You'll want to read this!

[Wifetheif]

It is very true that they don't write them like they used to. In some ways that is a very good thing. In other ways... This passage is from a Spider Novel by Norvell W. Page called "The Red Death Rain published in December 1934. The Spider is also known as the Master of Men, and was called the Man of Steel before Superman ever put on a cape. His adventures are like the Shadow's and Doc Savage's except that the Spider is a hell of a lot more violent and burst with senuality. Years later, Stan Lee cited the pulp figure as a direct inspiration for Spiderman. Anyway the plot of this novel is off the wall bonkers. Someone is poisoning tobacco products making them deadly. Not in twenty years with cancer and emphasema but instantly choking, upchucking hideous gruesome death. The Spider AKA Richard Wentworth, millionaire playboy and vigillante gets involved in the case up to his eyeballs. Along the way we have "yellow menace" straight out of Fu Man Chu novels. A sexy Chinese doll, who is every bit as dangerous as she is beautiful , and a hypnotized police commissioner. Richard Wentworth's Fiancee is the lovely Nita Van Sloan. She's more than a damsel in distress but most adventures involve her losing or having her clothes removed by bad guys along the way. In this one, she's kidnapped in chapter one. Here is her reappearence in the penultimate chapter. Now THIS is pulp fiction in its purest form and I present this to you as an example of why pulp fiction will never die. What contemporary author could pull this off?
___

“Look Spider”

Slowly Wentworth’s head came up again, heavily swung to the parted curtains. A shudder swept over him. Beyond that curtain were two small alcoves whose fronts were steel bars. Soft Yellow light flooded those cells. In one, a huge furry animal squatted like a man on the floor. It lifted its head and evil red eyes gleamed, lips snarled back from yellow fangs. The beast straightened, rising to its feet so that it stood with hunched formidable shoulders. Arboreal hands clutched the bars, and the fearful strength of the ting made them shake.

“An orangutan, the Mandarin explained softly. “He is easily as powerful as the gorilla and much more human. For instance, they have been known to carry off native women. The women die ultimately, of course, but in the meantime…”

Wentworth’s dull eyes had opened wide with incredulous staring. In the other cell was – Good God! It was Nita! Nita was standing, gripping the bars also. Her lovely body was nearly nude, clad in the filmy garments of a woman of the seraglio. Upon her body, a little jacket that was open its full length barely covers her exquisite breasts. Low on her hips was girdle with a jeweled clasp from it depended a silken skirt of such extraordinary weave that it scarcely seemed to exist. It enhanced the subtle curve of her hips, glorified the shapely white columns of her limbs. The glorious chestnut hair hung to her shoulders, and the yellow lights made fiery gleams among its curls. But on her face was such a mingling of joy and pain as would tear the heart. Her red lips were tremulous. She reached supplicant hands between the bars, her warm round arms petitioning.
__
If that is not compelling and exceptionally erotic writing (for the time) then I have no idea what is. It is passages like the one above that cause me to read almost exclusively vintage pulp fiction. Today's stylists just don't grab me in the same way as guys and gals who were churning stuff out at half a cent a word. It is also such a great passage I thought that everyone could benefit by reading it. How does your writing stand up in comparison to that?

 

[StillStunned]

The Countesses of Tannensdal isn't intended as pulp - it's a Gothic/Ruritanian hybrid - but I've always liked this scene:

===
The Countess's chambers were large, seemingly covering the entire floor of the tower. Windows let in the light from the setting sun in the west, and provided views out across Tannensdal on two other sides. In the fourth wall a fire blazed below a wide mantle, sending scurrying the autumn chill that had dared to creep in as the sun departed.

Rich rugs covered much of the floor that wasn't occupied by the dressing table, the divan with a low table and the vast bed. Precious metals gleamed on ornaments and candlesticks, and the carved wooden ceiling was enhanced with a pattern in traces of gold.

All this I took in in an instant, and then my eyes fell on Ilira, and stayed there. She was clad only in a gown of gossamer, hanging open to reveal the splendid curves of her body. Pale pink nipples topped her full breasts, visible through the thin material like peering eyes. Below, beneath the soft roundness of her belly, a patch of golden hair gleamed on her mound, with a hint of pinkness showing below.

