Pulp fiction - fast plots, timeless lessons

Books come in various styles. One of my favourites is pulp fiction. What do I mean by pulp fiction? It is the genre of books that usually consists of murder mysteries, crime novellas, espionage stories, lawyers solving crimes, and some adventure novels. The common thread across all of these is that they are fast paced, with mostly morally ambiguous characters—either trying to commit a crime, hide a crime, solve a crime, or being a victim of one.

Some of the great authors of all time were pulp fiction writers. Legendary writers like Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick started off writing pulp stories in magazines before they wrote their famous works. But there is an entire league of authors who are great pulp fiction writers, full stop. The best among them, according to me, is James Hadley Chase. Nothing beats a good Chase potboiler when you have a few hours and do not want anything that taxes the mind.

Classic pulp noir: the seductive femme fatale and the hard-boiled detective, caught in a moment of danger, desire, and double-cross.

The hallmark of a great James Hadley Chase book is that the mystery is no mystery at all. As the reader, you usually begin the story already knowing who the criminal is and who the slightly better-off person chasing the criminal might be. The suspense lies in the story and in how the game of cat and mouse plays out. Chase’s characters are never entirely good or bad. They live real lives and are full of contradictions. Sometimes they are hard-boiled criminals with a cruel edge who kill, torture, and commit senseless crimes. But the great author places them in situations and storylines that have you rooting for these terrible characters—and wondering why. And long before George R. R. Martin became famous for killing off his main protagonists (I still cannot believe when Ned Stark died. Genius), James Hadley Chase was routinely offing some of the best characters—the ones you were kind of rooting for. But clearly, the little bit of goodness they had in them is what most likely got them killed.

As an avid reader, I often find myself reading many books at once. I usually try to finish every book I start, but sometimes, between great literature, non-fiction, and other average or hard-to-read titles, the reading mind needs some dessert. Enter a pulp novel. It is usually about 200 pages long, fast paced, and filled with action. I can usually finish a pulp book in less than three days, sometimes overnight. But it does the trick—it gets me motivated to return to my more substantial reading material. Pulp fiction is the original Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts of the analog world. And like their modern equivalents, they can be addictive too—but without any of the side effects that come with doomscrolling.

I have been using books as a way to stay away from consuming media incessantly, and to resist what I call "dopamitis"—a constant need for stimulation. Pulp books help a lot to inject some good-natured fun and adventure.

In the last six months alone, I have read many pulp fiction books. The most recent ones are The Vulture is a Patient Bird by James Hadley Chase and The Best Laid Plans by Sidney Sheldon. These books are among the best by their respective authors and feature all the well-loved pulp tropes—murders, gunfights, damsels in distress, sneaky villains, handsome men, and of course, lots of gratuitous sexy stuff.

Other recent reads include A Case of the Negligent Nymph, a Perry Mason mystery by Erle Stanley Gardner, and Well Now, My Pretty by James Hadley Chase. As a teenager, and well into my twenties and thirties, I must have read at least 50 to 100 great pulp novellas, including series like Nick Carter: Killmaster.

Pulp books are excellent material to learn the art of storytelling from. They are mass market and commercial, and often demonstrate best practices in how to capture a reader’s attention. The genre is also very good at subverting traditional story structures like the Hero’s Journey, often twisting them into darker or more ironic forms.

A familiar pulp setup—tension, beauty, and danger—but with just enough ambiguity to leave you questioning who holds the upper hand.

What pulp fiction does well is to understand its audience. Historically, pulp writers published in magazines, and stories were often serialised. This created a feedback loop. Authors learned from how readers responded to each instalment, and that shaped the next one. Pulp fiction was a consumer product. Unlike literary writers, who had to rely on pure content and critical reception, pulp writers were always responsive to their readers. In that sense, pulp fiction offers great lessons for marketing and advertising, which also work best when grounded in consumer insight.

That said, good pulp fiction did not necessarily cater to the lowest common denominator. While there was plenty of that, the truly standout works knew how to hook readers, keep the pace, and land the ending in a way that kept them coming back. The tools they used were consistency and clear positioning. Perry Mason was about the wily defence lawyer outsmarting the justice system to prove his client’s innocence against overwhelming odds. He usually did this by revealing the actual killer in dramatic courtroom scenes. His clients were often attractive but morally ambiguous young women. Nick Carter was Killmaster, a globe-trotting spy in exotic locales with damsels in distress and gadgets galore. James Hadley Chase told stories of criminals clashing with other, slightly less evil criminals. The bounty was always something attained at great personal cost.

By codifying these tropes, the great pulp fiction writers ensured they kept their audiences coming back for more.

The drama of pulp lies not just in violence but in mystery, tension, and the unknown—books and bullets, both loaded

And finally, one piece of writing or marketing wisdom that can be drawn from good pulp fiction is how the writing leaves much to the reader’s imagination. This, to me, is the master stroke. Great writers know that each reader’s mind is fertile ground for imagination, and they use that to their advantage. The prose is tight and sharp, allowing the reader to imagine what something might feel or look like. By not being overly descriptive and trusting the reader to fill in the gaps, great pulp stories plant seeds in the reader’s mind and immerse them deeply in the experience. That feeling is probably only ever replicated in good cinema.

Note: Illustrations in this post, excepting the book covers, were generated by ChatGPT using AI image tools to evoke the visual spirit of classic pulp fiction.

BOOK NOTE - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

One of the advantages of a National Library subscription is that I get to read many books for free. But a persistent disadvantage is that it seems to drive me to read fast—sometimes way too fast—just to stay within the loan period. Especially since you don’t always get to extend the loan on a book, and you can end up stuck on the waitlist for an indefinite amount of time. This isn’t great for the reading experience. It doesn’t let you reflect or even enjoy the book fully.

I read Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow in under seven days because my ‘Skip the Line’ loan only allowed me to keep the book for that long. The eBook, at about 400 pages, isn’t meant to be a fast read. But the story was compelling and engaging enough that I ended up finishing it. It also helped that I had two flights during that period—nothing like the internet blackout on planes to force some quality reading time. Frankly, that’s one of the best things about flights, and I hate that some now offer Wi-Fi.

NOTE: Spoilers ahead.

The book is about gamers and game developers, which connected well with me. It is also a book about friendship and love. But honestly, the main characters are hard to like. They’re depressed, sometimes psychotic, and go through or inflict a fair bit of mental torture.

Sam, one of the protagonists, has endured several emotional traumas: his parents aren’t together, he witnesses a freak suicide at a young age, and he’s in a horrific car accident that kills his mother and injures his leg badly. Despite all this, he remains broadly positive—rightfully a little reserved.

Sadie, on the other hand, has had less childhood trauma. She comes from wealthy parents, has a sister who recovers from cancer, and turns out to be brilliant—but also more bitter. The only truly likeable character is Marx, a key player in their story. He’s almost tragically good-natured. But I liked that. The idea that someone can be consistently cheerful—and that this could be a sign of intelligence—really stayed with me.

I felt Sadie, the other main protagonist, goes through some self-inflicted problems in life by getting into a torrid relationship with her married gaming professor, Dov. She pays the price by being jilted and ‘used,’ and unfortunately takes it out on her best friend Sam and their co-workers.

Overall, the characters didn’t quite connect with me. Especially with the mixed Japanese-Korean heritage of two of the leads, the whole thing started to feel very Murakami-like. The emotional turmoil, the torrid love affairs, the possessive pining—it was all very Murakami, just without the Murakami authorship.

What made the book work for me was the gaming industry storytelling, and the way computer games and their development shaped an entire generational cohort. I really enjoyed that part.