FICTION WRITERS ON FICTION WRITING (continued 2)

Frederick Orin Bartlett: I never map out anything. For me nothing is more dangerous. My story as a whole is clearly in mind, but the details work themselves out as I write. That is true of my ending; I must know, of course, in a general way where I am going or I have no story, but that is as far as I commit myself except very rarely when the last sentence bobs into my head all made. Even then I may not know the preceding sentence or paragraph.

Nalbro Bartley: I write a story straightaway as a whole—the ending clearly in mind when I start. I always have it mapped in advance—and then, having started, I let the characters take the action in their own hands while I keep the characters in mine. It is like building a house with a plan—so many rooms, porches, etc.,—and letting the people who are to live in it furnish it as they please and live their own life as a family unit.

Ferdinand Berthoud: I map the story out wholly in my mind—practically see it finished as an artist sees a picture—before I begin to write. However, one or other of my characters is often likely to say some fool thing I hadn't previously thought of and slightly to change the trend of the yarn.

In writing I do the first two or three thousand words, then go for a long walk next morning and think up the exact wording of the next slab of misery. All I have to do then is practically to copy the stuff down.

Yes, I have the ending and the exact last words before I do a thing. Am ashamed to say I revise very little. Always keep my finished typed copy just two or three pages behind the original draft.

H. H. Birney, Jr.: Story is loosely mapped out in advance and written straight through—frequently at a single sitting. I do very little revision—little compared to what I understand some authors do. At times I will type a copy, single-space and carelessly, from my original pen and ink draft, do some revision as I proceed, and then prepare my final, double-spaced copy from this.

Farnham Bishop: Many of my stories start with things, rather than human beings: out-of-the-way ships, guns, primitive locomotives, what not. But as Kipling points out:

Therefore I must create the man who creates or uses the thing. Also his opponent or opponents, and the other people who more or less "go with the situation." Try to humanize every one of them, even if he only walks on to speak a line or carry a spear.

My usual written outline is a neatly typed list of all names of people, ships and places. Make this before I begin writing the story, to avoid being held up later. Spend a great deal of time trying to pick effective names. Finding the right one helps me visualize the character. Pick them out of the phone book, old histories, etc.

Almost invariably have the ending in mind before I begin. In fact, often begin by setting aside a strong ending and then work up to it. Brodeur and I wrote our first story about the fall of Knossos. All we did was to fake up a plausible explanation of why the durned place fell. As for revision, I write the whole yarn, read it, pencil it full of corrections, and then type a fair copy with carbon, revising it again in the process.

Algernon Blackwood: An emotion produces its own setting, usually bringing with it a character who shall interpret it. The emotion dramatizes itself. The end alone is clearly in my mind. I never begin to write until this is so. Then I write fragments, scenes, fragments of the psychology, fitting them in later. Occasionally, however, when the emotion is strong, the story writes itself straightaway. Revision is endless. Often the story, when finished, is put aside and forgotten. The revision that comes weeks later, on reading over the tale as though it had been written by some one else, is the most helpful of all.

Max Bonter: Formerly I used to sit down and begin writing at random, letting the story tell itself as I wrote. I have at last decided that it is a most pernicious practise. If, when I begin writing, I haven't a fairly clear idea of what I am going to write, how can I bestow on each phase or angle of my subject an appropriate measure of importance? How can I obey the law of proportion?

The result of such procedure was nearly always a lopsided story. As a theme gradually developed under my hand and neared its objective, I discovered that the text was full of clots and excrescences that had no part in the climax and had to be cut out. My straightaway rush therefore availed me little, because it was succeeded by hash, slash and revision. It was too much like stumbling into a story.

Mathematics being the foundation of everything, including chemistry, which is Life, and correspondingly of creativeness, which is a phase of life, should, it seems to me, enter directly into the building of a story. It is a vast field for an untechnical brain like mine to browse in, but I hope to get something out of it before I quit. In the meantime I am striving to organize a simple but effective scheme of work, somewhat as follows:

1. Be sure an idea is worth developing, from a "human interest" standpoint.

2. Develop the climax first.

3. Start off the characters like a bunch of obstacle racers and bring them to the climax as quickly, but as logically, as possible.

