Razorfist Presents The Shadowcast 3: 'LINGO' and 'DEATH TO THE SHADOW'

It took a while, but here's episode 3. Have a good weekend, folks.

Here's a takeaway: Gibson writes a lot of these stories as crime stories where the bad guys win on the first draft. Then in the rewrite he inserts The Shadow to ruin their day at critical moments. Remember that he's writing two novels a month, so we're talking levels of Pulp Speed most people today can't even fathom to exist. It's a hell of a way to figure out how to structure your writing process for maximum efficiency; Gibson had a background covering real crime stories, in addition to his stage magician history, so using the mindset of the latter to inform the narrative work of the former had to come naturally.

This, folks, is "Write what you know" done right. He took what knew in terms of subject matter (crime) and acumen (magic), applied his technical skills (writing), and churned out one satisfying thriller after the next for years on end- two a month! And he did it on a manual typewriter, in a day when "doing research" meant hoofing it to wherever that information rested- libraries, archives, subjects, etc. when you couldn't get someone on an analog landline phonecall to do it for you.

Think on that, fellow writers. Think on that prepare-to-write structure, especially if you aspire to Pulp Speed.