She was also looking at me from inside the large standing mirror as she undid the last of her braids and shook her blood-red hair so that it fell loose over her shoulders.

Smiling seductively, she gestured towards the divan, then turned away. Searching, I saw that the mirror showed a perfect reflection of the room, but Merri and I were invisible. Instead, besides Ilira, I saw Von Raszen, stretched out on the bed, naked but for his undergarments. His eyes were fixed on Ilira.

She swayed towards the bed, her movements reminding me of the great tigers I had seen in India: their eyes on their prey, certain of their mastery, certain of the kill. The gown slid from her shoulders as she walked, revealing shapely round buttocks that had me sitting forward on the divan.

I became aware of hands on my shoulders. Merri had moved to stand beside me and her fingers massaged me through the material of my shirt. Without tearing my gaze from the mirror, I felt her bend down and flick at my ear with her tongue.

Von Raszen's face was a mixture of conflicting emotions. Lust was there, and an adoration that could not have been feigned. But there was fear too, as his eyes followed Ilira's prowl across the carpet, the resemblance to a great cat becoming stronger with every step.

===

 

[ElectricBlue]

I dunno, it's not that hard:

For five years Nymue lived in the Isle of Glas and was taught by the sisterhood there. They taught her mysteries of the Goddess and her long lines of song down through the ages, the lines and curves of her country, the sacred places, her holy wells. Nymue, who was blooded in water risen wrong and foul, grasped immediately the cleansing power of tumbling waters and fast streams, high mountains and clean rain. Her favourite art was learned from the fish and the bird, the creatures with scales slipped in silver and wings that soared.

She especially loved the little egret with its wings of purity and white, for it was the first rising of those birds that warned her of the terrible sea. When the trance was upon her from smoke and mushroom and song, Nymue soared high with the birds, and they were her totem, feathers and white.

The shock of the five waves and the bringing of her blood had drained the colour from Nymue's hair, and ever after it was white, the longest whitest white. "She is marked," said her mother, "forever marked." Her whiteness marked her, and Nymue was different now.

The women from Glas also taught Nymue the new Christ and the Holy Mother, that she might know shifts in allegiance led by priests from Rome, ascetics and monks who grew afraid of women and their magick. Some were hermits and holy, not so lost to the older ways, who still knew the cry of the fox and the creak of the tree and the old stone rings.

Other men were less wise, wrapping themselves in purple cloth and red wine, calling it blood, building crosses and chapels from new stone. Nymue, who knew blood, quickly learned this falseness. She watched the way the holy men looked at her, and she turned from them, full knowing where her power lay. She walked away, dragging their eyes behind her, holding her head high; and her hips swayed.

Nyneve, Vivyane's elder sister and Nymue's aunt, watched the girl as she grew from a child into a young woman, and saw her solitude and inner strength. "She will be a powerful one, the spirit moves within her and she has seen the Goddess," Nyneve counselled, and the two older women wondered how best to guide the girl. "She is young, only nineteen years, but nearly ready, I think, for the ceremony of the midsummer sun."

Vivyane looked closely at her sister. "Do you think so, truly? So soon?"

 

[Winter_Fare]

I dunno, it's not that hard:

Where's that from please?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

How does your writing stand up in comparison to that?

I think that my stuff stands up quite well. In particular, that passage, Stunned's and to a bit lesser extent EB's as well, make extensive use of detailed description of which so many writers here so adamantly claim is a big boring no-no. I disagree with that. Specifically with these scenes, we are describing a person - an alluring female to be precise. Maybe you guys can answer this better than I but when you open a stunning nude centerfold, do you whine that her hair isn't the right color or her breasts aren't the right size? This brings me to the argument that too much description spoils the image already in the reader's head. Comparing a written image to a visual image, if you take a peek into the amateur selfie forum here in lit, no one complains that the pictures don't look right, it's just 1000 dudes saying "yummmm!" Yet, when we read a story we get "too much detailed description ruined my image". It's a double standard.

