Chapter IX: Part 9

_Pain._ 35 answers. Yes, 8; somewhat, 6; no, 20; untabulated, 1. Out of 113, 14 claim it and 99 do not.

_All the Senses._ As to their relative commonness, the five senses and pain rank as follows:

Sight--73 yes; 23 somewhat; 96 total.

Hearing--31 yes; 14 somewhat; 45 total.

Smell--29 yes; 11 somewhat; 40 total.

Taste--23 yes; 10 somewhat; 33 total.

Touch--13 yes; 12 somewhat; 25 total.

Pain--8 yes; 6 somewhat; 14 total.

I believe that if the answerers were to subject themselves to a more rigid analysis, the number of those answering "yes" and "some" would in each of the six cases be very materially reduced, but the relative frequency of the six cases as shown above would seem fairly dependable, except that the temptation to "yes" or "some" in the case of sight is probably stronger than in the other cases.

4. _Response limited by author._ 95 answers. Tabulation is complicated and difficult. Of these 95, 81 can visualize, 14 not, and since the two preceding questions, and most of the one before that, centered on visualization, the sense of sight is probably to be considered the chief criterion in the present test. Naturally the possession or lack of visualization determines the real value of an answer here. In the following, those possessing only slight power of visualization are included under "can't visualize."

If you attempt tabulation you will find that an answer sometimes has to be recorded under several heads two of which, when considered in some aspects, give contradictory evidence, so that your total of answers does not always divide, on some points, into parts whose sum equals the whole.

Imagination response limited by an author's description, 28; somewhat limited, 10; by certain authors only, 2. Total, 40.

Along with these consider 15 who are limited by the general skill of an author, description not specified and sometimes indicated as a minor consideration.

Not limited by author's description, 42. Of these, 39 can visualize, 3 not. Of the 39, 34 state their ability to go beyond the author's description, filling in and coloring for themselves. Of the 3 who can't visualize, 2 definitely state inability to go beyond the printed description.

Of the 81 (out of the total 95) who can visualize, 61 go or can go in their imagination beyond the author's printed words; 19 can not; 1 doesn't know. These 61, roughly speaking, prefer an approximation of mere suggestion or concept rather than full description.

Getting at this last point from another angle, 8 who visualize state definite objection to full description; 17 visualizers and 4 non-visualizers resent "too much"; 12 visualizers and 3 non-visualizers state preference for suggestion only. Total against description, 44, 21 of them merely objecting to "too much"--an amount difficult to define.

There are 9 visualizers and 1 non-visualizer who do not resent description. These, with 1 visualizer and 1 non-visualizer satisfied with either method, make 12 neutrals.

On the other hand, 4 visualizers want full description and 2 resent mere suggestion. Total, 6.

Definitely against description, 23.

Against "too much," 21.

Neutral, 12.

For full description, 6.

Only a questionnaire carried into minute detail and answered by large numbers could warrant, in a subject of so many factors, any nicety of conclusion and, also, it is not to be forgotten that the answerers are not mere readers but readers who are also writers. On the other hand, they are in these matters trained and sensitive observers. In any case we are fairly safe in concluding that there exists in readers a tendency to dislike too full description as found in the fiction of to-day. Probably a prime cause of the dislike, in the case of visualizers, the majority, is the violence done to the reader's own instantaneous imagery by the almost necessarily different imagery the author's full description forces upon him, while to non-visualizers the author's imagery is not a picture at all. This violence to the visualizer is akin to that often furnished by an artist's illustrations of fiction.

An extraneous element demands consideration here. Fiction, largely because of its imitative tradition, does not develop so fast as the world it lives in. There is warrant for holding the classics as models, but only those elements of them that are universal in their appeal, that are good for all time. The mistake lies in swallowing them whole, or in admitting to their ranks fiction keyed too markedly to its own time alone. In particular, fullness of description is characteristic of certain past times whose fiction is often cited as a model. But meanwhile the world itself has ceased to travel in stage-coaches or on horseback and has taken to railroads and motors. Certainly ours is not so leisurely an age. Telephone, telegraph, steam, electricity, gasoline have geared our generation to a far faster speed. We lack our forefathers' happy patience over long descriptions. Try your boy on the stories you liked at his age. And do not forget the tremendous influence of the motion pictures for speed of narrative and quick description.

But, whatever the element of time, human beings remain human beings and when you paint a word-picture satisfying only your own desire of imagery you will not only surely fail to please all, but your imagery may be such that only a small minority find in it any satisfaction. You can not chart the world of readers as to the exact proportions of its imaginative responses to sense appeals, but your technique is either shaky or happily haphazard if you have no general idea of relative imagination responses and of your own responses in relation to those of the majority.

5. _Stock pictures._ None of the 86 answering confess to them as habitual, though 23 have them to some degree or in certain circumstances. If the author fails to stimulate to special images, 8 resort to them.

