Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36227
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36227
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think you mean "filler," not pulp. In fiction "pulp fiction" meant stuff printed on very cheap paper, and by implication "cheap" both in writing and production values.

Filler is anything that could be cut completely without having any influence on the plot or characters, then or later. It doesn't tell the audience anything new, it doesn't change what the characters do later, it doesn't have any emotional impact on them.

**Stupid** is whatever makes no sense in the story. A character knows something they should not know, or mysteriously forgets something they should not have forgotten. Or learns something by some insane coincidence or just plain luck, or because another character does something insanely stupid (like plan a murder over the phone in the stall of a public restroom where other people could hear her). Or extremely unlikely things happen in order to advance the plot; the fifth person to get hit in the head and have amnesia in a soap opera.

Stories can be about all sorts of crazy things; time travel and intergalactic travel and magic. But the audience will only tolerate it if this is introduced early in the story, NEW crazy things that happen just look stupid, like the author wrote themselves into a corner so they punted.

This is particularly prevalent on long-running series; most of them are planned only a few episodes in advance (or none), so it is easy to write yourself into a corner: But the schedule is relentless and the show must go on, so suck it up, write a deus ex machina and get it over with.

Original score: 4