Chapter XVI: Part 16

=William Harper Dean=: I seldom write a finished story in the first person. But (and here's something) did you ever write a story in the first person and then go through it and change it to the third person and inspect the result? I can write a much better story in the first person--a more spontaneous one than in the third. For in the first person I say what I would say under certain circumstances in the plot, feel what I would feel--whereas writing "He thought--," makes me stop and think--now what _would_ he think? And right there you are in danger of inventing instead of interpreting as you should be doing.

=Harris Dickson=: I began writing in the first person. Don't know why I have abandoned it. I do believe, however, a tale in the first person, well told, takes a stronger hold on the imagination. Perhaps because, like every child who asks "Daddy, is it true?" we seem to get an atmosphere of verity from the fellow who says, "This happened to me." For the same reason the teller of anecdotes prefers to lay them on himself, or his friend.

=Captain Dingle=: First person, though it seems unpopular, so I don't indulge often. This way I fall into my characters' boots easier.

=Louis Dodge=: I like to write in the third person chiefly for convenience. The first person must go in at a door; the third may go in at a keyhole or through a wall.

=Phyllis Duganne=: I much prefer writing in the third person. The first person seems to have so many limitations; if the first person is your hero or heroine, there are so many things he can not tell about himself that have to be told in other ways. I don't like to read stories in the first person, as a rule; I don't find them so convincing. This "I" person is always getting in the way of the story. First-person stories are easier to write; I mean that they flow more easily, though I think they are harder to make convincing. I think people usually resent this "I" who thinks he knows so much, and talks at such great length. It makes a story out of it--an unreal thing--while a story in the third person has no one, ever present, to remind you that it's only a tale and may not be true anyway.

=J. Allan Dunn=: I enjoy writing in the first person but do not believe it attracts the majority. It smacks of conceit, for one thing, but if one writes of a character in which one can project one's own thoughts, character, successes, failures, hopes and despair, the intimacy is a stimulus. It has limitations because the hero, if he sees everything, condenses the narrative. And he is only a translator for the other characters. So I prefer the third for sheer craftsmanship. To write a first person narrative through the eyes of a third person, who may be a minor character but a shrewd observer, is one of my preferences.

=Walter A. Dyer=: It all depends. I usually write in the third person, because in that form a character can be handled more freely, but I have written stories in a frame of mind that demanded only the first-person treatment.

=Walter Prichard Eaton=: It is easier to write in the first, because the process of thinking "I" identifies you with the character. Also, it is more dangerous, because the same process identifies the character with you. (This is really quite wise and intelligent.)

=E. O. Foster=: I prefer writing in the third person so as to have as little of my own personality enter into the story as is possible.

=Arthur O. Friel=: No preference. Depends on the story. Some are told more naturally in first person; others in third.

=J. P. Giesy=: The first, I think, since in it I may, as it were, vicariously live the part exactly as the actor lives his part for the time being and consequently enter very nearly into the thing. However, I very frequently choose the third because of the very nature of the subject in hand.

=George Gilbert=: Some stories can only be told in the first; some only in the third person. The story itself decides the person, not the author. If the story is one that can only be told best by one person's having knowledge of all the incidents, the first person becomes permissible, not mandatory. If the story is such that no one person could have had knowledge of all the details without recourse to the receipt of letters, telephone calls, confidences given in such a way as to interrupt the thread of the tale, the story calls for other treatment than first-person telling. The limitation on the first-person story, when the narrator is the hero, is this: It is plain that the narrator lived to tell the story, so no matter what peril he gets into during the tale, the reader must know he survived, unless it is a tale of a manuscript found buried or in family archives, etc. The first-person-narrator story is most effective when the narrator is not the hero, yet some fine tales have been written that violate this rule of mine. In any event, the author must look into his story at the beginning and decide this point. Another author might have an entirely different idea on it, and succeed at a given tale where I would fail using my rule.

=Kenneth Gilbert=: While writing in the first person is the easiest way to tell a story, I prefer the third for the freedom of description it permits. Many stories, however, would fall flat if not written in the first person.

=Holworthy Hall=: Third person. Generally more convincing and less conceited.

=Richard Matthews Hallet=: I have written both ways. The first person makes an easier narrative, but makes it harder to develop a plot. And I find, curiously, by asking the question a great many times and from being criticized myself, that there is among a great body of readers an odd aversion to a story in the first person. I've never heard even the semblance of a reason for it, but no matter, it exists and will certainly work against the popularity of a story in the first person. There is also a considerable group of persons who profess unwillingness to read a story with the faintest touch of dialect in it; in spite of this dialect stories thrive. So do some stories written in the first person.

=William H. Hamby=: Really prefer writing in the first person, but rarely do.

=A. Judson Hanna=: This is a matter governed by circumstances. By far the majority of my published stories have been written in the first person. As a rule, I prefer to write them so because it allows so much freedom of expression and creates an informality between writer and reader that appeals to the reader. It is the personal touch.

=Joseph Mills Hanson=: I prefer to write in the first person because it gives me a sense of more intimate grasp of the motions of the characters and a more vivid realization of the situations. Nevertheless, I have written more often in the third person; perhaps because the former seems, also, egotistic.

