Teams In Pulp

There are certain constellations of characters (or, rather, character types) which you will meet often in pulp or adventure stories, so I thought I should discuss a few of them here.

The hero and his chronicler

This one is well known since the time of Arthur Conan Doyle, who used that team twice, once with Holmes and Watson, and later on with Challenger and Malone. There are quite some problems with the chronicler perspective (often called Watsonian perspective), but it is a team which has been around for a long time. Whenever you have a highly intelligent character as hero (Challenger is, to put it mildly, a very arrogant guy, but he is intelligent, too), things could be given away early. That is why we see Holmes’ cases through Watson’s eyes and not through those of a man who can tell where someone took a walk by looking at their trouser legs. Nevertheless, it also means withholding information and not choosing the optimal viewpoint character (which is always the hero themselves). Today, this construct is mostly used by authors writing new Sherlock Holmes stories, which is where it belongs.

The lone wolf

This one is usually not too high-tech and features a hero who uses regular weaponry and tools for the time they live in. You will find them in setting which are not too civilized, such as the wild west, where a lone hero travelling from place to place is not uncommon. The lone wolf needs the skills to survive on their own, the ability to get things done by themselves. They’re usually good with weapons and often also with close-quarter combat, people who act rather than people who think deeply. Lone wolves do not thrive in a civilized society, though, so they are rarer in more modern settings, but they can crop up again in sci-fi stories where new planets replace the old wild west.

The three- to four-people team

This one can be seen in a lot of pulp stories, such as Jim Anthony or the Black Bat. You have a main hero and a few helpers. Usually, there’s one who is physically strong and one who has street-smarts. There might also be a woman in the mix, be it as a love interest or as a helper. (Jim Anthony has more of a love interest, whereas the Black Bat shows its female lead as a capable helper.) This allows for the hero to rely on other people for certain parts of the plot, such as finding information or blending into specific groups. Often, those helpers also have talents and skills the hero lacks (such as scientific knowledge or piloting skills). The teams often share a common past (the Black Bat’s helpers are criminals he brought back to the right side of the law, whereas Jim Anthony’s friends have been with him for a long time already) and thus stand together against all dangers. On the bad side, having a team means that there are hostages for the villain to take hold of.

The hero with an organisation behind

This hero doesn’t necessarily have a team working with them. They have unlimited funds, though, and can find help whenever they need it, because they are employed by an influential organisation. Usually, those operate world-wide and have unlimited funds which are at their agents’ disposal. Secret Agent X works for such an organisation, which enables him to spend all his time fighting crime and evil, instead of having to seek employment. For heroes without wealth of their own, such a setup is often the only chance to keep their fight going. In exchange for that, though, they sacrifice some of their freedom of choice, since the organisation gets a vote in what the hero does and when.

There are a lot of variations to these team-ups and they can be found in a lot of different settings - even though the lone wolf usually is confined to the outskirts of society. They work, because they allow for the author to show the readers how the hero manages to do what they’re doing.

A team of hero and chronicler works well for mystery stories, because it allows for the author to keep some facts from the reader without outright ‘cheating.’ If the hero isn’t telling the story themselves, whatever they don’t tell their chronicler isn’t known to the reader, either. Still, it’s hard to pull that off these days, because we expect to see things from the hero’s perspective rather than from a friend’s.

A lone wolf has no easy weakness to explore, nobody to threaten to keep them under control. On the other hand, nobody is an island and we all do need help every now and then, which is hard to obtain for the lone wolf. This is where the stories have their challenges for the author.

A team of three or four people on the other hand allows for a large number of skills and for several different characters who will act and react very differently. The author can have specialists (such as a pilot or scientist) without having to tone down on the action. It allows for the hero to be in the middle of it while others around them provide information or tools.

Something similar goes for the hero with an organisation behind them. They often work on their own, but the organisation provides the help which in other constellation is given by teammates. They don’t have to worry about funds and can devote all of their time to their fight against crime or evil. For an author, having a hero with unlimited means in money and contacts is good for writing stories which go beyond the regular and push them into world-spanning adventures.