I describe details all the time (although I don't always drop it all into one paragraph, often breaking it up and giving bits as the scene goes). It's essential. There's a person in my mind and I am trying to show the reader that person, not to guess what person the reader has in mind. If the reader wants a specific person, they can write their own story.

She undid the sash of her black robe and it fell open, showing him a strip of milky flesh down the middle of her chest to the dark wild bramble in her crotch, above which was more paint like that on her hands, a four-petalled blossom in dark red. She watched him breathe her in from top to bottom and then back to top and her grin widened. She backed the few steps to the doorway to her bed and stood silently beckoning.

"What are you doing?" he insisted, agitation growing in his voice. His flesh began to mildly redden as he stepped forward. "We cannot stay. We shall burn like tinder!"

She gave him a look of mock inquisition, then simply pushed the robe back from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor in a heap at her bare feet. With both hands resting on the edges of the door frame, she posed. Under each of her arms were tangled boskages as unruly as her dark bush below. His chest heaved as he drank her in, her dark eyes enticing him, her black hair shiny and unkempt falling past her collar to trace upon her bosom, the soft handfuls giving subtle shape to her bust with dusky pink nipples budding and pointing apart, above a slender waist leading to subtly flaring hips giving her a modest hour glass shape that fed his compulsion.

She rose from her seat at the shuttered window and stood at the ready. Her often unruly curls, the color of pine cones, had been tamed and set, then pulled back and pinned with loose tendrils framing her high cheekbones, full soft lips and eyes of wet hazel. Her dress (provided by the good Baron) was a subtle lavender with small purple diamonds dobbied into the weave. The mulberry lacing of the bodice pushed a swell into her modest bust above the square neckline embroidered by the same pattern that adorned the exaggerated trumpet cuffs from which her fine hands extended.

The Baron bade the warrior enter first, on a weary stride and in battle gear it seemed, chafed and hacked, scruffed-faced and with dark hair disheveled from the elements. Even in his armor he appeared lean. Greta had expected a sturdier man more like her father's own knights or the top men-at-arms of the local militias whom they commanded, but it mattered not. She was told that he was more of a facilitator of arms albeit a rather hands-on one, and she herself was not at all so put together when she arrived at Trondheim, a rain-soaked ragged mess indeed. Either way, she felt somewhat overdressed. She breathed in, putting a rise in the soft creamy flesh of her scant bosom, and lifted her chin forthrightly, a flash in her eyes, part determination and part fear, to step forward as the Baron followed in with introductions.

...

"Most agreeable," she said softly. If he left now to collect her body later he might have changed his mind. Fearing the contract so close-at-hand slipping away, she spoke. "But do not leave so briskly," she said as she stepped closer once more, within a breath's reach. "There is much for plans and estimations forthwith," she hushed. "Half preceeding ... and half following." Then her soft fingers tugged gently at the ribbon of her bodice. "Although I suppose that I could give not half of myself," she blushed solemnly, her chin dipping in modesty. Greta's breast was slight but she would make the most of it. The end of the ribbon popped loose and the tension eased to allow her breasts to shape freely within the fabric.

So much for lunch. She went into the washroom to collect herself. Em's round face looked back at her from the mirror. Her hair hung straight and shiny past her shoulders. Dark cherry red lipstick, almost black around the edges and subtly fading to the natural reddish pink of her lips where they came together, contrasted sharply with her pale skin. She reached into her purse for the tube to touch them up. Silvery blue eye shadow flared around her ice blue eyes thickly lined with black mascara. She wore a small silver hoop in the left side of her button nose and flicking her hair back she revealed three sets of earrings, one-inch silver hoops in the bottoms, little dangly crosses just above and small studs in the tops of the lobes. Straightening out her hoodie and re-zipping it halfway over her Sirenia t-shirt, she pulled it down over the studded belt that held her tight black jeans. Nothing was leather, not even the belt. Her shoes were black canvas high tops. With hips perhaps wider than her chest, she was short and fairly curvy, not skinny nor chubby. Putting her purse back in order she wrapped her coat about herself without fastening. She loved her longcoat and went almost everywhere in it. It was black and past her knees with an overlapping front and fastened with buckles down her left side. No one else had a coat like this. It was her protective armor.