=E. E. Harriman=: In the third person, because writing in the first gives a feeling of indecent exposure of the intimate corners in my soul.

=Nevil G. Henshaw=: In short stories I've no particular preference, although I think it a trifle easier to use the first person. In long work I find the first person much the harder, as then a vast number of facts and ideas must be presented from the single point of view. I also find the transition more difficult.

=Joseph Hergesheimer=: Third, for obvious reasons.

=Robert Hichens=: I prefer writing in the third person. I like to tell a story, not to tell about myself. As a rule, I dislike a novel written in the first person and I very much dislike a story told in the form of letters. I scarcely know why.

=R. de S. Horn=: I generally prefer writing in the third person. In this case I can go anywhere, describe anything. I am omnipotent; I can see through walls, read minds, experience emotions unlimited. In the first person I am narrowly proscribed. I can only represent my own emotions and what I can know through the medium of my five senses. The only advantage of the first person is that stories thus told have an air of veracity, of plausibility, that is particularly desirable at times. Furthermore, they can the more strongly enlist the reader's emotions and sympathies.

=Clyde B. Hough=: I prefer to write in the third person. It gives me more scope.

=Emerson Hough=: I don't know--as it chances.

=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: In the third. I feel my own individuality would get in the way if I wrote in the first.

=Inez Haynes Irwin=: I think writing in the first person is infinitely easier than writing in the third because inevitably one _dramatizes_ more when writing in the third person and _describes_ more when writing in the first person. Dramatizing is more difficult than describing. Perhaps that is why I prefer the third person--the other seems too easy. Yet there's an ease about first-person writing, an informality.... It goes swiftly, breezily, directly.

=Will Irwin=: When I began, I liked best to write in the first person. Now I prefer the third. Why, I can not say exactly. Probably because your interests increase with years, and when writing in the first person you have limited yourself to the interests, experiences and observations of but one character.

=Frederick J. Jackson=: Third person. Simpler, usually more effective, is easier for me. Have written only two stories in first person.

=Mary Johnston=: Depends on what you're doing.

=John Joseph=: I very much prefer writing in the third person, but when it comes to an old-time western story--well, I have lived these things and the detached third person doesn't seem to belong, nor conventional English. I have heard these people talk every day for too many years, have heard too many camp-fire tales, I suppose, and the more a writer polishes his story the less real it seems.

=Lloyd Kohler=: The third person. I don't like that eternal "I." Still, I have read many authors who could handle that very same "I" convincingly. More power to them!

=Harold Lamb=: The first person is a little more fun. Because it gives a freer hand in description and more play to emotion.

=Sinclair Lewis=: Third, less (obviously) egotistical.

=Hapsburg Liebe=: I prefer writing in the third person because in the first I can't keep the perpendicular pronoun sufficiently down.

=E. P. Lyle, Jr.=: In the first person. Comes easier, less formal, your reader not a reader but seemingly a friend on the other side of the hearth. I'd recommend it to a beginner. Also tell him to forget he is writing literature, and to keep in attitude of writing a letter.

=Rose Macaulay=: Third. Because I dislike reading stories told in the first.

=Crittenden Marriott=: Third. In the first the quotation marks are such a bother.

=Homer I. McEldowney=: The third person. It is easier, for me, and, I think, more effective.

=Ray McGillivray=: Fifty-fifty with me. First person is easier. The third person style has been responsible for most of the best literature ever written. Not all, but most.

=Helen Topping Miller=: I have never written anything in the first person--it intrudes the personal idea and hampers my view-point. I prefer to see my characters impersonally.

=Thomas Samson Miller=: The first person always seemed to me the more plausible, for in the third person the author often relates actions and happenings that occurred thousands of miles apart at the same time. I can never forget that _some one is telling me the story_ and that some one couldn't be--say in the heroine's bedroom, if he is a man author.

=Anne Shannon Monroe=: It is easier to write in the first person--more easily made real; but I prefer the third. The third is less personal, more the spectator's account of the whole. Writing in the first, there are many things you can't tell, because you, as one of the characters, can't know it all; as a spectator--a sort of on-looking creator--you can know it all.

=L. M. Montgomery=: Personally I prefer writing in the first person, because it then seems easier to _live_ my story as I write it. Since editors seem to have a prejudice against this, I often write a story in the first person and then rewrite it, shifting it to the third. As a reader, I enjoy a story written in the first person far more than any other kind. It gives me more of a sense of reality--of actually knowing the people in it. The author does not seem to _come between_ me and the characters as much as in the third-person stories. Wilkie Collins's _Woman in White_ is a fine example of the use of the first person. It could not have been half so effective had he told it in the third. And _Jane Eyre_ simply couldn't have been written in any but the first.

=Frederick Moore=: I like to write in the third person, because then I'm a god--all seeing, all knowing, all controlling--so far as the characters are concerned.

=Talbot Mundy=: On the whole, I think, the third person. It is easier to keep things concrete, and to keep off the paper the mental actions and reactions of Number One.