4. Write tersely at first, expanding where advisable—rather than write voluminously and chop out.

5. Write nothing that won't put at least a grain of weight into the final wallop.

Katharine Holland Brown: The story tells itself as it is being written: or rather, it is fairly visible as a whole before I begin to write at all. The climax and ending are usually written first. The rest is written down in very concise fragments, just as these fragments present themselves. The story isn't written consecutively the first time. Only the high lights. Then, of course, it has to be rewritten, sometimes three or four times; sometimes only once.

F. R. Buckley: I combine mapping ahead and letting a character move the story. Method depends on mode of conception (see above). Roughly speaking, the average story is planned thus—I conceive either the beginning, the middle, or the end, to start with. If the end, then I work backward and decide what shall be the high spot of the middle: and, from that, backward and figure out just where and with what attention-gripping incident I can start the story. These three high points established, I take the main character and start him from the beginning toward the middle. He decides very largely how he gets there—his character does, I mean. And when he's reached the middle, I start him off again in the general direction of the end. I always have these three high points established before I begin. I write straightforward; revise little, except for redundancies and literals, except in the case of long stories and complicated shorts. Then I go very carefully over the thing for errors of fact or probability: e. g., I examine each situation to see whether it could have been resolved in any simpler way than I have resolved it; whether I have made my characters make a wide detour when they could, and would, have cut across lots, as it were. Since, however, the character of the hero or principal character dictates the minutiæ of action, I rarely (have never done so yet) find a mistake of this kind. This is the great advantage of having a strong character to dictate action, of course.

Prosper Buranelli: I have everything but small details in my mind when I begin writing.

Thompson Burtis: My stories are all mapped out in advance—the exact ending is in sight. Even some of the dialogue is in mind when I start. I write straightaway as a whole. I revise very little. Most rewritten pages are the result of my believing that the original page, after the inked-in corrections, was too messy. Due to the completeness with which I have blocked out the story in advance, there is no necessity for me to do any important revision. I may occasionally overlook some important point in the story and have to put it in, but in no case have I ever made a radical change in a character or description after the first draft. What you get from me is the story as I originally wrote it, with perhaps one or two pages rewritten to make them neater.

George M. A. Cain: Advance mapping with me is of the vaguest character. Everything shapes itself toward or from the situation originally conceived. I write straightaway, but very rarely without a clear notion of a possible ending, having found that to do otherwise is to introduce useless or troublesome incidents and make heavy revisions necessary. My greatest difficulty is in getting a story started to suit me. Here is done almost all my revising, and I frequently write a dozen beginnings before suiting myself. Once started, I write straight on, unless I find, in the development of my hitherto vague ideas of the plot, that I can get my results better by change. In that case, I simply chuck out whatever I wish to replace, or insert the needed new incident. I have rarely found that I improved a story by revising it as a whole. Unless I am trying to please a new editor by nice copy, I usually submit the first and only complete draught of the story, with an occasional alteration of a word in pencil. Typing is the bane of my existence.

Robert V. Carr: Blind groper. Feeling my way through a strange country.

George L. Catton: It all depends on the length whether I map it out first or not. If it is one of those little fellows, the ones that I am best at, the story is all "there" waiting to be written down, start—finish. If it is a long one I let it write itself. That is, I get the best start I can think of and go ahead. Then when I reach the right starting-place I begin all over again. Occasionally, in a long story, the ending, in a general and vague way, may be in sight, but it very seldom ends as I planned at the start—something better turns up before I get to the end. I write it straightaway as a whole, go back often and make revisions, and often rewrite the whole thing after it is all finished.

Robert W. Chambers: Map it out in advance. Write it straightaway as a whole. Ending clearly in mind from the start. Revise murderously.

Roy P. Churchill: I have a working plan to begin with, end in view, characters named, setting selected; then write straight along as a whole. Often the working plan is radically changed, but never abandoned completely. The plan is not detailed painstakingly, but left open on purpose to change as the feel of the story develops. Revision with me is a second writing of the story, nothing less. This is where I proportion the coloring of the story and get the tones blended.

Carl Clausen: I always have the ending in mind. I write slowly, revise very little.

Courtney Ryley Cooper: My story is as clear as a bell before I ever start to write, characters outlined, action ready, ending clear and often I write the finish of my story first. I revise very little—when I have to revise I am worried to death about the yarn as I feel there is something fundamentally wrong about it that I can't put my finger on. My story is usually written in my head before I ever touch a finger to the typewriter. I often will spend six months framing a story. The actual writing of it is the smallest part of the job.

