There was a very stimulating conversation over at sfreader a few days back about the basic incompatability of pulp styles and flash. The arguement went that pulp in all its forms was character driven and the constraints of the short form wouldn't allow for it.
I disagreed: one of the prime skills of the greatest of pulp writers, including Lester Dent, Louis L'amour, and even later pulpsters like Stephen King is the ability to create a believable, real-seeming character in just two or three lines.
So I gave it a shot. I went for the pupliest of pulp styles, the French hard-boiled crime story. I set the story in Marsielles in 1960, with an aging thug protagonist lurking through the shadows like Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless.
999 words to finish under a thousand, and off to Every Day Fiction. I really had fun writing this noirish pastiche, "After Napier" and I am excited to see what the folks there think of it.
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2 comments:
I'll be watching for it, Michael. Congrats on trying your hand at it, whether you nailed it or not.
Hey, you know how it goes--- ya writes 'em and ya sends 'em out.
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