SOURCE: "Telling the Story: Susan Hill and Dorothy L. Sayers," in British Radio Drama, edited by John Drakakis, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 111-38.

In the essay below, Low discusses the connection between Hill's fiction and her radio dramas, emphasizing the role of dialogue and the spoken word in her narrative style in both genres.

When we go to Heaven, all I ask is that we shall be given some interesting job & allowed to get on with it. No management; no box-office; no dramatic critics; & an audience of cheerful angels who don't mind laughing. (Dorothy L. Sayers to Val Gielgud, 13 January 1942)

Radio is as rich a story-telling medium as any in the twentieth century. Given its appeal to the ear through speech—and also by means of music, silence, and sound—this is easy to understand. The novel and short story developed largely as forms for the printed word...