Arthur Crabb: I certainly do map out in advance. No hard and fast rules can be laid down. It is undoubtedly true that every writer may do one thing with one story and one with another. I think that most of mine are thought out completely before I start; any changes after the first draft are minor.

Mary Stewart Cutting: I do map it out in advance but not in detail. I write it straightaway as a whole. The middle part of a story is the least definite and has to be worked out. The ending is so clearly in mind when I begin that I have to write the last sentence of the story. A story, to me, is like a musical theme. It has to end on the same keynote on which it was begun. But if my mind vividly depicts some part of the story not in the proper sequence, I write it out in full as I see it and interpolate it where it belongs. I revise after the first writing, I revise before the final typewriting—mostly as regards minor sentences. But sometimes after it has gone to typewriter my mind will see where sentences should be inserted, usually to make the action clearer.

Elmer Davis: If I mapped it out in advance, I would sell more. Starting (usually) with a character in a situation, I map out six or eight chapters. By that time old Native Indolence is getting in its heavy work; the ideas are coming hard, bright thoughts and lines for the early chapters slip away while I am trying to think out and diagram the catastrophe; so I fall to writing, always easier than thinking. Write till I get stuck; then sit down and think some more; which of course usually entails considerable revision of the earlier chapters. Not much of the latter part.

William Harper Dean: Most frequently I have the ending in mind and work definitely to develop plot sequence which will enable me logically and directly to reach that end. I do not map out—such a practise would throw too many restrictions about the sweep of my imagination; I want full elasticity to that. Revise? Ah, there's the whole story! I revise and rebuild, strengthening here, eliminating there. Recently I started out with an idea for a short story and when I finished revising and rebuilding I had written a serial which sold at once for a most satisfactory price.

Harris Dickson: After I get some crude idea of a story I put down on a big sheet everything I can think of, generally without logical arrangement. This may be developed in a sort of scenario form. From this No. 2 sheet I begin to write, in longhand, in shorthand or a combination. You will note that sheets 1, 2 and 3 show progressive stages of the same material. The value of the big sheet, to me, lies in the fact that I can visualize an entire story at one glance, without having to search through a mass of tiny scraps. And it is so easy to rewrite in one column while looking at the other.

When I get my material pretty well in hand it is dictated to a dictaphone, from which the typist gives it back, with lines far apart and a wide margin. This is then scratched up, rearranged, and redictated.

Frequently a story pretty well tells itself, and sometimes the ending is clearly in mind. Sometimes not. Sometimes one kind makes the better yarn, sometimes the other. I've done a good story in three days, and struggled for three months over a bad one.

Captain Dingle: The story is pictured as a whole, with one ending clearly in view before a word is written. I do not—can not—plan a story or map it out; it has to write itself or it fails; and sometimes the ending I saw first has to give place to one more fitting to the developed story. I do not revise, except to correct noted errors of spelling and grammar (which are apt to slip anyhow, since I know damn little about 'em). Whenever I have revised a story it has proved a failure. The stuff, such as it is, must come spontaneously.

Louis Dodge: In the main I see my story to the end before I write it—or at least I try to do this. But largely I let the development—the secondary episodes—suggest themselves, or grow, as they will. I go straight through with a manuscript, and then I revise and revise and revise. I mean I write it entirely two or three or more times. This, perhaps, shows a lack of clear-mindedness, or of definite theories; but it is the best I can do.

Phyllis Duganne: I used to let stories tell themselves as I wrote them, but I've come to the conclusion that it saves more time to sit down with a pencil and paper and make a row of nice neat Roman numerals and letters and letters in parentheses, and make a diagram of the plot. That's mainly because, once I start writing, I can write on and on without getting anywhere in my story, and wasting loads of time and good paper. I write it as a whole with the general idea of the ending clearly in mind; I never know precisely where or how the tale will end. Sometimes I think I do, but the characters are likely to be ornery and not do at all what I wanted them to do. And if I make them follow a rigid plan, the story doesn't sound true. Revising depends. Sometimes hardly at all; sometimes I find that I have gone off on a tangent and have to cut out pages. Most frequently I find that I have to go through a story, individualizing and characterizing my people more. I know what they are like, but frequently I find on reading the story that I have kept most of my knowledge to myself.