You can make free use of those team-ups in pulp and put them in whatever stories they fit best. All of those character constellations have their good and bad sides and none is suited for all kinds of stories, but they have their use and can be a lot of fun to write.

Pacing Myself

As I wrote in last week’s post, I have a word count on my chapters, which helps me pace myself, pace the scenes, and motivate myself for the daily work.

My regular word limit for a chapter is 3,000 words, which is pretty average. For me, that makes it a chapter you can read in about seven minutes (mileage may vary, I’m a fast reader). For novellas, my limit is 2,500 words (which is pretty average for shorter texts). Eight novella chapters make 20,000 words, which is a minimum for a novella, while twenty novel chapters make 60,000 words, which is a minimum for a novel. My texts usually tend to go above that, though.

As I already mentioned, the word count serves me in various ways.

First of all, knowing how long a chapter (my minimum for writing days) will be, means I can see how much work I still need to do for the day. That doesn’t mean I’ve never written more than a chapter a day. There have been quite some days when the story was flowing on which I’ve written two chapters (6,000+ words) and even a few where I’ve written three chapters (9,000+ words). But it means that I know how much more I need to write to meet my quota.

It also helps me to keep my story flowing. I write between one and three scenes per chapter on the average, which means I can gauge whether I can put the next scene in or should, perhaps, expand a little on the other ones. It doesn’t pay to start a new scene with about 500 words left, but it might benefit another scene to add more detail to it or expand it a little. I might, of course, undo that later in the editing process, but it helps me with the scenes in the first place. It also helps me avoid starting and not finishing a scene, since picking up a scene again after a longer break is hard.

With the chapters all being similar in length (usually, I don’t go more than 400 words above my count), it’s also easier for the audience to pace themselves while reading. They can decide how many chapters they want to read in one go and they won’t find chapters too long or too short.

I’m not a writer who can just sit down every day and write the same amount of words, though. I’m a discovery writer and until the next part of the story is finished in my mind, I will not have much success writing it. If I have the story figured out, though, I can easily write two or even three chapters a day and finish a story within a very short amount of time (less than a month is definitely possible - I have written my first two novels in about 1 1/2 months).

My writing process is pretty much like this:

1. I get an idea for a new story.
2. I turn that idea over in my mind for a little while.
3. I start writing the story, once I’ve figured out the beginning.
4. I continue to turn the idea over in my mind.
5. I write on whenever I have a part figured out.
6. I repeat the last two steps over and over again.
7. I finish my story.
8. I put it aside, read it through a little every now and then.
9. I start the next story.
10. I edit the story I’ve written a good while later.
11. I put it out as self-published.
12. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I do next to no plotting (although it depends on the type of story - if there’s a mystery, I do some basics on that part beforehand), because if I plot, I don’t get the story written. When I make a file for a new story, the only thing I do is write a few words about what I think will be in a chapter (and I put down the first eight/twenty chapters, depending on type). I might leave chapters unmarked, if the story hasn’t gotten far enough in my mind. Usually, I have an idea about the big confrontation towards the end and a few thoughts about what will happen on the way. But I don’t know the full story until I’ve finished the first draft. I like it that way, so there’s no complaint. I’ve tried the other way, but couldn’t bring myself to finishing any story I’d plotted out completely. I need the discovery element.

I also enjoy researching for a story - the internet is a great help, of course, but I also like reading non-fiction books and sometimes stumble over new ideas that way, too. Reading, both fiction and non-fiction, is an important part of my life and always will be. You never know where the next inspiration might come from.

That I’m not writing, though, doesn’t mean I’m not working on my stories. I have to turn them around in my head over and over again, until I know how to proceed. I take walks, trying to figure out the next part. I do housework, trying to figure out the next part. I read, hoping it will help me with the next part. I have a story on my mind, even when I’m not actively writing it.

