DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Variant, v. 1, issue 3, September 1947

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Variant, v. 1, issue 3, September 1947

Page 19

creates only material that he is reasonably certain of selling, and once he writes a story he never ceases the effort to sell it. The man who writes for pleasure consults only his own desires, he has a story that he simply has to imprison on paper. He may not even try to sell it, and all too often when he does try he is unable to have it published. Ten, twenty years after he writes it he digs it out, reads it, admits that it is a good tale but doubts its sales value, carefully puts it back into his collection of the unborn.
It is interesting to recall the comments of various editors in regard to rejections. Some of the best editors explain that the story is just too beautiful. They go on to say that the style closely resembles that of Lord Dusaney and then go on to explain that the average reader of their magazine would neither understand or appreciate it and so they cannot buy it. Several of my best tales were rejected because of some fancied sexual content in spite of the lurid seminude females that adorn the covers of the magazines. This happened to one of my stories, "The Question", which was printed after American rejection in Les Premieres and won high praise from Regis Messac.
One of my very recent rejects really thrilled me. The Editor wrote me that it was a powerful tale with a fine ending, but simply too horrible for their readers, who could stand just so much horror and no more. This story is called Heredity, and I consider the reason for its rejection puts me in a very limited group of authors. I wanted it printed and it will probably appear this year in the fan magazine VORTEX. If printed we can at least test the capacity of the average fan to withstand the shock of horror.
It is interesting to find the same reaction from editors that the general public has always shown to me. They either like me intensely or they hate me cordially. There seems to be no middle ground. One editor has stated frequently that he will never print anything by Keller. Obviously it is useless to submit anything to him as he would mail it back as soon as he saw who wrote it, without even giving it the most casual survey. Another editor wants Taine stories but the locale must be in the United States, so a very good Taine story remains unpublished because the hero went to Arabia.
It appears that some writers are successful from the first. They are able to write successfully from the beginning. With me there was a long period of literary training. From 1895 to 1927, in which year I sold my first story, "The Revolt of the Pedestrians", I wrote over 5000 pages of stories, long and short, without making any great effort to sell a single page. There seemed to be much to write about, but at no time was I certain of that peculiar literary attribute called style, and I can see now that I was more interested in duplicating the form of men like Dusaney, Ike Marvel and Cabell than in developing anything individualistic. But these years of training gave me an ability to develop several various forms of expression. I found that I could change style to harmonize with the story, and I was so successful that many of my short stories, and even my  novels could be published under a pen name and few, if any, of my constant readers could identify them as being written by Keller.
During the last month I have card indexes all my unpublished writings and reviewed them in an effort to determine just why they have remained unborn, and whether it is worth the effort to hade[[?]] any of them printed. At a convenient form for your consideration, I am going to separate them into literary types.

(19)

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creates only material that he is reasonably certain of selling, and once he writes a story he never ceases the effort to sell it. The man who writes for pleasure consults only his own desires, he has a story that he simply has to imprison on paper. He may not even try to sell it, and all too often when he does try he is unable to have it published. Ten, twenty years after he writes it he digs it out, reads it, admits that it is a good tale but doubts its sales value, carefully puts it back into his collection of the unborn. It is interesting to recall the comments of various editors in regard to rejections. Some of the best editors explain that the story is just too beautiful. They go on to say that the style closely resembles that of Lord Dusaney and then go on to explain that the average reader of their magazine would neither understand or appreciate it and so they cannot buy it. Several of my best tales were rejected because of some fancied sexual content in spite of the lurid seminude females that adorn the covers of the magazines. This happened to one of my stories, "The Question", which was printed after American rejection in Les Premieres and won high praise from Regis Messac. One of my very recent rejects really thrilled me. The Editor wrote me that it was a powerful tale with a fine ending, but simply too horrible for their readers, who could stand just so much horror and no more. This story is called Heredity, and I consider the reason for its rejection puts me in a very limited group of authors. I wanted it printed and it will probably appear this year in the fan magazine VORTEX. If printed we can at least test the capacity of the average fan to withstand the shock of horror. It is interesting to find the same reaction from editors that the general public has always shown to me. They either like me intensely or they hate me cordially. There seems to be no middle ground. One editor has stated frequently that he will never print anything by Keller. Obviously it is useless to submit anything to him as he would mail it back as soon as he saw who wrote it, without even giving it the most casual survey. Another editor wants Taine stories but the locale must be in the United States, so a very good Taine story remains unpublished because the hero went to Arabia. It appears that some writers are successful from the first. They are able to write successfully from the beginning. With me there was a long period of literary training. From 1895 to 1927, in which year I sold my first story, "The Revolt of the Pedestrians", I wrote over 5000 pages of stories, long and short, without making any great effort to sell a single page. There seemed to be much to write about, but at no time was I certain of that peculiar literary attribute called style, and I can see now that I was more interested in duplicating the form of men like Dusaney, Ike Marvel and Cabell than in developing anything individualistic. But these years of training gave me an ability to develop several various forms of expression. I found that I could change style to harmonize with the story, and I was so successful that many of my short stories, and even my novels could be published under a pen name and few, if any, of my constant readers could identify them as being written by Keller. During the last month I have card indexes all my unpublished writings and reviewed them in an effort to determine just why they have remained unborn, and whether it is worth the effort to hade[[?]] any of them printed. At a convenient form for your consideration, I am going to separate them into literary types. (19)