{"id":916,"date":"2010-09-02T08:36:06","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T15:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepulp.net\/PulpBlogs\/YellowedPerils\/?p=916"},"modified":"2014-01-29T15:12:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T20:12:10","slug":"donovan%e2%80%99s-first-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/2010\/09\/02\/donovan%e2%80%99s-first-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Donovan\u2019s first fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pulpster
Pulpster Laurence Donovan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In sort of a backwards move, fictioneer Laurence Donovan<\/strong>\u2019s first known piece of fiction appeared in a \u201cslick\u201d magazine about three years before his next known fiction work was published in a pulp.<\/p>\n

A short\u2013short by Donovan, \u201cThe Old Copy Desk,\u201d was published in the \u201cShort Turns and Encores\u201d page of the Oct. 17, 1925, issue of The Saturday Evening Post<\/em>. It\u2019s a vignette drawn from Donovan\u2019s experiences as a newspaper editor. (And even \u2013 maybe, especially \u2013 today, it still rings true for copy editors.)<\/p>\n

Read it for yourself:<\/p>\n

\n

The Old Copy Desk<\/h4>\n

SCENE \u2014 Copy desk of a daily newspaper in a state metropolis.<\/p>\n

TIME \u2014 All day.<\/p>\n

OLD COPYREADER: Here\u2019s this report of the two\u2013hundred\u2013and\u2013fifty\u2013million surplus in the U.S. Treasury. Good Page One stuff, eh?<\/p>\n

NEWS EDITOR: Naw! Ditch it. Mark it editorial page. Put a one\u2013column head on it. Nobody reads the editorial page anyway. Here, gimme an eight\u2013column banner an\u2019 a two\u2013column head on this flapper\u2013bandit story from V\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013.<\/p>\n

O.C.R. (thirty minutes later)<\/em>: How about this Coolidge speech? Gonna play it? Gotta good line in it on cooperation between the European nations.<\/p>\n

N.E.: What\u2019s eatin\u2019 you? Cut it to a hun\u2019erd words an\u2019 slop it for a one\u2013line head inside. Didja forget to send up the synopsis for the radio vamp? Composin\u2019 room\u2019s yellin\u2019 for it.<\/p>\n

O.C.R. (thirty minutes later)<\/em>: Whatcha doin\u2019 with this professor\u2019s report on conservation? Means a thousand new settlers in Duwamish Valley. Playin\u2019 it?<\/p>\n

N.E.: Hey! Shove that monkey story along with a top head. Slug it Page One \u2014 send it up in takes. Hold that professor\u2019s junk for time copy. Maybe it\u2019ll make a filler for the early tomorrow.<\/p>\n

O.C.R. (thirty minutes later)<\/em>: Maybe there\u2019s a regular story in this market report. Best crop in years in the Inland Empire. Oughta be a play in it. Lot of good figures in it. How about it?<\/p>\n

N.E.: Can that stuff an\u2019 grab the phone on this bank holdup. Gotta make the first street with it. Nev\u2019 mind about that other. It\u2019ll go in the hold\u2013over anyway.<\/p>\n

O.C.R. (thirty minutes later)<\/em>: This new railroad yarn\u2019ll be a good line for the Mazama Range folks. Hadn\u2019t we oughta keep that outside \u2014 huh?<\/p>\n

N.E.: Nothin\u2019 doin\u2019. Push that church fight head along. Gimme two\u2013column drop. Take that car smash next.<\/p>\n

O.C.R. (thirty minutes later)<\/em>: Human\u2013interest angle in this old\u2013woman story. Been workin\u2019 years to put her boy through school, and he\u2019s honored at that scientists\u2019 meeting today. Wanna freak it up?<\/p>\n

N.E.: You\u2019ve been gettin\u2019 barmier an\u2019 barmier all day. You\u2019ll be retired on a pension, film\u2019 an\u2019 clippin\u2019 exchanges, first thing you know. Jazz up that bootleggin\u2019 yarn a little. Get some pep in the top o\u2019 the head.<\/p>\n

And so on to the end of another copy\u2013desk day.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Laurence Donovan<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Donovan\u2019s first known pulp story, \u201cMad Mystery Mine,\u201d showed up in the September 1928 number of Mystery Stories<\/em>. His pulp career took off, resulting in dozens of sales to a variety of pulps, including The Phantom Detective, Pete Rice Magazine, Air War, Detective Fiction Weekly<\/em> and Speed Western Stories<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He contributed nine Doc Savage<\/em> adventures, plus the title novels in The Skipper<\/em> and a number of The Whisperer<\/em>.\u00a0Then his output slowed in the 1940s, until his death sometime around 1950.<\/p>\n

Though he may never have made the jump from pulps to slicks, he certainly jumped the other direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In sort of a backwards move, fictioneer Laurence Donovan\u2019s first known piece of fiction appeared in a \u201cslick\u201d magazine about three years before his next known fiction work was published in a pulp. A short\u2013short by Donovan, \u201cThe Old Copy Desk,\u201d was published in the \u201cShort Turns and Encores\u201d page of the Oct. 17, 1925, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[9,10,12],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","category-publications","category-pulpsters"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2qgXO-eM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3225,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions\/3225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}