Radio stars (Oct 1938)

RADIO STARS WRITE SO YOUR AUNT SUSANNAH CAN UNDERSTAND YOU {Continued from page 62) revise it, all of which brings up an interesting point. Revising a script is a serious job. I write my instalment as a perfect whole in its relation to the complete story but, in revising it, I must once again check against the possible reaction of its listeners, the actors themselves, and the director. There are, incidentally, two different schools of radio writers. One considers a script a clothes line on which you hang your events one by one until you come to the end of the line. But the second, of which I am a member, says good radio scripts are like a circle of links in a chain. Each link begins a problem which, at the end of the circle, comes back having developed the story. The end of the circle touches the next link and the plot has, subsequently, advanced. I can best illustrate that by a sequence in the Your Family and Mine script. Win, the mother, sees her boy, Ken, playing baseball with the tough Otto Jennings gang. She persuades him to leave the game. At the beginning of the episode, we know Otto is a bad boy who will do Ken no good. But at the end of the script, we realize Otto is more of a menace than we had first supposed — and that, in time, he will prove a threat to the whole family. It is important that anyone writing for radio have a sense of conflict. The conflict can be trivial — whether the family is to have apple or lemon pie for dessert. But the outcome must be uncertain. We all take sides on little and big issues in life. And if you can get your listeners to take sides with your characters, then your listeners will enter into the story themselves. One of the strongest and soundest criticisms of radio scripts is that they are not believable. Is life itself believable? You may go along for years without, in your mind, having an unusual experience. But gather around your tea cups some day, and listen to some one, the center of attraction, rattle off interesting stories. You may go home, think it over, and suddenly realize that there are a maze of incidents associated with yourself that might make good listening — and good reading. Your good radio script should have a sense of adventure, whether concern is aroused by a lost cache of jewels or whether Win, the mother in y our Family and Aline, has cooked a good lamb stew. A writer must, further, have a tremendous sense of selectivity. He must ask himself, over and over again : "Would other people feel that this is true?" As I said before, life itself is unbelievable. There was a poor destitute woman who lived alone with her children on a desolate prairie. The children were sick. Her home was just a shack. She was burned by the sun and wind, but life was never drab. She always had the hope that one day she'd have enough paint to do over the place. That story cannot be written beHevably. I tried it once, after four other novelists tried writing it. We all had to give it up. It was impossible to convince prospective readers that the prairie woman's life was anything but drab. That's an important factor in writing for radio. I analyze each incident, talk it over with my husband and friends, and get their reaction. If it's believable, to their way of thinking, it stays in. My husband, Jimmy, has never before had to contend with what he does today when I write for radio. When I wrote for newspapers, my work was finished as soon as I left the city room. When I wrote novels, I didn't have to work in a concentrated fury. But now. Your Family and Mine is eternally with me, to a point where it's part of everything I do. Lately, for instance, Judy, my heroine, has been seeking romance. And just the other day, I visualized that she would marry. Jimmy and I were having dinner. "Judy is going to be married and have a baby," I said. "What?" asked Jimmy. "Judy who?" And then it dawned on him that I meant Judy in my serial. One question I have not yet answered concerning my radio work is where and how characters are born. In the case of Your Family and Mine, the story of the Wilbur family is partly derived from memories of my own life as a child, from my experiences with other families everywhere as a newspaperwoman, and from my dreams of the family I'd love to have. This brings out the theory I advanced a few paragraphs ago, when I said I write about things which I (Continued on page 90) Do This If You're NERVOUS Help Calm Jumpy Nerves Without Harmful Opiates IF you fly off the handle at little things and at times feel so nervous, cross and jumpy you want to scream — if you have spells of "the blues" and restless nights — Don't take chances on harmful opiates and products you know nothing about. Use common sense. 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