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.

Intense Week

I’ve really had one of those the last week. On Monday I released “Key Pieces” (links are on the left side of the blog) and on Friday, which is to say yesterday, I finished “Criminal Ventures” which will be the first book in the Black Knight Agency series. I had good and bad times with that book, especially while introducing four more main characters (Brock, Frank, Edith, and Liam, since the Black Knight Agency is set in an alternate universe, so I had to bring them in anew). On the other hand, the heists were fun to write and I enjoy the slightly darker setting.

I did a lot of proofreading and editing on “Key Pieces” last month, since I was preparing the novel for release (I will do my very best to stick to a 4-novels-per-year release schedule for now).

I also was set on finally finishing the beginning of the second series, the Black Knight Agency. The book was, however, growing and expanding, demanding more and more scenes I had to sketch out in my head first, which slowed my down. When I managed to finish the chapters for Liam at the beginning of the week, the rest went well enough. I had known what would happen towards the end since the very beginning, so I was well prepared for the scenes coming up. Not that there were no new ideas or changes (that tableau was created in my mind a day before I wrote it down). It was amazing and a little scary to see how all of the threads came together towards the end and scenes which might seem pure ‘entertainment’ gained more importance. To be honest, even I didn’t really know that would happen in all cases. I wrote the heist with the Florian Diamond because it was fun to write and I wanted to keep the ‘one story a year’ pace, but that stone turned out to be important. Perkins the younger proved to be a foreshadowing for the downfall of two organisations, I had barely planned him in as a foreshadowing for one… My mind has weird way of constructing the stories, but it makes it more fun to write them.

I’m already running through ideas for the fifth Knight Agency novel, which has the working title “Grave Keeper” and will put more focus on the past of Steven and Sir Frederic. That doesn’t mean, however, that Cedric will disappear or the others won’t play a role. A lot of fun and frustration ahead, that much is for sure.

Writing Heists

I’m currently working on the first novel of a series set in an alternate reality to the Knight Agency. Because of the content (and because I feel like it), it will be called the Black Knight Agency. Working on the other side of the law, in a reality in which the Knight Agency doesn’t exist, I will get to put more interesting heists in these books.

The first novel of the Black Knight Agency, currently still unnamed, sets up the world and the characters and is accompanying Jane on her way from the ten-year-old to the twenty-five-year-old. Unlike in the Knight Agency novels, I have packed her upbringing from the moment she meets Steven (well, a little earlier than that) to the age she is in the regular novels in one book. Scene by scene, part by part, she is growing into the right hand Steven didn’t know he wanted or needed until they met. As you might guess from this, Steven is a criminal in this story (at least until towards the end of the novel, but that is part of the plot, so my lips are sealed). I took some things Steven and Jane say in the third regular novel “Crime Pays Sometimes” as basics for the story and expanded it. I’m also introducing other main characters bit by bit (Cynthia, Brock, Frank, Grand, Liam in that sequence).

I have two heists in the first novel already and there might be another one or two until I’m done (I only partially know how things will happen, I only know what will) and I enjoyed myself tremendously while writing them. I like writing heists, which is why I have so far mostly used Jane’s speciality of breaking-and-entering in the novels, not her abilities as an assassin (which so far only feature in “Key Pieces”). I like turning the situation over and over in my head and figuring out how such a heist could work out and where there could be a sudden twist, forcing Jane to think on her feet and improvise. Perhaps I shouldn’t play games like “Crookz” or “The Marvellous Miss Take”...

I also realized lately that writing heists is pretty much the opposite of writing a mystery novel. I’ve loved mystery novels since I was a kid and I’m still an avid reader of those today. My parents even automatically assumed I was writing them when I told them I was going to publish stuff I had written myself, first on Feedbooks, then on Amazon.

Writing a mystery or detective story is, as Carolyn Wells wrote in “The Technique of the Mystery Story,” presenting a riddle and allowing the reader to solve it alongside the detective. Writing a heist story, if that is the main topic of your story, is letting the reader follow the process of setting that riddle up. A good heist story builds a riddle which the detective will not be able to solve (or, in rare cases, will not want to solve, because he or someone close to his heart is involved in it).