=Kathleen Norris=: A story in the first person is limited because the teller of it is presumably the hero, and consequently he has to _imply_ his own merit, beauty or intelligence. More than that, he must be present at every scene related and the plot must move in spite of him, as it were. This sort of story was enormously popular in Dickens' day, but it does not fit the new American type of novel.

=Anne O'Hagan=: I don't know. It's easier in the first person, but I don't think the results are apt to be so clear cut.

=Grant Overton=: I have, as it happens, never written anything except certain passages in the first person. I think I have no preference. It is all a matter of technical advantage in presentation.

=Hugh Pendexter=: I have no preference and use both first and third person as the story demands. I have started more than one story in the first person and found it impossible; perhaps because of plot demands. A story that walked lamely in the third person behaved well when told in the first. If I desire to show a young man, neither Whig nor Tory, but leaning toward the latter and his gradual turning to the former, the first person affords for me the only vehicle. If plot is accentuated, the third person becomes the vehicle.

=Clay Perry=: I prefer writing in the third person rather than in the first because, personally, I have always been more or less self-conscious and I have the same feeling in writing. Just to use the word "I" as now is hard work for me.

=Michael J. Phillips=: I despise first-person writing. I quarrel with the prig who is telling the story. He is either too wise or too ignorant. He either knows too much or doesn't know enough. If he is an actor in the story who really is deserving of a lot of credit and admiration, I can neither give him credit nor admire him. If he values himself as truly as a swashing, swaggering fellow who would be likable if some one else wrote of him, he becomes a hopeless braggart. And if he is modest, he does not glow sufficiently bright and I think: "Well, how did this fathead ever stumble into this delightfully distinguished, daring, lawbreaking group of real folks?"

=E. S. Pladwell=: Third person. The "I" becomes monotonous in print. Nobody can avoid it when the first person is used.

=Lucia Mead Priest=: I do not prefer the first person, in fact I do not approve of it, save for a certain type of writing. But when I write in the third I find myself growing stiff and formal. I am less direct, inclining to consciousness and pomposity. I don't know why.

=Eugene Manlove Rhodes=: Either, according to circumstances.

=Frank C. Robertson=: Depends on the nature of the story. As a rule I think the third person gives the writer more latitude for the development of character and material.

=Ruth Sawyer=: The third person. Unless the story needs the direct confession of an autobiographical treatment, I think the intrusion of the first person as eye-witness or teller of the tale makes for complexity rather than simplicity. Personally it has the same effect on me that my neighbor makes when she says, "My sister's husband told me that his friend, etc."

=Chester L. Saxby=: I like writing in the first person for the pleasure of dwelling intimately with the hopes and fears of the character. I like writing in the third person for that strong, austere impersonalness--like a laboratory investigation. All in the mood, I presume. We're not always the same. It explains the rejection of much good stuff by editorial offices. I think, on the whole, I prefer the first-person story. It's the story of me then; I'm putting forth effort as the story proceeds; I feel the reality more. But it's a difficult metier.

=Barry Scobee=: I prefer writing in the first- or third-person according to the story. No other reason.

=R. T. M. Scott=: I prefer the third person because editors prefer the third person and I have grown accustomed to the way of least resistance so far as editors are concerned. Besides, that "I" is hard to use genuinely in reference to all kinds of characters.

=Robert Simpson=: I prefer writing in the third person because it is, constructionally speaking, the simplest.

=Arthur D. Howden Smith=: First is easier. It's more convincing.

=Theodore Seixas Solomons=: I prefer, for celebrity (it's _easier_ and quicker) and humanness, writing in the first person. Its handicaps are, of course, that the omniscience of the third person is wanting and it is impossible to describe the characters and action in terms of the author's best philosophy when the character telling the story is almost always unable to achieve such philosophy. I therefore use the first person only when the action is such as not to require the peculiar advantages of third-person narration. But I much prefer the first person, because of its naturalness and humanness, when the nature of the story permits its use.

=Raymond S. Spears=: Some of my best work is under assumed name in first person--an adventure of the imagination.

=Norman Springer=: I like the first person best. I seem to be able to get under the skins of the characters better.

=Julian Street=: The third person is less easy but is generally the method of the best writers. The first person is (with some exceptions) the refuge of the tyro. As a writer learns his job, he is likely to write more and more in the third person--especially if he is a person of taste.

=T. S. Stribling=: I have no preference as to the person. I find the first person good for rapidity of relation and the elision of endless detail; the third person is best for expansiveness.

=Booth Tarkington=: Of course writing in the first person is infinitely easier. (That's one reason it should rarely be done.) The reason that writing in the first person is easier is this: The writing is supposed to be done by a fictitious person; the author, therefore, does not feel so responsible, _himself_, for the "quality of his prose."

=W. C. Tuttle=: A great majority of my stories have been written in the first person. In fact, I began writing that way because I could tell a story better than I could write one, and because, in the first person, there are fewer threads to carry. Characterizations are easier to depict in the third person, I believe, except in a humorous story, when I would rather describe a character in the first person.