6. _Imagination when reading vs. when writing._ Of 85 answering, 19 note no difference, 2 don't know, 1 is untabulated, while 63 note a difference. In most cases, however, the difference is only that the imagination is more active, vivid, concentrated, etc., though there are some notable exceptions. From the answers to this experimental question I am unable to draw any conclusions that seem worth consideration.

7. _The above as "tools of your trade."_ Out of 73, 31 answer yes, 4 somewhat, 33 no, 2 doubtful, 2 find the question too complicated, 1 uses no tools at all. Of the 34 answering yes in any degree, some have stated in answer to another question that they do not consider the reader at all when writing and only a few of these make an exception of the work preliminary to the actual writing or of revision. These must therefore obviously be counted out under one question or the other, probably here, leaving a considerably reduced number with a claim to conscious attention in their work to the imagination differences of readers.

The questions on imagination were answered in whole or part by 113, this particular question by 73. General knowledge of human nature would seem to give fairly good ground for concluding that most of the 40 not answering as to tools would have answered "no" if at all. In any case there are only a small number of the 113 whom we are warranted in listing under "yes." Of these few there were still fewer whose answers on the imagination questions as a whole left me unconvinced that their "yes" was to the real question at issue, though in their work they may well consider the necessity of appealing to all five senses. Even the remaining few give no single scrap of definitely conclusive proof that their "yes" means a weighing on their part of imagination differences among readers, but proof that they do not is equally lacking, with one probable exception.

Allowing for failures to tabulate properly in all cases, it is shown that only a small minority of these writers allow for the varying imagination powers of their readers or for their own imagination equations in relation to those of the majority. Is it not mere common sense to say that an understanding of these differences and relations should be assimilated into an author's unconscious technique or, failing that, be applied consciously in revision? It is all very well to say an author should just be himself and think not at all of those to whom he expresses himself, but as an artist it should be part of his art to see to it that his "himself" is in communication with those to whom he is trying to communicate, whether through his "other self" as their representative or directly. It is not art to talk to a deaf man or to persist in showing pictures to a blind man. Nor would it seem unassailably intelligent to talk in French to people who understand only Italian. Of what good is imagery if it can not be seen? What point in trying to interest picture-lovers or sound-lovers by refusing to give them pictures or sounds?

Mention may be made of a few of the many stray points of interest made here and there in the answers.

Heat and cold were not included in the question, but fortunately crop out in some of the answers.

It might be possible to divide authors into two classes--intellectual and sensory. The former, unless they sacrificed individuality, would have comparatively little need of sensory appeal, their natural audience being beyond its reach. The latter class, however, would have acute need of every device for developing and furthering sensory appeal.

Frequently the dependence of imagery upon actual personal experience is emphasized in the answers. Since imagination is incapable of constructing anything whatever except from elements familiar through experience, there is opportunity for a preachment on the value of getting as much personal experience of one's material as possible before attempting to mold it into fiction.

I can not resist pointing out that at least one writer who demands much description in what he reads gives almost none in what he writes.

One writer gives us a definite method for developing sight imagination. If others can also obtain results from it, the value of the suggestion is tremendous, and it opens the way into a comparatively unexplored field of immense possibilities. There is involved a study of the relation between keenness of sensory imagination and keenness of the corresponding senses themselves. Also the variation of both actual and imagination senses in correspondence to variation in physical or general nervous condition. Also, note that one answerer has observed a marked weakening of sight imagination after the age of forty, an age at which eyesight is likely to weaken markedly, while another says the ability to visualize through the imagination has been almost lost since adolescence.

At least two writers, one of them a friend, and I myself have laid aside glasses after years of use by following the directions of an oculist whose method of cure for most eye troubles is based largely upon direct practise with visual imagination. By developing and strengthening that, improvement is brought about in physical eyesight. It is the reverse of the method used by Mr. Scott for developing visual imagination and serves to illustrate the intimate connection between the senses and imagination.

The connection between visual imagination and actual eyesight is comparatively unexplored territory, as is the similar connection in the four other senses. To what degree is a writer's power of imagery, of sense stimulation in general, dependent on his own powers of imagination? To what extent is his imagination sense-power related to his physical sense-power? Can the one be developed through the other?

QUESTION IV

_When you write do you center your mind on the story itself or
do you constantly have your readers in mind? In revising?_

"Thinking of the reader" is a phrase subject to many interpretations and there is no doubt that the answers to the question containing it are not based upon a common understanding of its exact meaning. To have given it, in the questionnaire, any definite one of its several interpretations would have limited the answers in scope and robbed them of much of the valuable suggestiveness and information they contain. And by this more comprehensive approach we shall come to a clearer understanding of that vague thing called "technique."

Perhaps the interpretation most commonly made was: "Have you cheapened your work by allowing a consideration of popularity to set aside what you knew your art demanded?" If we take the more usual phrase, "Do you write down to your readers?" or, "Do you write for money or for art?" the reaction, in perhaps most cases, to this interpretation of the question would be, "No, I do not consider the reader when writing," and many of the negative answers given are undoubtedly the expressions of this natural reaction, given without further analysis.

