pulp fiction
Cheap sensational stories
Pulp fiction is sensational, lowbrow literature—crime stories, romances, westerns, and science fiction—named for the cheap wood-pulp paper these magazines were printed on from the 1890s through the 1950s.
The term now describes any writing that prioritizes thrills over literary merit: His detective novels are pure pulp fiction, but they're fun. (Capitalized Pulp Fiction is the Quentin Tarantino film.)
Bound periodical with articles
- dime novelCheap sensational paperback
- serializationEncoding objects for transmission
- cheapLow in price
- sensationalArousing intense excitement
detective · adventure · thriller · mystery · romance · fantasy · heroic · escapism
magazine
Bound periodical with articles
- dime novelCheap sensational paperback
- serializationEncoding objects for transmission
- cheapLow in price
sensational · detective · adventure · thriller · mystery · romance · fantasy · heroic · escapism · exploitation
gritty
Coarse or courageous
- rawIn original state
- unpolishedLacking finish or refinement
- seedyRundown and disreputable
sordid · edgy · harsh · unvarnished · coarse · tough · bleak · rough · lurid · sensational
- adventureadventure, quest, quests, exploration, explorers
- genresaction, comedy, fantasy, horror, documentary
- crime fictionmurder mystery, detective novels, detective novel, detective, detective stories
- mystery fictionwhodunit, whodunnit, sleuth, murder mystery, detective novel
- prosenovel, novels, short story, novellas, essay
- entertainment historyvaudeville, silent films, talkies, Hollywood, movie palaces
pulp fictionliterary fiction
Prose emphasizing craft and depth
literary journals · belles-lettres · experimental fiction · literary classics · modernist literature
pulp fictionnon-fiction
Writing about real things
journalism · documentary · reportage · truth · reality
pulp fictionhardcover editions
Books with rigid bindings
deluxe editions · collector's editions · leather-bound books · limited editions · first editions
pulp, fiction, pulpy, fictional, non-fiction, pulps, nonfiction, science fiction, fictionalized