=Lucille Van Slyke=: Third person. Because it seems to me that not one person in a thousand can successfully keep up the illusion of being another person very long. First person writing is a sort of lie as soon as it leaves personal experience behind, and most of us do not have a great many thrilling experiences personally. (I happen to adore writing in second person and do a great deal of that for sheer amusement. I wouldn't be so silly as to submit it to any editor, for I am aware of the well-known aversion to it--but, admitting that it presupposes a highly imaginative reader, think what fun it is for both writer and reader. I have been awfully interested in Louise Dutton's stories about an adolescent girl in which she uses second person a great deal but lapses to third--or indirect discourse--so often that she much breaks her continuity which makes me feel as though I were jumping in and out of a Punch and Judy box--I love the minutes I'm being Judy but get rather mixed when I am trying to be Punch!)

=Atreus von Schrader=: I prefer writing in the third person, because I believe the use of the first person distracts, nearly always, from the illusion of reality. Nine times out of ten the first person is used because it is easier, and for no other reason.

=T. Von Ziekursch=: Have no choice.

=Henry Kitchell Webster=: I seldom write in the first person, but there is a certain kind of story where the mechanical advantages it offers are great enough to more than compensate for its limitations.

=G. A. Wells=: I prefer writing in the first person, though seldom do so because I am not enough the craftsman to subdue my egotism. I like first person better because I get closer to the story. It is the personal equation. When one writes first person he goes on the stage and acts; no matter how large or small his part, he is in the show. In the third person he sits with the audience and merely records what happens. His readers have the same advantages he has and he can't show a superior air. I often write a story in the first person, and when finished strike out the big "I's" and substitute the name of the principal character. That way I get direct contact with the story.

=William Wells=: Third. Too darned bashful; seems like bragging.

=Ben Ames Williams=: I prefer writing in the manner best calculated to produce the effect I desire. This is a technical question, to be answered differently in different cases.

=Honore Willsie=: I prefer third-person writing, for, while it is more difficult than first-person writing, it is less apt to have an egotistical effect on the reader.

=H. C. Witwer=: I prefer writing in the third person, but have written two hundred fifty short stories in the first, because my readers seem to prefer that. I find writing in the first person much easier than any other.

=William Almon Wolff=: The third. There is, for me, a certain artificiality about first person writing; a certain seizing upon illicit aids. It's great fun to write in the first person, and, sometimes, of course, it's the right thing to do. But not often, I think. You dig deeper when you're interpreting life through your description of people seen objectively.

=Edgar Young=: Writing in the first person used to come natural to me, due to the fact that for years as a traveler I told many tales in this fashion to amuse friends and was an adept at it. At present I prefer third person work.

SUMMARY

An analysis of the general trend of these 109 answers shows that the first person is preferred and generally used by 14, the third person by 54, while 41 may be classed as neutral. Of this 41 only 24 are entirely neutral; 8, while using both, prefer the third, and 9, while using both or for various reasons using the third, prefer the first.

Some of the answers speak not only as writers but as readers and doubtless most of the others in their preference as writers voice also their preference as readers. On this rough assumption we might say that of 109 readers 23 prefer stories in the first person to 62 preferring the third. Two, as writers now preferring the third, originally preferred the first and, by free and easy analysis, might be assumed to have, as readers, rather a preference for the first. If so, the score becomes 25 to 60: Again, quite a number among both classes and also neutrals consider first person easier and therefore--perhaps--more natural and therefore--perhaps--more pleasing. A much smaller number give the third person as easier. This highly suppositional reasoning would bring the score for first person considerably nearer that for third. All of which has no value except as a straw indicating the truth of the generally accepted theory that most readers prefer third-person narratives to those told in first person, and as indicating that the proportion may be anywhere from 3 to 1 on down to 10 to 7.

Rather pathetic as information, isn't it? But not half so pathetic as the fact that writers and editors really _know_ so little as to the reading public's preference on this point that even such weak-kneed conclusions as the above are of some small value because they are at least drawn from a few data of fact. Nor one-tenth so pathetic as the fact that, while this commonly accepted theory seems justified by the above straw, there are quite a few other theories commonly accepted by writers, editors and critics that lack the support of even so slender a fact-straw as this.

As stated at the beginning of the chapter, the real value of the investigation is the answers' proof that the question of first person versus third is wholly a matter to be decided according to each writer's individuality and the nature of each particular story he takes up. Not by anybody's general rule.

QUESTION XII

_Do you lose ideas because your imagination travels faster than your
means of recording? Which affords least check--pencil, typewriter or
stenographer?_

This question, like the preceding one, was added to the questionnaire at the suggestion of several experienced writers with whom I consulted. As is pointed out in some of the answers, the choice of means of recording would seem a matter to be decided wholly in accordance with the idiosyncrasies of each particular writer. But human nature is somewhat prone to settle down upon one method without trying all and it may well be that some writers now wedded to one method may, on learning the experiences of over a hundred others, try some new method and find it advantageous. Certainly the answers as a whole give an interesting and full presentation of the practical arguments for and against the various methods, and, as in all the answers to the questionnaire, there are various bits of information not always bearing directly on the particular issue that will be found illuminating and valuable.

