--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Kennedy <pbjk2004@...> wrote:
>
> There is also a letter among those to Erle Stanley Gardner in which he explains how he had once taught himself to write for the pulps by taking apart the elements of one of Gardner's stories and then trying to rebuild it from scratch to see how the various effects could be achieved.
> Gardner actually cut his teeth on all of the pulp genres: sci-fi, westerns, romances etc., and tells a funny story against himself, and against the practice of paying writers by the word. Apparently a fan once wrote to him wondering why his crackshot western heroes always missed the villain in the final shootout at least three times. He explained that, if the fan were being payed based on the word count, he would make his hero miss several times also.
>
The nice thing about that pulpster attitude is that it seems to say that "there is a next time, why worry?", in other words, I bungled this one but tomorrow I'll write another one and maybe when I'm more rested I will find something new for Ed Jenkins to steal, some new obstacle for him! Or maybe I can recycle that trick I used in that western story!
Best,
mrt
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