NAEB Newsletter (Sept 1940)

NAEB NEWS. LETTER. . . .SEPT 15, 1940....Page 5 I s 11 grant you that a course Is well to take, but no course in radio writing is in itself sufficient. What do I think is sufficient? First of all, an ability to put words on paper. I*m sure all of you must realize how difficult it is for the average person to do this*. the minute he gets before a typewriter or gets a pencil in his hand he stops thinking. . o and many of our scripts heard on the air.both commercial and educationa sound as if they had never been thought through. First of all, a writer must be able to write 0 ..and good writing is good writing whether it is in a radio script, a radio talk, a newspaper story, a magazine article, a short story or a novel. So let* s get rid of the idea that there*s some hokus-pokus. some mumbo- jumbo abotifc radio writing that sets it off apart... .as a field peculiarly its own. The beginning writer should have one of two approaches to radio writing...either he should b© trained in a good stiff school of journalism; or he should be trainee in a good stiff course in the theatre, literature, drama, creative writing, if you pill permit that somewhat obsolete term. Radio writing is not a beginners course.... we haven*t time to teach writers the fundamentals of English construction; dramatic construction....Radio writing should be a professional course, given in advanced collage or university work. Given a student or individual who is genuinely interested in writing for radio, and who has a sound background in literature, drama, journalism or some other form of popular writing, its a relat¬ ively simple matter to teach him the tricks of radio writing. Ah, but you say, none of us are students,..many of us ere professors of science or literature or some other esoteric subject....we are asked to write radio scripts...talks.... .on our subjects for broadcasting... what are re going to do? !7e must presume that most of us at one time or another had a background in the English language, !7e use it daily in our classes, in our living,, All of us speak. But most of us have forgotten that we no longer speak the vernacular,,.we no longer speak THE language..... too many of us speak our language, Well, you can® t speak "our language * on the radio..... you have to speak the listeners language. And the simplest way to get your talk into the language of the listener is to speak it....„I*m speaking now of talks, those fifteen minute or five minute or ten minute spots that the program director uses to fill in the blanks in his program. ...This is an old suggestion, one that has been made by every speaker who ever spoke on radio vrriting.. .don* t attempt to put your ideas first hand on paper.... think through your subject. supposing it is "Hand Painted Japanese Lanterns"...«there have been worse on the air...•.Think through all you want to say about Japanese Lanterns, organizing, in your mind the salient facte you want to bring out about them. ..where are they used, why are they used, why are they handpainted, where are they made, what relation do they have to your listeners mode of life... tie up with his experience,....when you get this done you have some¬ thing like this...For a lead, starting from the known and proceeding to the unknown.... your talk will sound something like this.... Unless you*re too awfully old, everyone of you can remember the summer church socials, which were held on the lawn of the village Methodist Church.••.Remember, those grand cakes Mrs. Jones used to bake...and did you ever beg your grand¬ mother for just one lick of the ice cream freezer dasher? I*m sure you have, for ice cream socials have long been a