ANSWERS

=Bill Adams=: Never lose an idea while I'm writing. (Be nothing left if I did, m'lad.) God help poor sailors.

=Samuel Hopkins Adams=: Yes; but I catch a lot in the act of escaping by keeping a reserve sheet of paper close at hand while writing, and I will break off in the middle of a sentence if necessary to pin the fugitive down. Pen or pencil. You can't head off an escaping idea with a typewriter. I've never tried a stenographer for fiction; if I did, she would lead a wild-goose chase sort of existence, for my mind constantly courses ahead of my plot and brings in small game to be attended to while the main chase proceeds.

=Paul L. Anderson=: No, because I have the whole thing planned beforehand. Sometimes, if I have an unusual idea, which seems likely to get away, I note down a word or two on a scrap of paper and keep it by me while writing. This happens oftener with a turn of words than with a fundamental idea. The fastest mode of production, by far, is dictating to a s'nog'f'r, as they are usually called in conversation. Next, the typewriter; next, the pen; last, the pencil--the blame thing keeps getting dull and you have to stop to sharpen it! I can seldom afford a stenographer, but when I can, and have a good one, composition is unalloyed bliss; I can light a cigarette, put my feet up, and live the whole story, without distractions. Joy!

=William Ashley Anderson=: With a typewriter of light touch I can write most clearly and sharply, because, I think, I feel the restraint of the appearance of words actually in type.

The most agreeable tool to me is a goose quill. I only used quills a little while, in England, where they are still in use even in government offices. There is practically no friction between the quill and paper, and no noise. The effect is complete privacy and smoothly flowing words. I do sometimes lose ideas which get away from me.

=H. C. Bailey=: I never lost ideas by forgetting them. I write in pencil and slowly. Dictation or typewriting would be impossible to me for any imaginative work.

=Edwin Balmer=: Typewriter.

=Ralph Henry Barbour=: I don't think my imagination ever gets so far ahead of my means of recording that I lose ideas. As to those means I prefer a typewriter. I have never tried to dictate--to a stenographer. I don't believe that I'd like it. Or maybe the stenographer wouldn't. Anyway, I intend to keep on pounding it out myself.

=Frederick Orin Bartlett=: I use a typewriter and find that travels fast enough for me--as long as I don't worry particularly over what keys I hit.

=Nalbro Bartley=: No--I do all my stuff on a typewriter. I revise it personally--I make the final copy myself.

=Konrad Bercovici=: I never lose any ideas. I never begin to put them down until they are rounded out in my mind. One never loses anything except what he does not care to possess.

=Ferdinand Berthoud=: Yes, I do, but I mostly pick them up again unexpectedly, perhaps months afterward. Always write my draft in pencil, as it is easier to make instant alterations. Also the clicking and mechanism of a typewriter are liable to bring me suddenly back from out of my dream world.

=H. H. Birney, Jr.=: No; I don't think so. Story is pretty well outlined in my mind before I start writing. I personally write entirely with a fountain pen. Dislike the "scratching" of a pencil and the lack of permanency of penciled notes. Have tried doing my work direct from brain to typewriter, but find that the purely mechanical strain of using ten fingers, returning carriage, watching right-hand margins, etc., tends to hamper thought. Tried stenographer only once, so am not qualified to express opinion there.

=Farnham Bishop=: I always compose mentally before I begin to write. Conceived the plot of _Malena_ while walking post, outlined the whole novel and held it in my head until I came off guard. Often come back from a walk with one or two long paragraphs composed and memorized, ready to be set down. I have held ideas and worked them over mentally for months and years, before writing a word on the subject.

That being the case, I almost never write except on my trusty Corona, H. & P. Method.

=Algernon Blackwood=: Imagination invariably travels faster than power of recording it. I use shorthand to jot down bits that flash ahead of the words I am actually typing at the moment. These flashes otherwise prove irrecoverable. With a stenographer beside me I could not think of a single sentence. I compose straight on to my own machine.

=Max Bonter=: Typewriter seems to afford me least check in recording thoughts. I write Pitmanic shorthand two hundred words a minute, but seldom use it in composition. In this case my hand is speedier than the flow of ideas. Moreover, ideas that would flow as fast as that would not seem to be reliable. Such a flow of bull would have to be edited very carefully afterward--so why be so precipitate? Better take it easier and pay more attention to logic than verbosity.

The clatter of a typewriter does not disturb my train of thought. I don't need a sound-proof cell when I write. When I feel in the mood for writing my spine is stiff and I sit straight in my chair and punch hard. I like to feel the keys bounce back from the platen. It makes me feel as if I'm punching something and getting somewhere.

=Katharine Holland Brown=: Yes. Either the typewriter or a pen. Never a stenographer.

=F. R. Buckley=: Never lost an idea that way yet. I write extremely fast, and without conscious effort, on the typewriter--up to ninety words a minute. I used to write in pencil and pen when on English newspapers; now I'm used to the typewriter, I find it and the hand-methods' check equal. I mean, typewriter used to check me, now hand-writing does. Just what you're used to. Typewriter for me.

