Sat.-1 had not meant to say any more in this
con- troversy, but Miss Delves-Broughton's thoughtful letter has raised some points that I should like to answer, if you will bear with me once more.
It is true that, while I have not found the 'happy- ending' rule unbreakable, there are certain conven- tions which the writer in this field has to accept, as the Victorian novelists had to accept their readers' taste for sentiment and contrived pkgs. This didn't. Stop Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray from writing great novels. Within the permitted formal framework of the `pop' story, it is certainly possible for the Writer with sufficient talent to say something worth While, and say it well. Moreover, the presence of such writers in this field has, over the last few years, pro- duced a noticeable widening of the permitted limits already.
Miss Delves-Broughton appears to misunderstand the function of women's magazines when she com- Plains that such issues as the H-bomb are rarely if ever mentioned in their pages. I agree with her com- Pletely on the urgency of the nuclear debate; but I should not expect to find it discussed in a magazine with the primary purpose of entertainment, any more than I should expect to find a good short story in a serious newspaper. Nor should I think a story 'super-' flcial and unreal' because it dealt with the private Problems of an individual rather than the public ones of society.
All 'pop' fiction does not deal only with sex. Much of it deals also with children, money, illness, social insecurity, comic or tragic accidents, and so on. All the same, 1 do think that most women's (probably Most men's too) strongest emotions stem from their sexual instincts, and that any writer, who tried to ignore this would certainty produce something superficial and unreal.
Finally, I would agree that many 'pop' stories are bad. This is precisely why. good writers ought to start writing them. If they stay out of the field, it is left in the hands of the tripe-merchants and tired old hacks like me.—Yours faithfully,
HOWARD WYCE
4 Cornwall Mansions. Cretnorne Road, SW 10
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