A heist story is about plotting, about planning, about organizing. It’s about pulling together resources, sometimes human ones, sometimes technical ones. It’s about giving the anti-hero of the story (since the main characters usually are criminals) a good reason for the crime they are about to commit.

In the “Cat’s Eye” manga and anime series, the main characters are three sisters who use all means to find and retrieve the pictures their father painted, because those might help them to find him. Usually, the oldest sister does the recon, the middle sister does the actual heist, and the youngest sister creates the technical means for it. In grave situations, the older two or even all three sisters might be directly and physically involved. The story gains an extra layer of danger and excitement from the fact that the middle sister is in a romantic relationship with one of the detectives on the ‘cat’s eye’ case. Obviously, the reader or viewer doesn’t want the sisters caught, since their reason for the thefts is an understandable one (and there are suggestions not all paintings were sold with their owner’s/creator’s permission).

In other cases, the victim of the crime is simply an institution which will not really suffer, like a bank. Modern banks have an insurance in case of a theft like that - and most people don’t feel very positive towards insurance companies who are known to shirk their duties of paying. Or the victim is a criminal as well and used illegal or at any rate immoral means to get what is stolen.

It’s important for such a story that the sympathies lie with the criminals, because there will be no solution in the end. The criminals will not be caught. They will disappear after the successful heist, leaving the detectives with an unsolvable case.

Of course, when it comes to writing detective stories, you need to do all that plotting and planning, too, but that is not what the book will be about. In a detective story, the author plots and plans so he can present the crime for the detective to solve. And the presentation should be fair enough, so the reader has the chance to solve the puzzle as well.

In a heist story, the author plots and plans the crime, then transfers all this plotting and planning to the main characters who will do it in the very pages of the novel, showing the reader who did what and why. Usually, something will go wrong with the plan, forcing the main characters to improvise, creating more thrills and making the story less predictable.

I love reading detective stories, but I love writing heists. But then, when I do those ‘personality tests’ online (which aren’t very reliable, I know), I usually end up as the Mastermind. Add ‘Criminal’ and it’s Steven’s job description in the Black Knight Agency. I just like to plot and the novels give me a chance to do so for the good of mankind (or at least my main characters).

The Damsel in Distress Dilemma

There are quite some topics that might turn up sooner or later in every writer’s work. One of them is the story device known as the “Damsel in Distress.” Don’t misunderstand me here, even the strongest girl (or the most heroic man) can end up in a situation in which they need help. They can get caught and thrown into an absolutely escape-proof cell. They can find themselves heavily injured and facing an army of foes who are armed to their eyebrows. The problem isn’t having such a situation in your story, it’s about resolving it.

The most classic damsels in distress are fairy-tale princesses. Usually, they are kept somewhere (in a tower, in a castle, under a spell, under the sea - kidding here) and then the hero, who usually is a prince, comes over and saves them. He gets to carry them back home and they get married and live happily ever after (unless you’re reading the “Fables” comics or playing “The Wolf Among Us”). Those are precisely the mechanics that make the Damsel in Distress Dilemma. Because, you see, you could take out the princess and add a trophy cup instead and the story would still work. Okay, the prince might not marry the trophy cup and they probably wouldn’t have kids, even if he did, but the main part of the story would be the same. The hero comes, vanquishes the main foe, and takes the price. Whether the price is a woman, a country, a trophy cup, or two tickets for the Super-Bowl (put any great sports event of your choice in here) doesn’t really matter.

If you can exchange the leading female character of a story for an inanimate object and the story basically still works (apart from a few scenes), you’re doing something wrong. Exchanging a character for an inanimate object should never work. Whenever it does, you have failed at creating either the character, the story, or both. If all your female lead does is standing around waiting to be rescued and, perhaps, afterwards bickering with the hero a little, you’re not writing a female character, you’re writing a trophy cup with a wig and a voice.

That doesn’t mean you have to skip the whole ‘rescue’ business. In the first “Star Wars” movie (yes, I refuse to accept the existence of the prequels), Princess Leia gets rescued by the hero of the movie and a guy who could be a hero, if he were reformed, at some point (I’ll leave you to sort out who is who). Does that make her the Damsel in Distress for the rest of the story? Hell, no. Leia is one of the Strong Women Of Star Wars (a group that also includes Mon Mothma and Mara Jade, among others). Everyone can be captured. Everyone can get so deep into trouble they need a snorkel to breathe. The hero and his allies getting into trouble basically is a necessity for every story - it’s often called the Dark Moment or the Point Of No Return.