=Prosper Buranelli=: It seems to me that a writer is a person with the gift of gab, but whose gift of gab is slower than the jawbone. Slow typewriting is about the speed of my gabble.

=Thompson Burtis=: Yes. I have never used any other means of writing than a typewriter. I do not believe that I would be effective through a stenographer, and I'm damn certain that I'd never write a line unless I was starving if I had to depend on pen or pencil.

=George M. A. Cain=: I do lose ideas before I can catch up to them with the recording. I have never done any writing for publication otherwise than directly upon the typewriter. Any handwriting entirely confuses me. I can use a typewriter blindfolded. I can write with it twice or three times as fast as with the pen or pencil. Without having tried it, I imagine that the presence of a stenographer would greatly bother me at first. I have always thought that I might possibly get better results by using a dictaphone and then cutting out about two-thirds of what I said to it. Heaven knows I am prolix enough on a typewriter. I hesitate to credit heaven with any generally distributed knowledge of what I would do, if it involved no greater effort than talking.

=Robert V. Carr=: When manufacturing literary sausage I naturally want to grind it out rapidly. But if I am working on what seems to be a good story, I can get my ideas down with a pencil.

=George L. Catton=: Lots of ideas are lost that way, though they generally come back. Pencil, with me, affords the least check on loss.

=Robert W. Chambers=: Do not lose ideas thus. Pencil and eraser.

=Roy P. Churchill=: I believe the mind can be trained to construct with the means at hand. I have seldom lost any real valuable ideas by having the spirit run away with the physical construction of some sort of record. At first I wrote with pencil, which is slow, then on a machine, which is faster, and now dictate to a rapid stenographer. I have had to get the habit of each method, and time would be lost if I had to change again.

=Carl Clausen=: Sometimes. Pencil.

=Courtney Ryley Cooper=: That depends also. I use every possible style of writing. I have started a story by pen, switched to pencil, gone to the typewriter and dictated the climax, the reason being this: I must write character slowly. I must do action as swiftly as it is possible for me to put it down. And when the action becomes too fast for my typewriter, I dictate. In other words, although it is bromidic, I know, I live my stories to a great extent. I personally go just as slow or as fast as the story itself--there are times when I can not write swiftly to save my life--because I am in a maze of slow characterization. Then again, I have to go like an express train to keep up with my story.

=Arthur Crabb=: To some extent, but not seriously. I sometimes have trouble in retaining ideas that come when I am off the job. Pencil.

=Mary Stewart Cutting=: No, as I said before, when I imagine anything, I write it down and so do not lose my ideas. A fountain pen in my hand greatly facilitates thought and expression.

=Elmer Davis=: Yes, but still worse because I sit around and think about the damn thing before I start writing at all, and most of the good stuff is gone by the time I drag out the old mill and get to work. Never tried anything but typewriter, though I have seen stenographers who would take a man's mind off the fleeting thought and the evanescent phrase.

=William Harper Dean=: No, I can keep up with my ideas, because I can write fast on a typewriter. I seldom leave it until the story is done in its first draft--an eight-thousand-word story will go down in the rough before I leave the machine. Then come the long careful hours of revision and rewriting, the thumbing of my Thesaurus. But I must get it down in black and white while I am hot with it--that's why I'll never write a book. I couldn't write a thousand words to-day and a thousand to-morrow. No, when I'm full of the thing it must be written.

=Harris Dickson=: No. I am an expert typewriter and stenographer, and have so few ideas that I can not afford to let one get away.

=Captain Dingle=: I can only write one way--typewriter--straight out from my imagination. Neither pen nor pencil helps, nor any amount of notes, except such as are necessary to avoid errors of date or place. Imagination seems to keep up. When it slows, I know it's time to clew-up for a spell.

=Louis Dodge=: If I get a good idea--conceding that I ever do--it never gets away from me permanently. It'll come back. But I get along better with a typewriter. It's easier, that's all.

=Phyllis Duganne=: I don't lose ideas because my imagination travels faster than my means of recording while I'm actually working. I can lose them through being interrupted before I've finished. A typewriter affords least check; it's almost impossible for me to write with a pencil. And my own typewriter is so well trained that it can write just about as fast as I can put my thoughts into words.

=J. Allan Dunn=: I find that my own typing keeps up fairly well with my imagination, a little behind, far enough to look over the situation ahead and amend or alter it. But then I have usually thought out my day's typing beforehand, probably several times over. The machine is less check than any other medium, but it was not until I had acquired a certain speed. If my technique bothers me I can sometimes dictate very rapidly. I find, however, that the matter of proper punctuation, dialect and unusual spelling suffers at the hand of another--this includes a dictaphone. I had a hard fight getting away from pencil to the typewriter, but I don't want to go back.

=Walter A. Dyer=: I write pretty rapidly, and so I seldom lose ideas. When I find my mind running ahead it is usually a warning that what I am doing is dull. If an idea jumps into my mind that I am afraid I shall forget, I sometimes stop and jot down a note of it. Usually the best stuff comes when the mind and the typewriter are well synchronized. I used to write with a lead pencil, but I have learned to use a typewriter with less effort and so with better results.

