A Writer at Work

A writer at work. The CBS Radio Workshop dedicated to man's imagination, the theatre of the mind. Tonight an inquiry into the way a writer works.

This is Jan Miner. I'm an actress. My work is to speak the lines written by writers, to give expression to their thoughts, to live for the moment, the parts they create. Yet I don't know any more than most people do about the way a writer has furnished me with what I say.

And as many of you may have wondered, I've asked myself, how does a writer work? Where and how does he get his ideas? What is the so-called creative process? Is it entirely by inspiration? Or can creativity be induced?

All this is what the workshop investigates tonight. And writer Hector Chevinney has been asked to be the subject. Well, he should be able to satisfy our curiosity having been a professional writer for 28 years.

During his long and successful career, Mr. Chevinney has published five books, one a literary prize winner, and some 30 short stories and articles. He has also written for motion pictures and for radio and television, has written more than a thousand plays.

What the workshop will do tonight will be to show this writer actually at work through tape recording. Then the finished script, the result of his work, will be produced. Here is Mr. Chavinie in a brief preliminary interview.

I'm willing to take part in this thing tonight, providing no one concludes that I believe that I'm a typical writer. There are no typical writers. Writers are highly individualistic, and tend to very sharply in temperament and character. But there's one thing that they all do and that is work and work hard, the successful ones that is. They don't sit around