Of Alonzo Deen Cole's submissions to Weird Tales, Sam Moskowitz said the following:
In 1936, the radio program "The Witch's Tale" was on every week and popular. The speedy failure of the magazine must be attributed to poor quality and inadequate distribution. It is possible that in the 1930's, Alonzo Deen Cole did approach Weird Tales magazine and they found his stories much inferior to those they were running and would not take them.
The program was taken off the air in 1938 and Cole, finding that Weird Tales was under new ownership, tried again. He offered them the first story for nothing if they would give his notion of running adaptations from his radio programs a trial. They agreed. They announced with a special two thirds of a page advertisement the appearance in the forthcoming November, 1941 issue of "The Spirits of the Lake." Then they featured it on the cover of that issue, "A Witch's Tale, specially adapted from the famous radio program by Alonzo Deen Cole."
In printing the second story Weird Tales made no prior announcement, nor was the story featured on the cover. It may be presumed the experiment was unsuccessful. The main problem with the stories was they read like what they were, radio scripts converted into fiction. In a radio script, confined to thirty minutes on the air, the material must move directly and with a minimum of background to carry the plot line. The narrative stroke must be easily and instantly comprehensible. These elements do not always make for the best fiction, which desirably has elements of characterization, atmosphere and subtlety to enrich the plot.
In 1936, the radio program "The Witch's Tale" was on every week and popular. The speedy failure of the magazine must be attributed to poor quality and inadequate distribution. It is possible that in the 1930's, Alonzo Deen Cole did approach Weird Tales magazine and they found his stories much inferior to those they were running and would not take them.
The program was taken off the air in 1938 and Cole, finding that Weird Tales was under new ownership, tried again. He offered them the first story for nothing if they would give his notion of running adaptations from his radio programs a trial. They agreed. They announced with a special two thirds of a page advertisement the appearance in the forthcoming November, 1941 issue of "The Spirits of the Lake." Then they featured it on the cover of that issue, "A Witch's Tale, specially adapted from the famous radio program by Alonzo Deen Cole."
In printing the second story Weird Tales made no prior announcement, nor was the story featured on the cover. It may be presumed the experiment was unsuccessful. The main problem with the stories was they read like what they were, radio scripts converted into fiction. In a radio script, confined to thirty minutes on the air, the material must move directly and with a minimum of background to carry the plot line. The narrative stroke must be easily and instantly comprehensible. These elements do not always make for the best fiction, which desirably has elements of characterization, atmosphere and subtlety to enrich the plot.
No comments:
Post a Comment