=Walter Prichard Eaton=: I lose ideas because I quit to play golf. When I am writing I should certainly feel sore if I couldn't hold one till I got it down. I never use a typewriter--never found one that could spell. When I use a pen I write so badly that nobody can tell whether it can spell or not. I can't dictate. I at once begin to write like Daniel Webster's Bunker Hill Oration.

=E. O. Foster=: I lose ideas because my imagination travels faster than my typewriter. Of the four channels--pen, pencil, typewriter and stenographer, the typewriter affords the least check to my imagination.

=Arthur O. Friel=: Yes. Pencil.

=J. U. Giesy=: At times. The typewriter serves me best.

=George Gilbert=: I use the typewriter, because I am skilled on it to the point where I can write two thousand four hundred words an hour. I once wrote ten thousand words at one sitting, averaging two thousand an hour. The story was not revised materially. I gained this skill transcribing one hundred million words during my long career as an Associated Press code operator, taking twelve thousand to fifteen thousand words a night for many years. I can think on the machine easily.

=Kenneth Gilbert=: While I do not lose ideas because of mechanical inability to set them down rapidly, I lose enthusiasm for them, and, perhaps, some of the precious fire that would make them glow stronger. I find a typewriter the least check on my imagination. I have never tried a stenographer, but I have long felt that a dictating machine would be very helpful.

=Holworthy Hall=: Not yet. Pencil.

=Richard Matthews Hallet=: My imagination does not travel at better than a snail's pace. I could do a cuneiform inscription without the sacrifice of a single idea. Sometimes I compose on a typewriter and sometimes with a pen. If you write fast on the typewriter, if you really do bring the speed dogs into play, and you are a fast thinker, you gain momentum, I should think. But I always gain momentum at the expense of nearly everything else. I do at most two thousand words a day, even on re-write stuff, and going at this pace, you can see that my imagination does not feel the lag of the writing instruments. A friend of mine leans into the horn of a dictaphone every morning and sprays vocal folly there; but I never got courage for that. That horn would follow me in dreams.

=William H. Hamby=: Yes. To me the pen.

=A. Judson Hanna=: I certainly would lose ideas because my imagination travels faster than my means of recording had I not adopted a plan for nailing down these fugitive ideas. When an advance idea comes to me I break off composition instantly, even in the middle of a sentence, and record the advance idea. Later I run back over the rough draft, pick out the fugitive ideas and insert them where they are most effective. I began by writing with a pen, slowly; discarding the pen for the typewriter, and finally settling down to the use of the pencil on any scrap of paper that is at hand when the thoughts come, writing so swiftly that I have trouble in deciphering my writing if I allow it to become "cold." As my mind works now, I could not use a stenographer. In fact, the mere presence of another person in the room where I am writing disconcerts me and disorganizes my train of thought.

=Joseph Mills Hanson=: My imagination seldom travels faster than my means of recording. I find it easiest to do original writing with a pencil. The next easiest method is with a typewriter.

=E. E. Harriman=: At times my ideas seem to run down a smooth chute at lightning speed and no stenographer or human tongue could keep up with them. I lose some on the way. The machine for me every time.

=Nevil G. Henshaw=: I often lose ideas by not being quick enough to get them down. For first draft I can't go beyond a pen or pencil.

=Joseph Hergesheimer=: Pen.

=Robert Hichens=: No. I write always with a pen and not very fast.

=R. de S. Horn=: Yes; that is one of the most provoking things about writing. The imagination so far outspeeds all methods of recording that I can command.

=Clyde B. Hough=: I am able to express ideas as fast as I can compose them. Dictation to a stenographer is the easiest method in writing for me.

=Emerson Hough=: I never have any ideas to lose. Sometimes I write in longhand, sometimes on the typewriter. I dictated about half of _The Mississippi Bubble_ direct on the machine in my business office. Wrote the rest at home between ten o'clock at night and four in the morning. If you _think_ the medium does not matter, does it?

I don't really see much use in trying to get at these things. Every fellow writes in his own way, or ought to do so. So far as these things helping other writers may be concerned, I really don't think there is much in it. It's a hard enough game, and so far as I can get at it, experience is the only teacher in it that is worth a cuss. Sometimes not even experience is worth that much. Advice is nearly always worth a great deal less.

=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: Not, I think, when I am actually writing.

=Inez Haynes Irwin=: My husband, Will Irwin, believes that difficulty in the mechanical means of expression makes for lucidity and elegance of style. He always uses pen or pencil. I think this is only partly true. I think there are times when it is impossible to get things down with enough speed. I am sure that sometimes I lose ideas and expressions when imagination is flowing free and I can not register its outpouring quickly enough. I can of course get my ideas expressed more quickly when I dictate to a stenographer. There is no doubt in my mind that a story gains _directness_, a certain fluency, fluidity and plasticity--and a quality, which comes from the spoken word alone--in dictation. Perhaps equally it loses in precision and compression. I started writing with a pencil; rejected the pencil for the typewriter; the typewriter for dictation to a stenographer. Now I am writing with the pencil again. Next month, I may revert to the typewriter. In my opinion an ideal way to compose would be to dictate the story first and then rewrite the dictated version with a pencil.