On the other hand some writers do write for money, primarily for money, and quite honestly say so.

With a discretion born of experience I promptly avoid any opinion on the broad subject of whether what they write is therefore a calamity to Art, and retire hurriedly on the fact that said writers do do it. As a class, their reply to Question IV is more likely to be a Yes than a No.

But remember that so far as we are here concerned with them, both those writers who do and who do not write primarily for money, all write for publication involving at least the expectation of money. That is no reason for a cry of hypocrisy against those who claim not to write for money; there is an entirely justifiable line between writing primarily for money and writing one's best and then getting what one can for that best. In the case, also, of those who admit writing primarily for money, a similar distinction can be drawn; in the long run there is no surer way of making money than by doing one's best and plenty of writers recognize this fact. There are also those, dependent on their pens for daily living, who make a deliberate but temporary business of quantity and popularity as the only possible way to reach a position where they can write without regard for these factors. Some of our acknowledged best reached their goal by this path and would answer our question Yes or No according to the time of its asking.

There are those, too, who write primarily for fame, or for mere popularity, and to whom money may be an entirely negligible consideration. These, writing for a consideration other than art itself, may be, for all purposes of this book, classified along with those who write for money. And there are those who write for no consideration except self-expression or the "joy of the working," acknowledging no object except art alone.

The fact remains that all of our answerers alike are having their work published, whatever motives may be involved. Before they put a word on paper they know the story is meant for publication. They know it from the first inkling of the idea that is to give it birth. They know that it will fail of publication unless in creating it they make it such that readers (editors) will be not only reached by its expression but favorably reached and that publication chances for later stories will be endangered or impaired if in the present one their expression fails to reach favorably the general reading public. Some of them are dependent on publication success for their living; some are not; some are more interested in the creating than in its results; some are not. But all of them alike do publish. In saying that they never think of the reader, then, some of them must mean only that they do not think of him during the actual process of putting the story together on paper.

Otherwise they must maintain that when weighing the value of an idea or a bit of material for use in fiction they never consider whether that idea or material would be liked by the reading public or whether it might be of such nature that no magazine would publish it. If they do so maintain, either they should be able to support their claim, at least in part, by having for exhibit a very goodly number of unsalable stories that in their judgment are fully as good as the published ones, or else they must be recognized as individuals whose points of view, reactions and methods happen to be so identical with those of the reading public or of part of it that without thought, guidance or effort their stories invariably find public favor.

There are, beyond doubt, writers who write equally good but unpublishable stories, but I imagine most of them would tell us that said stories are unpublished solely because editors are lacking in discriminating judgment or have prostituted Art to Business, and that few of these writers would claim, however rigidly they had held to Art alone, that they had not written the great majority of these stories with the intention or hope of publication. There are, beyond doubt, also writers who at least approximate in themselves a fortunate reflection of the reading public's likes and dislikes. This identity of point of view and interest is either a happy accident involving no credit to them as craftsmen--it may be even a misfortune from the point of view of art, or else it has been attained unconsciously yet by a very definite pursuit of technique. This last point, however, is best left for discussion until after the answers to Question IV.

But if some of the answers were negative because the answerers were considering only the time of actual drafting, not the preparatory work or even the revision, there are still distinctions that must be applied, still further obstacles to accepting negative answers as final, and these too must be left until the end of the chapter.

If my question had carried with it all these analyses and distinctions there is, I think, little doubt that many who answered "no" would have answered "yes." As one writer puts it, "The distinction between thinking of a story and thinking of a reader is difficult. I suppose my mind is chiefly concerned with making the words express what is real in my imagination--but that implies considering a reader." There is extremely good reason to weigh these various distinctions before reading the answers given and before concluding--or believing these writers conclude--that the reader can or should be excluded from the artist's mind.

Are the answers, then, valueless? So far as the face value of the question is concerned, partly so. But the insight into various actual working methods is extremely valuable, and the answers to that undefined query, not in their mere yes or no but in their fullness and taken as a whole, open an unequaled path to an understanding of the nature, purpose and use of _technique_, a thing that even the dictionary defines haltingly and that among writers, editors and critics is only a term as vague as it is much used.

Before turning to the answers it must be noted that through a clerical error the words "In revising" appeared in only half the copies of the questionnaire that were sent out.

ANSWERS

=Bill Adams=: I never think of the reader--not even when the story is in print. If I do, I think it is a remarkably odd world to contain such queer ducks.

=Samuel Hopkins Adams=: Damn the readers. I'm too busy with the immediate people of my imagination to worry about the dim and distant thousands.

=Paul L. Anderson=: The story only, when writing; consideration of the reader comes in the preliminary planning.

=William Ashley Anderson=: I think only of the story without regard to readers, on the assumption that a good story will never fail to find readers.

