The Return of Pulp Fiction

[mattlynn]

The most interesting thing happening in writing right now is the way the Kindle is breaking down old barriers. It is creating a lot of new space for writers, and, rather surprising, it is also bringing back some old forms.

One is the long essay, which is really just a recreation of the polemical pamphlet. The other is the e-novella, which is really the heir to pulp fiction.

Pulp fiction flourished as the ‘penny dreadfuls’, lurid, sensationalist tales that filled Victorian and Edwardian railway bookshops in Britain, and in the ‘pulp fiction’ story magazines that were hugely successful in the US right up until the 1960s.

Both specialised in genre fiction, usually written fast by highly professional writers. The stories ere disposable, shocking, and attention-grabbing. And they were sold cheaply.

Look at the Kindle charts and you’ll see a lot of stuff is very similar. Lots of fairly sensationalist cheap fiction.

In effect, new technology has bought pulp fiction back to life.

The interesting point I think is that some great writing emerged from that tradition. The Victorian penny dreadfuls contained plenty of rubbish and so did the American pulp magazines.

But those magazines also provided the foundation for some great writers. Raymond Chandler, Zane Grey, Rider Haggard, and many others. Upton Sinclair was at one point knocking out 8,000 words a day for the pulps.

They allowed writers to write a lot, to develop characters, and push genres. At the moment, Kindle is allowing writers to do something very similar. There is a lot of rubbish, of course, but I suspect when we look back in fifty or a hundred years time we will decide that a lot of the most interesting work is being done for Kindle, just as it was in for the pulps in the past.

- Matt Lynn

[kennyc]

I tend to agree, there is a new revolution afoot, but it's not your mothers revolution...

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I tend to agree, there is a new revolution afoot, but it's not your mothers revolution...

[ChupaLibro]

Great post, and I totally agree.

[RainingLemur]

Agreed. I welcome the return of some good ol pulp. Maybe ePulp?

[HappyMartin]

Very well noted. It has made me look at the kindle offerings a little differently. I will try to be less critical of the editing of the lower cost books and try to appreciate what is going on in reading and publishing.

[DustyDisks]

Man!

Back in the day, the pulps were eagerly waited for, to hit the stands! There were some story's that would make a rock groan, but also some that were priceless and introduced me to some of my favorite authors. The good monthly series story's, were enough for me to check the stands, too see if the new ones were there.

Excellent way for new authors to be introduced to the world.

[suelange]

Matt, I agree with your ideas. Every era has to find the writers that represent the mood or preferences of its reading public. The pulp era allowed writers that might not have gained a foothold because they were different than what went before. We probably know of the best writers from that time period, the others have gone by the wayside. Meantime, the ones we remember actually got published. Maybe they wouldn't have if there was no pulp (i.e. easily produced) fiction. Who knows who the great writers of our time will be? We don't know yet, but we will be the ones choosing them.

[stonetools]

I was thinking about this, and what I would like to see is not only the return of old forms such as the novella but also the return of the SERIAL. I distinguish the SERIAL from the SERIES. WE all know the series- the great, honking fantasy saga that comes out in 1000 page installments every 3 years or so.
I'd like the SERIAL to come back. Back in the olden days, writers would publish their work in novella-sized chunks that came out in magazines every couple of months. Classic novels like Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION or Harry Harrison's DEATHWORLD came out just like that.
I would like to see some experimentation along that line-novels that would come out in 100 page installments every three months or so over the course of 1-2 years. Hey, it beats waiting 3-5 years of waiting to find out what happens next in the King-killer Chronicles or ASOIAF. The Kindle Single format (Quick Reads in iBooks) would be perfect for it.

[NicholasV]

I look at most novels that can be popular as only being pulp quality, they just charge alot more for them now and perhaps take longer to write. I remember this article or interview I found by some European writer(was he a Czech?) horrified by his popularity, considering it an insult to his craft that his writing became popularized, because it denotes it is of deficient quality if his work can satisfy the low threshold of the modern public. I really wish I bookmarked that article, if someone has read that same article and can remember it from my hazy paraphrasing PM it to me.

I don't think you will see any authors of the stature of a Dickens, Camus, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Orwell, Huxley, etc. with a prospect to become widely read anymore. Writers who had something to say to us about the human condition, and the social context that this condition finds itself in a given society. If writers of such stature emerge today of necessity they must remain hidden given the societal predilections, I think Kurt Cobain summed it up well: "here we are now, entertain us." Or perhaps Huxley with, "Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today." The debased public of today can only send writers like Koontz, J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, King, Palahniuk*, etc. to the top of the bestseller lists with their cheap gimmicks and otherwise lack of literary merit.

*Perhaps this is not so fair with him because he has no seeming pretensions and uses a more down to earth writing style closer to the colloquial. At least in his debut novel Fight Club, he actually had some incisive social commentary.

[RolandD]

Originally Posted by NicholasV

I don't think you will see any authors of the stature of a Dickens, Camus, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Orwell, Huxley, etc. with a prospect to become widely read anymore. Writers who had something to say to us about the human condition, and the social context that this condition finds itself in a given society. If writers of such stature emerge today of necessity they must remain hidden given the societal predilections, I think Kurt Cobain summed it up well: "here we are now, entertain us." Or perhaps Huxley with, "Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today." The debased public of today can only send writers like Koontz, J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, King, Palahniuk*, etc. to the top of the bestseller lists with their cheap gimmicks and otherwise lack of literary merit.

*Perhaps this is not so fair with him because he has no seeming pretensions and uses a more down to earth writing style closer to the colloquial. At least in his debut novel Fight Club, he actually had some incisive social commentary.

I think Dickens qualifies as a pulp writer, even though his work was masterful social commentary. His works were serialized for the the masses. As for Palahniuk, all his works contain social commentary. Some more subtle than others.

[Nine989]

Sorry, double posted.

[Nine989]

Originally Posted by NicholasV

The debased public of today can only send writers like Koontz, J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, King, Palahniuk*, etc. to the top of the bestseller lists with their cheap gimmicks and otherwise lack of literary merit.

Is "debased public" meant as an insult?

[Redcard]

I love how people pretend that writers of today are somehow worse than writers of old.

Read some social commentary from the time on Dickens. Or Orwell. Or Huxley.

You'll find people ripping them and lauding the previous greats. Especially Dickens, who was reviled as an author for the "stupid people."

Shakespere too was for the idiots.. often referred to as someone who would take the greek and roman classics and dumb them down for the idiots to handle.

But then again, uphill , both ways, in the snow.

[suelange]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I was thinking about this, and what I would like to see is not only the return of old forms such as the novella but also the return of the SERIAL.

I have to say that we tried serialized novels at Book View Cafe when we first started. We mostly gave the various segments away for free with the option to buy the whole book as a pdf. That was the model we started out with. It was popular at first, but after a while people became less interested in it. I don't think any of the authors are doing that anymore, although I'm sure some of the content is served that way. I'd be interested to know if any group or author is doing serials. It seems like a great thing to do for people reading on their phones.