New and Classic: The Pulp Conundrum

New Pulp is a term accepted/embraced  by lots of writers today, from Chuck Wendig to Adam Christopher, and among the new publishers that identify with that marketing/genre terminology. But what does it mean? This week on the blog, we go straight to the sources to find out how the classic and the new compare.

Other than the one being old and the other being new (in terms of the historical timeline), what are the chief differences between classic pulp and New Pulp?

Gordon Dymowski: I think the main difference between "classic" Pulp and new Pulp is perspective. Many classic Pulp tales were written specifically for immediate publication and reflected the values of their times. New Pulp, however, manages to reflect current values while staying true to the original spirit of classic Pulp. It also helps that New Pulp tends to be better written and edited, and can incorporate influences that were not available back in the classic Pulp era. We have a more complex understanding of certain issues and tropes when writing (gender representation, racial stereotypes, and others).

Gary Phillips: To be brief, New Pulp certainly has switched up the POV. People of Color in the background are now in the foreground. Too, more women are in the Pat Savage mold. Also more inclusive of actual events from then. 

Ron Fortier: The truth of the matter is 90 percent of Old Pulp was badly written. Not that we still don't love it, but the fact remains the majority of people before the 1040s only had a grade school education at best. Their knowledge of literature and grammar was limited and when pulps first burst onto the scene by the mid-20s, the editor's primary job was to fill pages and to that end they accepted whatever was sent to them. Period. Thus the dreg and why a pencil salesman named Edgar Rice Burroughs could read an issue of "Argosy" and say it was junk and "I can write better than this." Today we live an overly educated society, whether that is a good or bad thing is not for me to say. But what I do realize is that writing today, across the board is a hell of a lot better and even the weakest amateur at it can outshine what was done in the past. So New Pulp is elevated prose by all standards and it shows in the remarkable talents who write it today. 

Nancy Hansen: To me what New Pulp means is stories told in the fast paced and adventuresome manner as the classic era pulps, but with an eye toward the current reading market's larger diversity and some sensitivity toward being more inclusive.  

Sean Taylor: The coolest part of New Pulp for me is that I can have the freedom to be a little more "literary" than the original pulp writers had license to be. I get to actually use the full writers toolbox with real characterization and more than the two-dimensional good guys in white hats (or black fedoras) that were so popular at the time. Also, I can flex my symbolism muscles a little from time to time and play around with things like POV. I don't think that's a limitation of those earlier writers' abilities for the most part (though maybe for a rare few just like for a few New Pulpers too -- that's just the nature of the beast) but instead I think it's a facet of the changing audience for pulp action stories. Readers are used to and expect a deeper story than "Black Bat shoots gang leader." Again, not that those stories aren't fun -- they just aren't what most modern readers are looking for anymore.

Not only that, but as Gary and Gordon mentioned, New Pulp isn't trapped by the same cultural mores and values, and that means New Pulp stories can look into the darker shadows of pulp storytelling  and  previously ignored cultures within pulp pages to say something a little deeper and a lot more enlightened. 

What are the commonalities between them?

Gary Phillips: I'd venture the commonality is still derring-do and larger than life characters.

Nancy Hansen: The big commonalities are in the pacing of the stories with the emphasis on action/adventure and the genres that make that work. The major difference besides the more inclusive atmosphere of characters from diverse backgrounds are that the characters are often more fleshed out. At least that's my take on it. 

Ron Fortier: Those are the set pieces required in any story to be called pulp and that means tons of action/adventure, colorful heroes, dastardly villains, exotic locales. That is evidence in the fact that pulp writers like Max Allan Collins, Stephen King and the late Clive Cussler can make the NYT bestseller lists time after time. Why, because today New Pulp is great story telling and finally accepted by the literary community, not only the masses back in the day.

Sean Taylor: What's that saying? The more things change... That's certainly true for pulp style storytelling. Both classic and new are more direct narratively, more focused on action, and start with caricatures and stereotypes for their broad stroke story beats. And there's still that some of "slam-bang" delivery that doesn't spend pages on what the mountains look like. (I'm looking at you Tolkien.) And the characters are still going to be initially based on stereotypes -- at least before the New Pulp writer either starts to adapt that stereotype with characterization.

Gordon Dymowski: Both have a strong sense of narrative drive with short, punchy sentences. They also share an emotional immediacy and *drive* (it's hard *not* to get caught up in a story) with vivid characters and higher stakes. Although both types of Pulp can sometimes strive towards more literary efforts, both use down-to-earth language to tell their stories.