=H. C. Bailey=: A distinction between thinking of the story itself and of the reader is to me difficult. I suppose my mind is chiefly concerned to make the words express what is real in my imagination--but that implies considering a reader. Of course it is necessary sometimes in revising to simplify.

=Edwin Balmer=: On the story. When revising, somewhat on the readers.

=Ralph Henry Barbour=: In writing, my mind does its own centering, and it centers on the story. The reader gets a mighty small look-in. In revising, the reader is considered. But, as I've already said, I don't revise much.

=Frederick Orin Bartlett=: I never have my readers in mind either in writing or revising. It is extremely difficult for me to visualize a reader of any sort until the story is actually in print. Then I feel my audience only as individuals write to me or in some other way respond.

=Nalbro Bartley=: When I write, I think of only the story--never whether anybody is going to read it--or pay for it, for that matter. But when, after it has been cold-in-a-drawer for about a week, I revise, I try to think of the nature of the story which the editor originally ordered--whether or not it hits any forbidden spots and if the average reader is going to respond or not. I think impersonal revision is the most valuable sort.

=Konrad Bercovici=: I never have the reader in mind when I write. I do not want him to have me in his mind either. It is the story. Nothing else.

=Ferdinand Berthoud=: I'm afraid that in my amateurish way I center my mind wholly on my story--laugh and cry with my characters. However, now I'm learning and getting a little more experienced I am trying to be less selfish and to think of the readers.

=H. H. Birney, Jr.=: On the story.

=Farnham Bishop=: Write for the story, revise for the reader. Except that, whenever explaining anything, I keep trying to be clear enough for the layman, accurate enough for the expert, and interesting enough for both. (Result of ten years lecturing on semi-technical subjects to general audiences.)

=Algernon Blackwood=: I never give the reader a single thought. To some imaginary reader, sitting at a desk inside my own mind, I tell my story. It is written to express--to relieve--an emotion in my own being. It is never written to please other readers or any imaginable public.

=Max Bonter=: As closely as I have been able to come to it, I am a dual personality when I write. My imagination invents, but reason checks. Reason seems in my case to represent prospective readers.

=Katharine Holland Brown=: First, write down all the story before it gets away. With no regard for any reader.

Second, revise, and try to make the story intelligible and to make it march.

=F. R. Buckley=: I center my mind on the story. I have thought of the readers beforehand, that is, I know what will go and what won't: have generally studied the magazine I'm writing for and got general atmosphere of the stuff it uses; can't get more than that. In this atmosphere I have framed the story as previously detailed. That's all I have to do with the readers.

=Prosper Buranelli=: I never think of readers--am never too sure I shall have any. You don't think of a third party, whom to convince, when you are working out a proof in geometry.

=Thompson Burtis=: I center myself on the story. Occasionally the readers enter the picture when I am using technical stuff which I realize I must write down to them.

=George M. A. Cain=: Am not clear about this. I endeavor to tell the reader enough to guide him to so much of my vision as is vital to the story. I think he seldom escapes my consciousness. I think of him as reading what I tell. If I am writing for public speech, I think of myself as saying the words to an audience imagined before me while I write.

=Robert V. Carr=: When I want to sell my story, I write with the reader in mind. When I want to enjoy writing, I forget the reader. I am not sufficiently egotistical to want to reform the reader, neither do I desire to uplift him or to change his prejudices and superstitions to fit my mold.

I believe that intelligence decreases with numbers; therefore I am not a democrat. It has been my observation that nothing arouses the hatred of the average man so much as the power to do him good. If one has the power to hurt him, to destroy him, he will erect a statue in honor of the possessor of that power. But if one has the power to do him good, and he lacks that power, he will, sooner or later, fly at the possessor of the power to do good like a mad dog. Pessimistic? It is no more logical to hope for the best than to hope for the worst.

Why should I bounce a stone off the reader's head when all he asks from me is a shot of literary hop to make him forget the next installment on his tin canary, the ever-increasing double chins of his wife, his children who no longer make him feel a glow of pride by their resemblance to him, or his late patriotic debauch from which he is now recovering with a door-mat tongue and a general feeling of seediness? Why should I attempt to make a reader think, when I know so little myself? I should try to amuse him and let it go at that.

=George L. Catton=: It all depends. Tastes differ. Personally I don't care a penny for "blood and thunder" stories, all action to no end and without a theme or soul. But the vast majority of readers to-day want that kind of story and if an author wants to keep eating he's got to kill his own likes and dislikes for his stomach's sake. I like stories with action of brains, not brawn, but money talks. I have to keep my mind on my readers' likes and dislikes when I'm writing to keep my bread basket from blowing away. Otherwise I'd write what I liked myself, never think about my readers, and do better work--from a literary viewpoint.

=Robert W. Chambers=: The story only. In revising, the story alone.

=Roy P. Churchill=: My best stories come when I center on the story, but it is very hard when the readers' so-called limitations are so borne in upon you. For instance, terms and expressions of sailors seem to need some explanation when told to a landsman. Yet, do they? My most enjoyable reading is when the writer fires on regardless and lets you understand or not. Makes you work your own mind just a trifle to "get" what he is driving at.