Once I have that part, though, it’s completely possible that I will write two or even three chapters a day and that for several days. It depends on how well it flows. As mentioned, I have written a full novel in less than a month, which is a very short time. I’ve also needed a long time for a novella or two, because the story never flowed that well.

Sometimes, you need to find a way to pace yourself. A daily limit of work which you know you can manage - perhaps even go above on some days - can help. Otherwise, you might set yourself too high a goal and thus end up not doing anything, because you can’t meet your own expectations.

Editing - My Least Favourite Work

Editing, revising, and proof-reading are my least favourite work as an author. As a discovery writer, I do have a lot of fun while writing, because I never know what I’ll really end up writing in a day. I also enjoy researching and coming up with new scenes, stories, and characters. But once the first draft is out, things are definitely a lot less fun.

Yet, editing is a very important part of an author’s work. The first draft is simply getting everything out of your system and down to paper - or to digital file, these days. It’s horrible and not fit to be read by anyone, save for the author themselves. (Yes, for all those of you who have written something, compared it to their favourite book, and thought it was dreadful: the first draft of your favourite book probably wasn’t any better, but the author did their work on it.) Therefore, after the first draft has rested for a bit (a few weeks at least, in my case usually a few months), it is time to get back to it and work out all the horrible stuff, so you can publish it, one way or another.

It doesn’t matter which way you publish it, either. Of course, you have to do the whole process alone (or with a beta reader or two), if you merely publish for free somewhere on the internet. Or if you’re self-publishing. But the editing of the first draft is always the author’s work, even if they’re with a publishing house. Because this is still part of writing the story.

There are three different things to do with your first draft during the editing process.

First of all, you need to revise the story, check it for internal errors, smooth everything out. This is especially important for someone who doesn’t do a lot of plotting before they write everything down. The beginning, the middle, and the end of the story don’t necessarily fit together well in that case, because your muse drove you to another venue than originally planned. A good revision will clean out logic issues or issues where two or three parts of the story negate each other. So, first of all, revise your story. Read it through with fresh eyes (which is why you should take a little break after writing it, so you can take a step back and look at it anew). Read it as a reader and see if there’s something which simply doesn’t fit. If you have something which doesn’t fit, correct it. That might mean rewriting some chapters or scenes, but it’s absolutely necessary. Readers are sensitive about that kind of thing and with good and valid reason.

General editing comes next. Read through the story and ask yourself whether that scene you’re reading is really necessary. Does it either further the plot or deepen the reader’s understanding of one or more characters? If it does one thing (or even both), keep the scene, but if it doesn’t, cut it out. Every scene has to fulfil at least one of the aforementioned jobs. Ideally, a scene will do both, but that’s not always possible. Also ask yourself if you can tighten the scene a little, if you can make it a little smoother, pace it better. Do this from the beginning to the end. Since you have done your revising first, the internal logic of your story is in place already, which means that you won’t pace or streamline a scene you will cut out or change later on.

Finally, you have to get down to the very bones of your story: grammar and spelling. A spell-check can be useful and I certainly always have mine on when I’m writing, but you will still want to smooth out the wording more. For this part of the process, I find it useful to read out loud, to hear the sentences, because it helps me to see if they really flow. Optimize the sentences, see if all words you use are the words you need for this. And then, do this part over and over again (I go through my stories for proof-reading at least three times - depending on how well you spot mistakes, you might need less or more).

Editing is a lot of hard work and it can be even harder, if you’re on a page or (more likely) word limit. I once wrote a story for an anthology (which was never published, so I published Thorns a while back myself) and was on a 300-words limit.

I do give myself a limit of 2,500 words per chapter for novellas and 3,000 words per chapter for novels, but this is not a hard limit, it merely helps my pacing, my motivation (because I can estimate how much more I have to do in a day), and my chapter length (which is similar this way). But once I’ve written the first draft down, those limits go out of the window, I do not check them when I edit, so chapters might fall below the count or go a good deal above it. It’s just a trick for me while writing.

