From: g@crcomp.net

Archived link prepended.

A recent rec.arts.sf.written post made me curious about Doc Savage.
Lester Dent reportedly wrote formulaic stories.
    The promise of a guaranteed successful story motivated a lifelong,
low level, quest within me to discover the exact nature of this storied,
almighty formula.
     At first it was ?erroneously? presumed that one universal formula
ruled them all, in this case "them" being successful formulaic authors.
Lately it seems that the formula varies by author. Here's an excerpt of
Lester Dent's formula. (Follow the link for the unabridged version.)

    This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6,000 word pulp
    story. It has worked on adventure, detective, western and
    war-air. It tells exactly where to put everything. It
    shows definitely just what must happen in each successive
    thousand words.

    No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.

    The business of building stories seems not much different from
    the business of building anything else.

    (excerpt)

    https://web.archive.org/web/20160121204339/https://www.altus
ress.com/lester-dent-and-the-master-fiction-plot/

    https://www.altuspress.com/lester-dent-and-the-master-fiction-plot/

☮

Thank you,

--
Don
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My cat's telltale, tall tail tells tall tales.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)