=Carl Clausen=: Always on the story.

=Courtney Ryley Cooper=: Absolutely on the story. In revising, or rather editing, I watch the things that I know a reader will look for. But the story comes first. Because if it isn't a story--there won't be any readers!

=Arthur Crabb=: I think that when I write I have the story in mind and not the reader. The same is true in revising.

=Mary Stewart Cutting=: I center my mind on the story itself. I have my reader in mind in so far as I wish to write it clearly; in the vernacular "to get it over."

=Elmer Davis=: I used to center on the story itself, but they didn't sell. Now I center on the editor at whom I am aiming it. Yes, I know you will say that is all wrong. It is, for Tolstoy, Balzac, etc. But not for the sort of writers who make their living out of checks.

=William H. Dean=: My God! Never on the reader! That's fatal. If one tries to write to or for an audience, his work is worse than mediocre. I think of my characters and their destinies, think only of them--do my best to interpret, never to invent. If my readers like what I write, they agree with my interpretations. If any beginner should ask me to give him a single rule to observe, I should say, "Always write to interpret; you will go down in defeat if you ever deliberately set about to please any reader."

=Harris Dickson=: Don't think I ever have the reader in mind, except when in matters of local coloring I must consider viewpoints outside of the South and remember to make myself clear. Frequently I do not employ certain forms of colloquialism because the outside reader may not comprehend--and explanations are generally bad. In public speaking, however, this is different. There you face your audience and get a response. Many times the speaker practically follows his audience, falling into the same vein of thought and traveling along in harmony. Over and over again I felt this on the platform during our wartime publicity campaigns. Again, the speaker may feel a hostility or lack of comprehension in his audience, that he must go further, explain more clearly, hammer in a fact. Or he may feel that his audience has "got" his slightest gesture, that they comprehend fully, and no more is needed.

=Captain Dingle=: I never think of the reader. I lose myself in the story. I am my characters, in turn, within limits.

=Louis Dodge=: I think of my story, not of my readers, when I write; however, I try to finish my story--to put on paper what I have in mind, to make things fairly plain.

=Phyllis Duganne=: I don't think of readers when I'm writing. At least, I suppose I do in a way--I try to make people and things in a story convincing, and as I'm convinced at the start, I must be considering readers. But I don't think of them consciously; it's just the story I'm consciously considering. In revising, I think frequently of editors--after all, they're rather important.

=J. Allan Dunn=: I do not think I have my readers largely in the forefront of my mind, save as I know they are apt to clamor, through the editor, for the satisfactory ending. Which is one reason why I like to write for ----. There I am practically untrammeled. I am unconscious of an audience and I want to be.

=Walter A. Dyer=: I become preoccupied, when writing, with the story rather than with my readers, and I am afraid I too often leave the editors entirely out of account. I have, however, in the case of stories for boys, had to keep my audience in mind.

=Walter Prichard Eaton=: I never have my readers in mind when I write. My one job is to get into words the idea in my head. Alas! _before I begin_ I consider whether it is an idea which will sell. That is because we all feel we have to live. In revising, I try only to make what I have written correspond more closely with the idea I set out to convey--and also, I try, often, to make my sentence rhythms more attractive to the ear.

=E. O. Foster=: When I write I center my mind on the story itself and I am ashamed to say that I do not have my readers in mind, except as I write I know there are over four million ex-service men in the United States who are probably watching to catch me in an inaccuracy. I also consider that I am writing about the time of the Spanish-American War and that the tactics and military evolution have changed considerably in these years. Fortunately I was also in the World War and know what the changes are.

=Arthur O. Friel=: The story excludes everything else.

=J. U. Giesy=: Mainly on the story, the scene and action I wish to paint.

=George Gilbert=: I think only of the story. After it is written I think of selling it. But although this answer seems to exclude the readers, it puts them first, for I have confidence enough in what I write to make me think that if it is printed readers will like it. If I did not, I would not write anything.

=Kenneth Gilbert=: When I write, my mind is centered on the story itself, but the reader is not forgotten, merely crowded back a bit.

=Holworthy Hall=: I never think of the reader at all. In the first place, I think of the story itself--and afterward if I ever consider any one else, it is the editor and not the reader. We are all constantly selling stories to editors, but never to subscribers. It is the editor's job and not mine--to consider what he imagines his subscribers want to read. During the actual writing of a story I think of nothing but the urgency of translating into words the ideas which are in my mind.

=Richard Matthews Hallet=: When writing I certainly think first of pleasing myself in the effects I fight for; but a habit of stepping out of your own skin and into the skin of a reader should be a healthy one and indeed is three-parts, if not the whole of self-criticism, without a wholesome infusion of which I doubt if much real work gets done. But don't start by trying to please other people. Please yourself first. As Walter Pater says of "that principle axiomatic in literature," that, "to know when one's self is interested, is the first condition of interesting other people." I have gone astray before now by deluding myself into thinking I was interested in a given story simply because I had decided to write it.