But a lot of people are really on a word limit, because they write for a publisher who does have one, because they are writing something non-fictional for college or suchlike, or for other reasons. If you edit with a word limit, you have to tailor all three stages of the editing process to it. You need to revise with the word limit in mind, trying to make the changes without changing the word count you have too much. You need to edit out the scenes very carefully, cutting or adding lines, depending on whether you’re above or below the limit. And once you’re down to the actual words and sentences, you need to streamline everything as much as possible, so you get as close to the limit as you can. It’s not easy and I surely don’t envy you. My word limit is self-imposed and I can ignore it when I feel like it, you might not be able to.

Editing is a very important process, even though it’s also something the general audience is hardly aware of (at least of the extent of it, because a lot of people think editing is mostly about grammar and spelling, which it’s not - that is only the last step). As a writer, you have to do a lot of it yourself, even though you will have a second (or even third) pair of eyes on it, if you hire a professional editor for the last step or are published by a publisher, where a professional editor will go over it before it goes to print (or online, these days). If you can afford it, having a professional editor go over it is always a good idea. If you can’t, finding a few beta readers to weed out illogical parts and help with the pacing is also good. A few more eyes on a text are never wrong.

I do really hate the whole editing process, but I know it’s necessary, so I do it four times a year (plus a lighter one for my blog posts). It’s part of my work and, as with every job, there’s things you like, things you love, and things you hate. Editing falls in the ‘things I hate’ category, but that doesn’t mean I would inflict my first drafts on anyone but myself. Especially for money.

The Beauty-Not-Beauty Problem

These characters are almost always women, usually young women in YA novels: women who are very beautiful, but don’t think they are beautiful. They look into the mirror, describing themselves in terms which make it clear they are definitely above average in looks, but at the same time consider themselves to be lacking. Everyone else also seems to consider them lacking - except for their love interest, of course.

The problem with this trope is twofold: on one hand, it’s highly unrealistic that an attractive young woman would never hear she is attractive. Even if she only looks at those glossy magazines or adverts, other people around her will have noticed how good she looks. On the other hand, it also gives birth to a different character: the beautiful villainess. To counteract the beautiful-but-unaware heroine, the villainess or one villainess is often a woman who knows she is beautiful, does everything in her powers to enhance that beauty, and uses it for her own plans. So we have the pure, unaware heroine and the evil seductress, two roles which have been played to death by women already (it comes down to the virgin/whore dichotomy we already know from the bible).

Then there’s, of course, this highly unrealistic way the heroine (or hero) will describe themselves. If a regular human looks into the mirror, they’re more likely to comment on how their hair is completely out of control, about blackheads on their nose, pimples on their chin, or something similar. They will hardly comment on the glossiness of their hair, the perfect shape of their arse, or those horribly long, well-shaped legs they have. If you’re really thinking you’re ugly, you look for everything which cements that idea, not for all those good-looking parts of your body.

But the big problem with the beautiful-but-unaware heroine is that this trope also cements that a woman has to be ‘naturally beautiful’ (without the use of makeup or other things) and that a good woman is not aware of her own beauty until the right man comes along and tells her (which suggests female beauty only exists for a man to appreciate). This is far from the reality of the audience, since only few people are naturally beautiful (makeup exist for a reason and has done so for a long time) and a woman shouldn’t depend on a man for appreciation (or on something as fleeting as her looks).

If you want a heroine who is really troubled about her looks, give her reason. Give her an average look in a surrounding where everyone else is beautiful (perhaps she lives with two models as flatmates?). Or give the heroine the knowledge that she is beautiful and have her act on it. Or make her not care about her looks at all - not because she is so beautiful she doesn’t need to care, but because she has other things on her mind than her looks (shocking idea, I know - a woman who doesn’t care what she looks like, because she’s doing other stuff). More about this later.

There are other things about the way women are often described in novels, especially YA, but other genres, too.

Like the idea that women are natural at wearing heels. They are not, it’s a skill you have to learn and it can be very painful to do so. And women who are in a physically challenging job or a job where they might have to run (especially looking at all thrillers and crime series with female cops here), will not be wearing heels to work. They’ll be wearing sneakers or low-heeled oxfords or something similar.

