Diving into Pulp

Recently, I have been reading my way through a lot of pulp stories, partially old ones, partially new ones. I got caught by “Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective” (currently 9 volumes, the 10th has been announced on the publisher’s website), since I’ve been a Holmes fan since childhood, but also branched out into other stories, going so far as to pick up the first couple of Fantomas novels in an e-book omnibus. I read the first novel once, a long time ago, and am looking forward to going through the others as well.

Beside just reading them, however, I’ve also found myself studying them. Studying the techniques used to keep the readers following the story, studying the way action scenes are written, characters are introduced and used. Studying the basics of the pulp genre. I hope to be able to incorporate it into some series I’m writing or planning to write (mostly the John Stanton series, for which I have written two novellas already and the Benjamin Farrens series, for which I plotted the basic story a long time ago, also going for the novella format). Others might follow in time.

I’ve been working my way through quite some of Airship 27’s catalogue already, starting with the aforementioned new Sherlock Holmes stories (including, beside the novella-length and shorter stories of the anthology also the very interesting novel “Season of Madness”), but also crossing into Secret Agent X and Jim Anthony. I’m looking forward to two more series I will at least have a closer look at. In addition, as already mentioned, I have included the very first real pulp villain, Fantomas, and some old stories I found in the Mega-Pack series (including the Pulp Hero pack with four Scarlet Ace, one Lone Ranger, one Black Hood, and one old Secret Agent X story). Currently, I’m finishing up the Jim Anthony novels and novellas (since volume 4 encompasses 4 novellas) and I rather like them.

I know a lot of people look down on stories like those, on novels and shorter works only written to entertain. I’ve spent a lot of my teens reading the German Groschenromane (mostly John Sinclair and some anthology series) and I’m finding a lot of their techniques in the pulp as well (or, perhaps, the other way around). I’m realizing more and more just how familiar this way of writing is to me already. On the other hand, it goes well with my own chosen genres. Adventure, heist, espionage - they all work extremely well with the pulp formula I’m slowly discovering. I like writing for other people’s entertainment - and my own. I know how fleeting any kind of success in the world of literature is. I studied literature, I know how quickly even the best books can be forgotten. And I know it’s sometimes the less high-quality literature which endures, like “Dracula” (which is no outright pulp, but goes in the same direction).

Not every pulp villain can be known for a long time. Fantomas has his followers (partially due to the very loose adaptations of the 1960s, which I enjoy as well), Mabuse is next to forgotten (except by Kim Newman, who incorporated him in his Moriarty story collection). As a matter of fact, Fantomas turns up as the villain in one modern Secret Agent X story (which is fitting for the two men of a thousand faces) and is mentioned as a former enemy in one Jim Anthony novel at least. Unfortunately, I couldn’t trace volume 1 of the new series from Airship 27 (“The Hunter” is volume 2).

I have already used some of the techniques when I penned “The Case of the Modern Bluebird” and “The Case of the Dead Socialite.” A third John Stanton story is already started, “The Case of the Extinct Fish.” I’m sure more will follow. The same goes for Benjamin Farrens, who was created a long time ago in my mind. I couldn’t finish the story in German then, now I’ve broken it into three story arches and will work on “The Blind Medium,” “The Blood Ruby,” and “The Cornwall Vampire” in time.

What else? I might drop the fourth novel release this year, since I have few sales, so it’s not as if a lot of people are waiting for the next one. “One For Sorrow,” formerly known as “The Dresden Collier,” still isn’t finished, but it will be in time (and might profit from my pulp studies). I’m also going for my original plan of the Dirty Thirty again, have changed the title for what is to be a series of Erotica from “Deadly Daddies” to “Lethal Lovers,” so I have more space to work in. I might push it, have two novellas done which can be edited in a relatively short time, due to not being larger than roundabout 20,000 words. No comparison to “Death Dealer,” which has over 100,000. They will, however, not be published under Cay Reet. I have another name in store for them.

I’m enjoying my trip into the large and interesting landscape of pulp and I’m sure something will come of it.