That’s how I learned to follow knitting patterns— sets of instructions on how to knit a certain garment in a certain size. If you followed the instructions to the letter, even an inexperienced knitter could do good work. And the more experienced could adapt the pattern and be creative.

Fiction writing has its own ‘knitting patterns.’ One from the past is the Lester Dent Master Formula, which pulp author Lester Dent used to write short stories which sold. Another is the more modern Snowflake method, which is usually used to plot novels.

A fiction pattern is ‘borrowed structure’ for a novel or short story. All fiction needs structure. ‘Plotter’ authors do it by writing an outline, ‘pantsers’ do it all in their head. The formula simplifies the process for creating a story with structure for either type of writers.

“But won’t using a formula make my story formulaic?” No. “Formulaic” stories are dull, tired, predictable stories made by would-be authors who just grab at trite, done-to-death plot elements when they don’t know what to do. Such fiction can come into being with or without the use of a formula, an outline, or the three-act structure.

Using a pattern thoughtfully can help you to create a more original story. The secret is to not take any part of the pattern as Gospel.

For example, working on my ‘space western’ novel, the Snowflake method, Step 3, would have me write in the three-act structure. But I’m not sure I know the ending for sure yet. Or even the middle. I’m more of a ‘pantser’ than an outliner. So I just put SOMETHING sketchy down, and worry about the middle and ending when I get to it.

As a writer with Asperger Syndrome, I suffer from something similar to ADHD, and thus I find it difficult to write anything longer than a poem without the aid of a ‘knitting pattern’ for writing. It’s a way of working smarter, not harder.

I am experimenting with using the Lester Dent formula to write a 6000 word short story. I will be sharing more about that project here as I go through the steps.

Lester Dent Fiction Formula: http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html
Snowflake Method: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

This is a post in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Yes, I’m behind and I’m doing the wrong letter today. But I’m still doing it. Go figure.

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

My Antimatter Life

Tag Archives: Lester Dent Pulp Fiction Formula

Reviving Pulp Era Writing Wisdom #DentSeries

“Knitting patterns” for creating fiction #writing #AtoZChallenge