The Pulp Work Ethic

Part III on the House That Pulp Built

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

I’m switching gears a little bit this week. It is almost impossible to discuss the work of pulp fiction and its influence on pop culture without understanding the men and women who took to their typewriters to crank out these stories of fantasy, space opera, crime, and weird tales. 

Fans of the literature gravitate to the heroic characters of the pulps not just in their original magazine form, but in other adaptations such as paperbacks, comic books, films, and radio plays. People read the pulps for their extravagant plots and exotic locales, but they stayed for the larger-than-life characters, such as The Shadow, The Spider, and Doc Savage. 

For me, the "Pulpsters" were just as interesting as the stories they penned. Though they wrote for one cent a word, many of them were far from being penniless scribes. They were a generation of writers who experienced dark times of a pandemic, economic turmoil, and war (sounds familiar) and made a comfortable living in producing cheap entertainment for the masses. Critics of pulp fiction, back then and even now, see the books as nothing more than trashy tales that appeal to people's lowest sensibilities. Pulp writers were seen as hacks writing for money and not real artists. Whatever your impressions of pulp fiction are, no one can deny that the best of the pulp writers paved the way not just for modern genre fiction, but for future masters of the craft. To say there is nothing we can learn from the pulp writers or that they were hacks is both naive and shortsighted. Some of the best writers today, in traditional or independent publishing often possess the same traits found in those pulp fictioneers. Two of which I will highlight here: unrelenting speed and a no-nonsense attitude. Together, they form what I call the Pulp Work Ethic.

The first book I came across that helps paint the picture of what life was like for the Pulpsters in their day - The Pulp Jungle. A story written by Frank Gruber about his rise as a pulp writer in New York City during the Great Depression.  The second is The Penny-a-Word Brigade, a collection of articles published by veteran pulp writers from “Writer’s Digest” during the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s edited by Ed Hulse. 

Deep into The Pulp Jungle 

Frank Gruber in full effect details his long journey to becoming a working pulp writer. 

During his youth, he consumed a steady diet of children's books written by Horatio Alger about young boys in rags-to-riches stories. These books inspired him to pursue writing and brought on an onslaught of rejection slips in his mailbox. In the late ‘20s, he published his first story in a Sunday school magazine for two dollars. Gruber then landed jobs as an editor for several farmer’s life magazines, drawing a hefty salary that took away from his writing time. 

As “luck” would have it, the Depression hit and the only viable work he could find was writing for the pulps. If only he could just break in!

From there on, the book follows Gruber’s uphill battle to submit to editors all over New York City. He gives accounts of the struggles of his peers as well. He recalls his friend, Steve Fisher, struggling to sell his stories, leading to his eviction from his apartment the day before Christmas, carrying only a suitcase and his typewriter.  Other anecdotes include writers going to the local diner for “hot tomato soup”, a simple dish in the ‘30s. Gruber would take a couple packets of ketchup and stir them in a cup of hot water. Delicious.

Great book to read if you can find it.

Gruber would go for months writing somewhere around 30 to 40 stories. Each one rejected. It wasn’t until 1934 when an editor called telling Gruber that although they didn’t like his adventure or detective stories, they wanted a western. Gruber admits at this point in his life, he had no experience writing Westerns whatsoever. This was not going to stop him. 

He was handed a Western magazine and studied it word by word. Later that night, he wrote two short stories and submitted them. Each story was less than 2,000 words. A few days later the same editor called him asking for a 5,500-word spy story to hit the printers in the morning. What follows is Gruber pulling an all-nighter to write a short story for Secret Service Operator #5.  

“I sat down at the typewriter. By eight o’clock I had created Captain John Vedderes of Military Intelligence...by ten o’clock I had come up with Leone Montez, the beautiful spy who was working for the ‘mysterious power’...by twelve o’clock I still needed plot ....” 

Then comes the best line in the whole chapter. 

“By eight o’clock in the morning, all fifty-five hundred words were down on paper, eighteen pages. There was no time to retype. I delivered the story at nine o’clock.” 

 Gruber didn’t have time to rewrite anything. He just sent it in hot from the typewriter. Most writers during this time didn’t rewrite stories. It was hard to edit on an Underwood or an Olympia. 

A few days had passed and the editor called telling him that he was buying his stories. All three of them. Gruber finally made it! The rest of the book details his ups and downs, from his time in the pulps to his screenwriting career in Hollywood. The book is out of print and most copies for sale are quite expensive, but if you’re interested in learning more about Frank Gruber’s career, I highly recommend it. Who knows you may have luck finding it in your local library. 

Other famous pulpsters included Lester Dent, Sally M Singer, Leigh Brackett, Max Brand, Norvell Page, and the immensely prolific King of the Pulps, H. Bedford Jones, who wrote hundreds of novels and short stories during his tenure. It was said that Jones was so prolific, he had multiple typewriters to write multiple stories at a time.  In the book, The Penny-a-Word Brigade, his article titled “This Fiction Business” covers some of the best craft advice many writers today can benefit from including story structure, plot, and the trouble with rewriting. I’ve included a link to the collection for purchase if you choose to rummage through it.  

These writers were able to bang out words at alarming rates cumulating anywhere north of 2 million words or more in a year. Since this was their only source of income, many wrote every day regardless of what got in the way. Writer’s block was nonexistent during this time. Harlan Ellison was famous for demonstrating this. He would sit in a bookstore with his trusty typewriter and be given a simple (sometimes even ridiculous) prompt and spend the afternoon punching out a story in real-time.

The discipline, consistency, and output of the pulp writers continues to both amaze and depress me. I aspire to turn out that many words of fiction a year with nothing held back. Sometimes doubt stops me cold, but then I remember H. Bedford Jones. He believed any amateur writer could eventually learn to write and sell commercial fiction if they so choose.

"Yes, it is simple to write stories. We are taught to do it in school, and we keep right on doing it. In it, most of us find the outlet for a great craving, which is usually repressed yet nonetheless insurgent - the craving to create something. His need for hunger and love satisfied, man then seeks to create, being fashioned in the image of God; and if he can make his creative work supply his needs, if he can make his imagination pay his bills, he is in the seventh Heaven."¹

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I believe the Pulp Work Ethic can be achieved by anyone. The people of pulp fiction should be emulated as true masters of the craft. Because at the end of the day, the best writers were paid the most because they were master storytellers. They knew how to entice and reward the reader for their time. No reason modern writers can’t do the same.

‘Til next time.

1. Jones, H. B. (1929). This Fiction Business. Writer’s Digest.