=William H. Hamby=: On the story itself. I never think of the reader unless it is some point that it occurs to me might be misunderstood.

=A. Judson Hanna=: I seldom thought of the reader, merely writing a story as it came to me, until I began receiving the circulars sent to contributors by ----. When writing now I try to consider the effect of a story on the reader. I always have the editor in mind as I write.

=Joseph Mills Hanson=: I think of the story; very seldom of the readers of it.

=E. E. Harriman=: I center my mind on the story--try to make it natural--vivid--strong. The reader may go to Hades for all I care then. All I am thinking of is the responsibility I have to bring this character out unblemished and with the affectionate regard of the public or to save that one alive and in possession of his claim.

=Nevil G. Henshaw=: In making the first draft I think only of the story. In revising of the reader.

=Joseph Hergesheimer=: Never the reader!

=Robert Hichens=: When I am writing, I do not think about readers, only about my subject, my characters and how I am expressing myself.

=R. de S. Horn=: When I write I consider the story alone, until it is almost finished or rather until the final corrections are ready to be made. Then I consider my readers only so much as to correct with an eye to avoiding technicalities which they might fail to understand. Every story in my opinion has one particular style prescribed by the story itself as visualized by the author. If he allows himself to be swayed by considerations of the people who will read it or the magazines that may buy it, he is playing himself false and I believe the story will show it. The thing to do is to write the story as your consciousness tells you it should be written and then leave it to the literary agent to find the magazine and class of readers that it will best fit. I think the best illustration of this fact is that invariably our best authors' biggest works have come before the magazines have had a chance to subsidize him and buy his output in advance, thereby purchasing the right to "advise" what form his work should take.

=Clyde B. Hough=: When I write I am not aware of the fact that there are to be readers. A standard is hung up somewhere in the back of my mind as a sort of goal to drive it, but my mind is really concentrated on the characters and their action, particularly their action.

=Emerson Hough=: I never think of my readers. Poor people!

=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: Most emphatically no. I never give a thought to the reader. The idea of doing so is extraordinary to me. It is impossible and ridiculous. How can you tell a story if you are thinking about its effect on the people?

=Inez Haynes Irwin=: I do not think I ever think of my readers at all. In writing I am always thinking of my own impressions of my work. I have to bear in mind certain limitations of subject which publication in magazines involves. That of course is another story. Revising is a work I revel in--and I think only of my own pleasure.

=Will Irwin=: In writing the story I have only the story in mind. In revising, I think of the reader. For by now I have the succession of events and pictures so clearly established in my imagination that I am likely to take too many things for granted.

=Charles Tenney Jackson=: The story alone. I have never given the reader much thought. Now and then I wonder what the devil's the matter with an editor!

=Frederick J. Jackson=: In writing I center my mind on the story itself; the same fellow who takes the hindmost can take the readers. If my story can interest a critical reader like myself, it's a cinch it will interest others. I have a large number of partly completed stories. They were never finished because they did not interest _me_. If they have failed in this initial test they are too dead to have much chance with others.

=Mary Johnston=: The story. In revising, the same.

=John Joseph=: I am quite sure that I never write a paragraph without pausing to consider the reader's probable reaction to it. Lately I have been learning to keep one eye on the editor too.

=Lloyd Kohler=: I think that as a rule I constantly keep my readers in mind while writing a story. At any rate, the stories which I have really wanted to write I have never written--because I know it would be dangerous to try to "get them over."

=Harold Lamb=: Think only of story.

=Sinclair Lewis=: Both, inextricably mixed.

=Hapsburg Liebe=: I don't have anything in mind but the story itself when writing a story.

=Romaine H. Lowdermilk=: I center on the _story_ alone in the first draft. Thereafter I keep the reader in mind as I revise. Especially do I try to make each sentence and paragraph clear. I try to be merciful as well as lucid and say what I have to say as clearly and as entertainingly as I can without artificial means of tricking for interest. Though I do resort to sustained suspense in the body of the tale as well as bring in obstacles and the like much as we encounter them every day in our efforts.

=Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.=: I'm afraid my mind is centered mostly on the story itself and I'm not thinking of the reader. Get a good story clearly told and you needn't bother about the reader; he'll do the reading all right.

=Rose Macaulay=: Both.

=Crittenden Marriott=: On the story. I write a lot to "get it off my chest."

=Homer I. McEldowney=: When I write I center my mind rather intently on the story itself, with my reader, however, parked on the side-lines. I don't forget that he is there. I believe that I am coming to give him a thought more often as I write more. Undoubtedly I take him into greater consideration in my revision of detail, reference and diction than I did at first.

=Ray McGillivray=: I do all my deciding in regard to market, and all the work of reconciling recalcitrant characters to the dictates of good taste (as best I can guess both) before a word is written. Never was there a fiction horse which ran well with either of these check-reins on his neck.

