The ultimate guide to the Lester Dent Formula

Lester Dent is widely considered a master of the pulp fiction format. He's known best for his Doc Savage novel series, and his 'Master Fiction Plot' formula – which is particularly useful for writing well-paced short stories of around 6000 words.

As summarized by sci-fi and fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, Dent's master plot formula requires that you:

"Split your six-thousand-word story up into four fifteen hundred word parts. Part one, hit your hero with a heap of trouble. Part two, double it. Part three, put him in so much trouble there's no way he could ever possibly get out of it... All your main characters have to be in the first third. All your main themes and everything else has to be established in the first third, developed in the second third, and resolved in the last third."

We're going to dive in to this plot structure in greater detail, with a step-by-step overview of the beats you need to hit in your short story. Think of it as the pulp fiction short story template of your dreams. Let's go →

Before you start writing

Every scrivener, scribe or storyteller will tell you the same thing: before you start writing any story, you need to have a solid handle on your genre conventions. Pulp fiction has a very specific ''texture", and readers will expect you to nail it.

Conventions of the pulp fiction genre

If your aim is to write a genuine pulp fiction story, you should ensure that it also includes the following elements:

• An unusual murder method
• Something that the villain is looking for
• A unique/unusual location
• A menace hanging over the hero (or an internal conflict)

A genuine sense of menace, suspense, plot twists, and physical conflict are all hallmarks of the pulp genre – so prepare to wield each of these.

The master plot template

Part 1:  A heap of trouble

First 1,500 Words

You don't have a lot of words, so you want to skip deep exposition and drop your hero right into the rising action. Your story should start with your hero in trouble (but not in crisis), and things are about to get much, much worse for them. Here's a great tip: Imagine that your inciting incident happened just before your story started, and your hero is already in the thick of things.

• First line: Introduce your hero and the trouble they are in right in the first line of the story. Don't waste time.
• First paragraph: Expand slightly on the tricky situation your hero finds themself in and hint at the problem they will have to solve by the end of the story.
• Jump into action: Have your hero grapple with the problem head on right from the beginning of the story. They must work to solve it from the get go.
• Bring in allies and counterparts: Introduce the other characters and have them actively engage with the hero and the problem as well.
• Altercation 1: Near the end of Part 1, the hero must enter into a physical conflict. This is necessary to escalate events into Part 2.
• Achieve something: Your hero must achieve something by the end of this section. They release a captive, they discover a piece of the treasure, they uncover a clue.
• Plot twist 1: In keeping with the pulp genre, it's important to end Part 1 with a surprise twist: something/someone is not what it seems.

Part 2: Double the trouble

Second 1,500 Words

In Part 2, you take the tension and stakes you created in Part 1 and double them. Your hero should be struggling to deal with the burden being placed on them.

• Up the tension: You can do this in a few ways. Have the villain commit another crime. Have your hero make a mistake. Introduce a time-limit on solving the problem.
• Struggling to cope: Show your hero unsuccessfully grappling with the heightened pressure.
• Minor surprises: Add to the mystery by including small surprises in this section. A door bangs closed. A sudden gust of wind knocks a picture off the wall. A barking dog goes eerily silent. Why?
• Altercation 2: Your hero gets in another physical fight. Try to make it different from the first one (a new foe, different weapons, a challenging location). Keep it interesting!
• Plot twist 2: End on another twist – yet another thing is not as it seems.

By 2000 words you should have introduced all your main characters and established all the main elements of your story. Nothing pivotal to the story should be introduced after this point – your hero should already have the scaffold they need to solve the central mystery.

Part 3: No way out

Third 1,500 Words

Going into this section, you should initially pile on the pain, and then offer some relief by providing a glimmer of hope. Ultimately, this will turn out to be a false high for your hero. Stakes must continue to rise through the mounting action of this section.

• Ratchet the tension way up: Things are going from bad to worse now. The time-limit is looming. The villain is escalating their efforts.  
• A glimmer of hope: Your hero makes some progress. They are getting closer to the villain/the solving the problem.
• Altercation 3: The glimmer of hope leads to a third physical conflict (perhaps directly with the villain. rather than one of their minions).
• Plot twist 2: The third plot twist must be very, very bad for your hero. They should end the section feeling like all is lost. They are in an impossible situation. They don't see a way out.  

By around 4000 words you should have developed all your main characters and your hero should have everything they need to overcome the villain (even if they don't realise this yet).

Part 4: Escape and resolution

Final 1,500 Words

In the final section of your story, you take your hero to their lowest point, and then neatly resolve the mystery and return your hero to a sense of normalcy (or whatever counts as normalcy for them 😉).

• Last straw: Your hero is already miserable, but now is the time to kick 'em while they're down. Open the trash chute above their head.
• Escape: Your hero uses their specialist skills to escape a desperate situation and to defeat the villain. Perhaps they also demonstrate a character transformation.
• Loose ends: Tie up all remaining mysteries.
• Final plot twist: Finish with a final plot twist right at the end (for example: the villain's identity is revealed and they turn out to be someone unexpected, the treasure is fake, the thing they were smuggling is not an item at all but a person, etc).
• Punchline: All pulp fiction stories end with a punchline. The punchline should be clever, snappy, and leave your reader with the warm fuzzies. Take Jule's final monologue in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, as he's trying to avoid killing a pair of robbers:

"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd."