The presenter was going extremely fast and I was not able to always keep up. Some info is missing.

– Early genre fiction for the common man
– Cheap paper and production
– Often action-oriented, lurid, sensational
– Peaked 1930-1950. Wanted with TV and comic.
– Writes made their income y word count sold:
– You had to be prolific by word count sold
– It had to be good enough

The myth of the pulp era:

– Pulp gives poor quality stories.
– False: quality varied. Many classics were pulp lot of it had to do with desire.
– Workmanlike prose. Lacking literary language.
– Partly false: pulps also printed poetry. Some authors had deeply evocative language.
– The best pulp writers “graduated” to better markets. False: the markets graduated and evolved. By men, for men (and boys). Women are not welcome. Some magazines specialized by a character like Doc salvage Cl more female author hid her gender.
Modern pulp:
– 5 people what modern pulp get 6+ answers.
– Digital distribution and POD is pulp on steroids.
– The spectrum between stories that could have been published in the 1930s, up to modern’s genre fiction. A lot of TV shows are pulp. Indiana Jones is pulp.
– Is action-oriented storytelling.
– Lurid language
– Passionate heroes are decision heroes with a clear sense of what is right and wrong.
– Emphasis one is on entertainment and solid plotting. ‘
– Think superheroes, Indianan Jones, star wars
– Writing pulp today:
– Evergreen tricks, tools, and structure.
– They work as well today as they worked before.
– Not paint by numbers or substitute.
– -Better plots, opening, ending, story tell throughout
– Story structure
– Speedwriting
– Quality writing

Plot and character:

– Leigh bracket: plots are people. Human emotions and desires are hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion. That’s plot.
– The hero: The one person who can make a difference. Larger than life (Indiana jones or hat)
– The villain: start with a villain. Almost always large than life. Evil is the extreme of the hero. He is the polar opposite? A representative of the theme? Most pulp-style stories have a villain. The villain has to be more powerful than the hero. Darth Vader could have been what Luke could have been. Superman is strong his arch-nemesis is an evil genius.
– The ally/ sidekick: used in longer work. A mirror of hero There’s always a sidekick to make the response of the hero isn’t allowed to make: to get frightened; to add a lighter note and so on” michalde mooncock.
– Character that sticks tags for characters. Something physical makes it stand out and be immediately identifiable. Cane with a silver handle. Unique for the story. Such as pale man is a vampire.
– Use tags whenever a character reappears in a new scene. “
Traits embody the character.
– Usually a virus or vice. (
– Number of traits depends on the story A hero gets two positive traits and 1 negative trait.
– Villains get two negative traits and 1 positive.
– Trick 2: give hero (and villain?) has two traits the come into conflict.
– Have your allies and other major characters have positive and negative.
– Jim Butcher uses a lot of these traits.
– You can get copies of some pulps
– Got to archive.org.

Plots that punch:

– 1. A different murder method for the villain to use. An unusual challenge/ problem right at the outset. Like a strange mystery/ rim/ murder.
– 2. Have different things for the villain to be seeking. What is the villain’s goal? What makes it weird and interesting!
– 3. A different locale
– G Brainstorm vocal elements that emphasize the theme/flavor of the story
– Edgar Allan Poe wrote a lot of interesting places. They don’t take place at a local mall. The reader does not know what happens behind the back deck of the airport. Or go to an interesting place. or go to a strange planet.
– 4. A menace which is to hang like a cloud over a hero (man freezes to death in the middle of the Sahara desert. All the clocks have mysteriously stopped. Die-hard: seemed to be about terrorists but are actually after the bank bonds. Have the clock ticking. The character’s house will be foreclosed if not have the necessary money in 24 hrs. Bomb will blow up Las Angelus. Make the problem gets worse and worse.
– Break story in quarters
– The ideal average scene size is 500-2K words.
– Present Dent’s formulas in 6 K words.
– If you can‘t figure out how our hero is going to get out of this one, you are doing it right!