=Helen Topping Miller=: When I write I do not consider my reader at all. I am concerned with my characters; I live, move, think and feel with them. Even in revising I do not think of my reader. I work hard for a true picture, and usually I find the reader gets it, if I have felt it strongly enough.

=Thomas Samson Miller=: Center the mind on the story, of course; but never let the reader--_and_ editor--out of sight. Keep in mind certain peculiarities of editors, taboos of magazines, and, above all, take care to avoid offending popular tastes and prejudices, and keep in mind the average stupidity and that average human beings are non-visual and non-imaginative. At least I do so when writing with dollars in view. Sometimes--quite often, in fact--I indulge in truth and in beauty--in _art_, that is to say.

=Anne Shannon Monroe=: I never think of my readers: when I write I am galloping ahead on a lively good time of my own: and when it is all finished, I hope it will mean a good time to some one else--but I am not particular about that.

=L. M. Montgomery=: In writing a story I do not think of all these things--at least consciously. I never think of my readers at all. I think of myself. Does this story I am writing interest _me_ as I write it--does it satisfy _me_? If so, there are enough people in the world who like what I like to find it interesting and satisfying too. As for the others, I couldn't please them anyhow, so it is of no use to try. I revise to satisfy myself also--not any imaginary literary critic.

=Frederick Moore=: When I write I center my mind on the story--I live it and sleep it until it is done. It exists wholly, just as much as the Grand Central Station exists. It has to. I do not think of the reader then, with the exception of what result I want to get with every word, every phrase, every sentence. But when I see it in type, then I think actually of the reader--and shiver.

=Talbot Mundy=: The story. Hardly ever conscious of the reader.

=Kathleen Norris=: In both writing and revising I never have anything in mind but the story itself, and the struggle to preserve consistency and verisimilitude.

=Anne O'Hagan=: My mind centers upon the story and I forget about the readers until the story begins to come back from the editors.

=Grant Overton=: I do not think I ever think of my readers when actually writing. Afterward in reading it over I may think of them. I do not think of them very much anyway. I think of how I like it myself.

=Sir Gilbert Parker=: On the story itself always, never on the reader.

=Hugh Pendexter=: I never have the reader in mind while writing a story. The story is as real as any news assignment I covered when a newswriter.

=Clay Perry=: I believe the "readers" are absent when I write, unless a dim nebulous sort of personality in the back of my head which might be called "One," and represent my idea of the composite taste and judgment of an average, well-educated person, could be called "Mr. Average Reader" (or perhaps a little above the average). If a story is worth writing, it seems to me, it must absorb the writer, he must live in it, become familiar with his characters.

=Michael J. Phillips=: I think the reader is pretty constantly at the back of my mind. He is always, though sometimes unconsciously, being taken into consideration.

=Walter B. Pitkin=: When I write my first draft, I think only of the story I am telling. When I go to the second draft I tend to think of both editor and reader. This is only roughly and broadly true.

=E. S. Pladwell=: My mind is centered on the story itself. If the story is good the reader will read. I wish to cater to the reader's taste only in a general way; that is, I know that all the mainsprings of human life and drama are the same to reader and writer alike, and therefore a story which appeals to the humanity of a writer must automatically appeal to the humanity of a reader, in a general way, always provided that the other elements of a good story are present, such as plot, technique, etc.

=Lucia Mead Priest=: I seem to have about all I can do to keep my story folk where they belong. It is perhaps unfortunate, but "readers" are a negligible quantity--seldom in the count.

=Eugene Manlove Rhodes=: Center on the story itself. Think of readers when revising.

=Frank C. Robertson=: My mind is always centered upon the story I am writing, except where some question of probability or plausibility arises. Right there I stop and work it out from an imaginary reader's viewpoint. Of course, in rewriting I have the reader constantly in mind.

=Ruth Sawyer=: On the story itself.

=Chester L. Saxby=: I do not have the reader in mind. I write stories that nobody wants because they don't come out pleasantly, or for some other reason. That's because anything worth writing gets a hold on me as a subject for thought and I want to express it for my own satisfaction.

=Barry Scobee=: On the story. Never think of the reader, unless now and then in difficult passages I wonder if the reader will grasp the meaning.

=R. T. M. Scott=: I have my readers always in the back of my mind, but just sufficiently to keep away from things like the war which editors are fed up on. (Perhaps the editors and not the readers are in the back of my mind.) Otherwise I forget the world or all of it which lies beyond the story.

=Robert Simpson=: I center my mind on the story only. Subconsciously, I suppose, my future audience is being considered while I labor strenuously over revision.

=Arthur D. Howden Smith=: Try to think only of the story.

=Norman Springer=: My tendency is, of course, to think only of the story while writing it. This query uncovers a curious thing. Now, when I write a story, I have a tendency to ramble. The trouble usually is that I am too much interested in my character. I like to investigate his feelings and thoughts at much too great length.

