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.