Or that all women have long nails. Women who work in medical jobs (wearing gloves) or in jobs where they use their hands a lot (gardeners, for instance) will have short nails, because everything else would be impractical. Women in a lesbian relationship will also wear their nails short, but for other, more personal reasons. Make of that information what you want.

Or that bras are optional. They’re not, unless you have an A-cup (which is the smallest size). There’s a reason bras were invented and it wasn’t so men had something to look at (as for a long time, women wouldn’t simply show their undergarments, unless they were in a very specific line of work). Breasts are heavy and need support. That is what a bra is for. If a woman does sports, she will wear a specific bra for it. And the bra shapes the breast, which means the same top can look completely different, depending on whether a woman wears a bra and which bra she wears.

There’s more, but I’m not going to rehash it all. Consult this article for additional details about women which men often get wrong in writing.

Yet, what comes up again and again is that whole beautiful-but-unaware thing. The idea that a good woman can’t have a clue about her good looks. She has to be beautiful (because fairy tales teach us that beauty means goodness from childhood), but she’s not allowed to be aware of it or use it to her advantage (because then she might be vain, which is a sin). She has to be innocent and pure and unaware of the powers of womanhood. And that idea just has to go.

As mentioned, it’s unrealistic. A woman with access to a mirror and to friends and acquaintances (not to mention relatives) should know whether or not she fits with the current beauty standards. She should know that those glossy strands of hair and those long legs don’t make her ugly, but conventionally attractive. If your heroine were blind, of course, she could be unaware (but then she wouldn’t care about her looks, because beauty would be a strange concept to her). But if she can see and if she has access to peers, she should be aware of how beautiful or ugly she really is - within reason, women can still be hung up on the slightest flaw. Flaws, however, are not ‘long legs’ or ‘glossy hair’ or ‘big bust.’ Flaws are things like ‘flabby thighs’ or ‘blackheads’ or ‘untameable hair.’ Those are things a heroine would focus on, if she were unhappy with her own looks.

Why not have a character who is average in looks, knows it, but doesn’t care too much about it? She wouldn’t mind following the hero on his quest (which means a lot of travel and little time for beauty care), because it helps her to reach her own goals. She won’t mind cutting her hair, so she looks more like a guy, because the plot demands it. She will not start bitching, because a second female character joins the group and this one is definitely above average in looks. Instead, they will befriend each other and save the guys’ asses later on.

Or have a character who is beautiful and knows it. A woman who knows she looks very good and doesn’t need someone to assure her of that. She uses makeup and spends more time choosing her clothes, because she knows how much it can affect other people. She doesn’t look down on other women who are less attractive or feels the need to fight those who look as good as her. Her looks are for her own pleasure - if someone else likes them, it’s a bonus, not her reason to live. If a guy doesn’t find more to compliment her on than her hair and her body, he’s out. She will use her knowledge to swing opinion in the council and lead the kingdom into a better future.

Or have a character who doesn’t even think about her looks much. She’s a warrior in training and more likely to consider her body on terms of strengths and weaknesses. She surely needs to build up her arm muscles more, so she can wield her sword better. And she needs to work on her legs for agility, too. She’s cut her hair ages ago and keeps it short, because who wants to braid the hair every morning to keep it out of her eyes, when a short cut makes it so much easier to deal with? She simply ignores other people’s comments about her looks, because they don’t matter. If you want to flatter her, tell her how good her sword technique or her legwork are. In the big battle, she will save the hero and cut the right hand of the big bad down without a second’s hesitation.

Depending on the world a story is set in, each of those heroines would make sense. They’d be less likely to become damsels in distress, too, which is good.

There might be the occasional woman who doesn’t know her looks are above average. And there are a lot of women who do look good, but still are more likely to see their flaws than their strengths. Yet, having every other heroine of a YA novel think she’s not beautiful, while at the same time describing herself in terms of definite ‘above average’ looks, is an old cliché which needs to die.