Well, I have developed a critic in the mind who works while I write. It is as though some faculty were standing quite aloof from me and the story, watching. When I wander into by-paths it checks me. Sometimes it doesn't, and I get into a mess. It is a faculty that is constantly getting stronger, and, like the fond mother, I have great hopes of it.

I've talked this thing over with other fiction writers and I find it's a rather common experience. Several of them told me that throughout their careers as writers they have been conscious of this slowly developing faculty for self-criticism while at work.

=Julian Street=: I don't have my readers in mind at all until after the story is done--save that I always try to make things _clear_ to a vague some one to whom I am telling my story. But in writing the story--the people in the story--are everything. I don't think of editors, either. I write to the severest critic I have inside me.

=T. S. Stribling=: A "reader" never enters my mind. I never give a hang whether anybody reads it or not, or what they think about it so long as I can get past the editor and get a check. I want the check because I can't live in idleness without it.

=Booth Tarkington=: I don't have _readers_ in mind--only myself as a reader.

=W. C. Tuttle=: I suppose that a writer should consider the reader, but I have never done so; it has always been a case of story first; feeling that, if the story is good, the reader gets the real consideration.

=Lucille Van Slyke=: Your question hits upon the greatest snag in my attempt to write. I find it bothers me excessively to have to keep any reader in mind; it's a mental hazard to me to think of anybody that I know personally reading what I am writing--a perfectly childish stage fright. (I qualify this--I dearly love writing a story for a child.) I am scared to submit a story to an editor after I have met him--don't mind at all having it slammed at fifty editors I have never met. Realize it's foolish and feminine and illogical, but it's so. But I do try to visualize a sort of composite reader when I am revising. Example--just now I am doing a year's ghastly potboiling--a thousand words a day six days a week for a newspaper syndicate. Each day is a separate short story, all hinge together--climax each sixth--larger climax each month with a bang at the end of six months. This is the most disagreeable writing task that I have ever tackled. It's plain deadly. But I never sit down to it that I do not lay aside my usual writing method. Remind myself of this: Whoever reads what I am writing now is a person in a hurry. I will have the attention at the most for not more than two minutes. Scattered or tired attention. I must literally jab. Short sentences, short paragraphs. Few adjectives and always the same ones when I mention a character already mentioned, so that I can save my regular reader's time. And I must write very carefully with extra clearness. This rubberstamping must be neatly done. Nobody has issued such orders to me but myself and I may be wrong, all wrong! But if I could visualize my magazine reader or book reader as clearly, I dare say it would be a very good thing for me as a writer. Only, I forget the reader entirely when I'm working on the thing that really interests me.

=Atreus von Schrader=: When I write I do not have my readers in mind. But I have considered them carefully beforehand ... also the editor to whom I hope to sell the piece.

=T. Von Ziekursch=: When I write the reader is an outsider and never has a chance. It is one of my biggest hopes to bring some fun and joy, some touches of life, some deeper thoughts to any who may read my stories; but I certainly never have and probably never shall give these possible readers a thought. I would write if I never sold a word of it. I wanted to for years when I never had an outside opportunity to get within gunshot of a paper and pencil; I could pour out a lot of those yearnings right here, but what's the use? Now I am in a place where I can write, I am fairly young and, believe me, I'm going to it with both spurs working hard. My mind is unequivocally centered on what I want to write. I hope to find markets for it and readers who'll like it, but I'd write it just the same if I didn't.

=Henry Kitchell Webster=: This question is answered, better than I can answer it here, in my contribution to _The New Republic_ Symposium on the Novel, entitled, "A Brace of Definitions and a Short Code."

=G. A. Wells=: I consider nothing but the story. It is there to be told and I try to tell it to the best of my rather poor ability. The reader for me does not exist. It doesn't make any difference whether anybody reads it, other than a continual complaint of unworthiness of my stories would soon put me _persona non grata_ with publishers.

=William Wells=: Center too much on the story. Am breaking myself of that bad habit.

=Ben Ames Williams=: When I write, my mind is on the job of writing. I never consciously consider either reader or editor. I try to tell the story in an appealing way. But if you ask me who I am trying to appeal to, I can't answer you!

=Honore Willsie=: In writing or revising I never think of the reader.

=H. C. Witwer=: In writing, I have nothing in mind but the story. A wandering mind is fatal to good work. I think of the readers when I see my yarn printed and--when I get the mail.

=William Almon Wolff=: On the story, emphatically and always. I take the reader into account, in revision, to this extent: My final revision follows a reading by a friend. I'm interested in whether he likes the story, but only academically--I can't do anything about that. But I want to know whether everything is clear. I will take infinite pains in revision if a comment indicates that I haven't explained something fully; if my meaning has eluded this reader. On that point I'm always wrong and my reader is always right--the fact that I can explain the confusion doesn't count. You can't follow your story, explaining every point readers don't understand.

=Edgar Young=: I center on the story.

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