=Will Irwin=: I can not remember ever losing an idea because my means of recording was not fast enough. In writing fiction, and generally in writing journalism, I use a pen or lead pencil. I have a tendency to be diffuse, and a slow and difficult means checks this. I regard the typewriter and dictaphone as the enemies of style.

=Frederick J. Jackson=: My imagination travels fast, but I get a death clutch on my ideas. Typewriter is my favorite: cleaner, more effective copy. Pen next. Pencil too mussy. Stenographers are the bunk. Haven't found one who can take my stuff right.

=Mary Johnston=: There are ideas too swift for our catching--as yet. I prefer a soft, black pencil.

=John Joseph=: Yes, my pencil lies beside the machine and I make a great many notes, otherwise I'd lose many good (?) ideas. The typewriter affords the least check to the imagination.

=Lloyd Kohler=: Yes, I have often lost ideas because my imagination travels faster than my means of recording. A pencil or fountain pen affords the least check. I have never tried the stenographer plan--I'm afraid I'd be a little self-conscious; gun-shy, you know.

=Harold Lamb=: No, when the imagination travels over a bit of ground it is always able to return. As for ideas, a penciled note, a word or so, will bring them back A typewriter gives least check, probably due to habit.

_Tamen shud!_

=Sinclair Lewis=: Rarely. Typewriter.

=Hapsburg Liebe=: My imagination often travels too fast, and then I make notes. I use a pencil for writing names of characters and the situation roughly; the rest I do on a typewriter; _it makes a better, clearer picture for me to see as I go along_.

=Romaine H. Lowdermilk=: I do lose ideas that way. I can get them down better with pencil, for it gives opportunity for quick substitution and marking-out. Still, I do most of the work on a typewriter, as it is more convenient when it comes to revision (double space). I can't always read what I write by hand. My imagination works best at night; criticism in the morning. I do best thinking in hot weather. I don't get up at night to write but have lost good ideas by not doing so. And I hope there's something useful in the foregoing!

=Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.=: Not often--not often enough. Ideas are slow travelers. I wish they could keep up with my fingers on the typewriter. Typewriter affords the least check, or about the same as a pencil.

=Rose Macaulay=: Yes. Waterman's safety fountain pen.

=Crittenden Marriott=: Pen and stenographer about the same.

=Homer I. McEldowney=: I have a skeleton of my entire story. It is simply scribbled in a hurry and I keep the pen moving fast enough to prevent the ideas from getting away before I can rope and hog-tie them.

=Ray McGillivray=: Stenographer. Often she interjects ideas into the scripts I never even imagined. Still, she's not bad, though a letter like this would burn out her bearings.

=Helen Topping Miller=: My stories are usually fairly complete in my mind before I begin to write them. Usually the first thousand words are so completely formulated that I could recite them before I put a line on paper. No matter what I am doing--traveling, teaching, going about my domestic tasks, I am "making up" stories "in my head," as the children say. I write on a typewriter, usually, though I am able to work as rapidly with a fountain pen on rough paper. I can not use a pencil.

=Thomas Samson Miller=: I use pen, and sometimes an idea slips in memory, but nothing of great importance, and if it is best work--work done over and over--the idea is picked up again.

=Anne Shannon Monroe=: Yes, I am never able to keep up with my ideas; often I have to stop typing and make a note on a scrap of paper, of something on ahead, fearful lest I forget it when I come up with it. I use a typewriter altogether.

=L. M. Montgomery=: I don't think many ideas ever get away from me by reason of slowness of recording. My aforesaid note-book habit has been of tremendous value here. I write with a pen and couldn't write with anything else--at least, as far as prose is concerned. When I write verse I always write on an ordinary school slate, because of the facilities for easy erasure. But for prose I want a Waverly pen--this is not an advertisement--I just can't write with any other! a smooth unlined paper and a portfolio I can hold on my knee. Then I can sail straight ahead and keep up with any ideas that present themselves. But these are only personal idiosyncrasies and have nothing to do with a writer's success or non-success. So no aspiring beginner need despair because his or her stationer is not stocked up with Waverly pens!

=Frederick Moore=: I sometimes lose ideas because my imagination travels too fast. It may be that those ideas are like the fish that got away--not so big. But just the right angle on a situation will sometimes slip away and won't come back for days. Then it is not wise to chase it too hard, for it seems to get out of reach entirely if pressed too close. It frequently comes back under the queerest circumstances and when least expected. The writer works all the time--at the theater, walking, and sometimes when talking with another person on other subjects. My own hands on the typewriter beat everything in the way of creating. I have tried all others. The other person, in dictating, seems to act as a barrier with me. I find myself watching the effect of what I dictate on that person, or the secretary makes faces or looks bored, or makes a noise when he breathes, or looks at me. So I have to do it myself to avoid assault and battery. And I won't allow machine copying, for I find that if I copy myself, I change the turn of a sentence or add to something that makes an improvement. And a stretch of writing is more exhausting than a similar period at the hardest of labor. Only the writer knows what a sapping, wearing job writing a story happens to be. That is what makes 'em so cranky.