Or take Fiona from the original “Shrek” movie. At first glance, she’s the typical fairy-tale princess: locked in a tower, cursed, supposed to be rescued by her Prince Charming, fated to marry him after True Love’s First Kiss. But the writers of the story didn’t do things the regular way for a fairy tale. They started with making the hero one of the traditional baddies. Ogres aren’t well-known for heroic deeds, they’re more well-known for being a reason for heroic deeds. And Shrek isn’t going around saying ‘hey, I don’t want to be your regular Ogre, I want to be a hero instead.’ All he wants, is getting the other fairy-tale creatures out of his swamp, so he can continue his dull, but comfortable life. That’s where both Fiona’s long time in the tower, which she had to spend somehow, and the curse placed on her as a child do come in. Fiona didn’t spent all her time stitching, she learned some smooth martial arts moves. And the curse doesn’t make her go to sleep for a hundred years or some other regular fairy-tale stuff, it turns her into an Ogress at night. True Love’s First Kiss is supposed to turn her fully human again - or so she thinks. What the curse does, though, is making her assume True Love’s True Form. In other words: if Fiona finds true love with a human, she’ll become fully human. But she finds true love with an Ogre, with Shrek, so she becomes an Ogress 24/7 instead. Fiona is no Damsel in Distress, she is a female lead.

What can you do to avoid the Damsel in Distress Dilemma when you write a story? Question your characters. Test them by trying to replace them with trophy cups. Give each character their own agenda, not just the villain and the hero (they always have clashing goals, otherwise the story won’t work), but also the support characters. Everyone has something they want to accomplish or want to get their hands on. ‘A husband who saved me from my tower’ should not be the goal of the female lead, though. Ideally, Hero and Heroine (say: main character and ally) support each other and each of them is doing the saving at some point.

Leia is instrumental in saving both Luke (in Cloud City when he’s hanging on that weather vane and she senses where he is and that he’s in trouble) and Han (when she infiltrates Jabba’s palace and gets him out of the Carbonite), so you could say she returns the favour. Fiona saves Shrek from Robin Hood and his Merry Men in the first movie.

Remember that every person in your story is a character, not just a piece of scenery or a piece of furniture or a piece of decoration that happens to breathe. Treat them accordingly and give them something to do.

Fun Tool for Creativity

I’m the proud owner of my own iPad now … have been, for a couple of weeks already. I really like my tablet, but that’s not what this post is about. It’s about a fun app I found yesterday. It’s called The Brainstormer (App Shopper link, as I don’t browse iTunes through my browser) and will serve me well in the future, whenever I need a spark of inspiration.

The Brainstormer is nothing more or less than a device of three disks, each containing a couple of words that allow you to define something or someone (the app comes with one disk set for general ideas, the one for new animals is free, there’s one for characters and one for places, both at a few cents each). You can also add your own disk sets by making a new one and adding words for each disk. I played with the three additional disks and got the following combinations (by pure coincidence, / separates the disks):

Imagine Animals Disk Set (free additional set):

• Spiked / Mermaid / Great White Shark (I’d love to see that one)
• Segmented / Turtle / Elemental
• Enslaved / Tadpole / Mouse
• Fighting / Venus Flytrap / Jellyfish

People:

• The Mysterious Employer / Cosmic / Master of Ceremonies
• The Puppet Master / Chinese / Emperor
• The Damsel / Psychopathic / Gardener
• The Corrupt Politician / Western / Monk

Places:

• Noir / Stripped / Lighthouse
• Great Depression / Exotic / Bungalow
• Lovecraft-esque / Peaceful / Tomb
• Wild West / Infested / Township

Just trying to combine the words, I can say the stories would be awesome. The main disk set gives basic ideas for stories, too, combined with the other three, there should be loads of strange and amusing things to make. And sometimes, all you need to spice up a story is a mad idea or two.

The Brainstormer, for making wacky stories even more wacky!