author
William Wallace Cook
1867–1933
A prolific maker of popular fiction, this American writer turned out westerns, adventure tales, dime novels, plays, and early science fiction with remarkable speed. He is also remembered for writing guides on storytelling that later fascinated generations of writers.
2 Audiobooks
The Fiction Factory Being the experience of a writer who, for twenty-two years, has kept a story-mill grinding successfully
by William Wallace Cook
Adrift in the Unknown; or, Queer Adventures in a Queer Realm
by William Wallace Cook
About the author
Born in Marshall, Michigan, on April 11, 1867, he built a career as a journalist and a hugely productive writer of popular entertainment. His work appeared in many forms, including westerns, adventure stories, dime novels, serial fiction, and screen and stage plays, and some of it was published under the pen name John Milton Edwards.
He is especially notable today for the sheer range of his output and for his influence on writers interested in plot construction. Alongside his fiction, he wrote books about the craft of storytelling, including Plotto and The Fiction Factory, works that kept his name alive well beyond the pulp era.
He died in Marshall on July 20, 1933. Although much of his writing was created for mass audiences of his own time, his career still offers a vivid picture of how energetic and wide-ranging popular fiction could be in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.