And one for the ladies.

That was when I saw him. As I looked to Heidi, over her shoulder was a portrait artist. He sat on a small backless chair and a few feet in front of him was a couple on their own little stool. The girl sat across her lover's lap and they had their arms around each other. The image was sweet but they were boring. The artist was captivating. He held some sort of clipboard by the top and anchored the bottom in his lap as his drawing arm moved with fluid efficiency to shape their likeness.

His hair was dark, not curly not straight, just thick tufts with sunglasses perched atop his head holding them back from his eyes. His brow was focused and the corner of his mouth held a confident hint of a smile. Behind him was an umbrella tent with displays of portraits in vivid colors. He wore a shirt loose and open half-buttoned and hanging off of his body. His skin was smooth and olive-toned, just a shade lighter than the plain tan brown of his shirt. His jaw was tapered and handsome and his lips were full and pretty. He looked up and saw me. I blushed. He smiled.

 

[MillieDynamite]

From the opening Chapter of Varney the Vampire.

There is an antique chamber in an ancient house. Curious and quaint carvings adorn the walls, and the large chimney-piece is a curiosity of itself. The ceiling is low, and a large bay window, from roof to floor, looks to the west. The window is latticed, and filled with curiously painted glass and rich stained pieces, which send in a strange, yet beautiful light, when sun or moon shines into the apartment. There is but one portrait in that room, although the walls seem panelled for the express purpose of containing a series of pictures. That portrait is of a young man, with a pale face, a stately brow, and a strange expression about the eyes, which no one cared to look on twice.

There is a stately bed in that chamber, of carved walnut-wood is it made, rich in design and elaborate in execution; one of those works of art which owe their existence to the Elizabethan era. It is hung with heavy silken and damask furnishing; nodding feathers are at its corners—covered with dust are they, and they lend a funereal aspect to the room. The floor is of polished oak.
God! how the hail dashes on the old bay window! Like an occasional discharge of mimic musketry, it comes clashing, beating, and cracking upon the small panes; but they resist it—their small size saves them; the wind, the hail, the rain, expend their fury in vain.

The bed in that old chamber is occupied. A creature formed in all fashions of loveliness lies in a half sleep upon that ancient couch—a girl young and beautiful as a spring morning. Her long hair has escaped from its confinement and streams over the blackened coverings of the bedstead; she has been restless in her sleep, for the clothing of the bed is in much confusion. One arm is over her head, the other hangs nearly off the side of the bed near to which she lies. A neck and bosom that would have formed a study for the rarest sculptor that ever Providence gave genius to, were half disclosed. She moaned slightly in her sleep, and once or twice the lips moved as if in prayer—at least one might judge so, for the name of Him who suffered for all came once faintly from them.

She has endured much fatigue, and the storm does not awaken her; but it can disturb the slumbers it does not possess the power to destroy entirely. The turmoil of the elements wakes the senses, although it cannot entirely break the repose they have lapsed into.

Oh, what a world of witchery was in that mouth, slightly parted, and exhibiting within the pearly teeth that glistened even in the faint light that came from that bay window. How sweetly the long silken eyelashes lay upon the cheek. Now she moves, and one shoulder is entirely visible—whiter, fairer than the spotless clothing of the bed on which she lies, is the smooth skin of that fair creature, just budding into womanhood, and in that transition state which presents to us all the charms of the girl—almost of the child, with the more matured beauty and gentleness of advancing years.

Was that lightning? Yes—an awful, vivid, terrifying flash—then a roaring peal of thunder, as if a thousand mountains were rolling one over the other in the blue vault of Heaven! Who sleeps now in that ancient city? Not one living soul. The dread trumpet of eternity could not more effectually have awakened any one.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Where's that from please?

The Dark Chronicles

My take on the Arthurian myth - twelve chapters.