J. Allan Dunn: Here is a hard question, how does the story grow? When it comes into your mind it has various stages of completion. Preferably I would let my story tell itself. No matter how carefully I may have outlined, gone over and over each next chapter, the thing amplifies when one sits down at the typewriter. The characters change, the situations demand things not thought of, you see a better way, the yeast ferments and rises unevenly. Seldom is my ending clearly in mind. An editor desiring certain breaks for serial publication will cause me to plan more carefully. Sometimes certain parts of a story obtrude themselves but not to such an extent with me as to make me break the straightaway development of the tale in due order. I may reach them with delight, look forward to them, find them in the forefront of my mind whenever I think of the yarn outside of working hours.

And what are working hours? You carry your story as a cow packs its cud. At least, I do. And I go over and over and over it, consciously and subconsciously. I take my next chapter to bed with me and automatically employ every spare minute, on the street even, to revolving the next phase of the plot. Sometimes details will blur, but the main plot extends itself far ahead. I like to try to plan a story with a purpose, but I decidedly prefer to try so to create my characters that they are alive and have certain wills of their own. As a rule I revise once—direct on the typed copy. And most of the errors are in typing. If I polish too much I am apt to overdo it, I find.

Walter A. Dyer: Partly answered above. I find it necessary to have some fairly clear conception of the destination of my story movement, or I find I have gone off at half-cock and the result is disappointing. The details, as a rule, come as I write. I try to have a telling ending in mind. Then I write the thing straight through and try to brace up the weak spots in revision. I sometimes have to change important portions of the story to get it right, but usually it is a matter of polishing. Each story seems to present its own particular problem as to the matter of revision. I have no rule.

Walter Prichard Eaton: I always like to know, before I write, around just where I am going and coming out. It is almost essential to me. Otherwise I would write far too much. Often the story in detail, sometimes in actual plot, etc., changes itself as I go along. Then I have to stop and look ahead and see a new finish.

E. O. Foster: Owing to newspaper training, I mull over a story in my mind until I have it fairly complete before I begin to write. Then I write the story with the beginning of the plot and ending clearly in my mind, after which by means of "inserts" and "adds" I enlarge it.

Arthur O. Friel: I let the story tell itself. Straightaway as a whole. Ending not clearly in mind. Revise comparatively little. Sometimes I rewrite a section, but usually not. My main revision is with the idea of compression and compactness.

In writing, I don't lay out my story and get it all nicely framed up before starting to write. I start with a general idea which comes to me from God-knows-where, and soon I'm marching along with my characters without any very clear idea of where we're all going to wind up. We get into swamps and cut our way through the bush and clamber up on to a hill and maybe find something on the other side; one thing leads to another, and eventually we make a good finish. Then we review our course, see where we went up a box-canyon which got us nowhere, and delete that place from the record of our trip; that's our "revision."

This, of course, is all wrong from the view-point of folks who love to systematize everything; but it's my way of traveling through a story, and I get there just the same. I have tried, on a number of occasions in the past, to make my characters and events fit a more-or-less definite idea of mine as to what they were to do, but it didn't work; they just took matters into their own hands and did all kinds of things I never meant them to, and all I could do was to trail along; and, darn 'em, they made a far better yarn of it than I'd ever have made if I'd clubbed them into submission. So now I've learned to let them do as they will, after I've brought them together in a certain place and started them on their way.

J. U. Giesy: Taking the germ, the "seed" of mental possibilities, I, as it were, plant it and proceed to cultivate it many times for months, letting it grow subconsciously, save for intervals when I water it by objective examination and conscious reviewing. In this way I "rough it in"—gain a general outline of the plot and action from first to last, with the ending always indicated at least. I then write it, filling in details on the main framework as I go along.

George Gilbert: Never map out, unless a little on novelettes and serials. Ending always in view. Never revise plot; sometimes revise diction materially, always some.

Kenneth Gilbert: All the mapping in advance is done in my mind, and I write the story straightaway. Of course, the tale develops and fills out as I write. I write carefully, and I find that I have but little revising to do; usually none at all. Newspaper training, whereby the first draft must be the last, may account for this care in preparing the manuscript. I always have a good general idea of the ending in my mind before I begin, and I have never been able to understand how others can go along without knowing what the next paragraph will be, unless they are willing to rewrite the story several times. I have always proceeded on the assumption that a good short story is "a dramatic tale objectively told." How may it be "objectively told" without the object in mind?

Holworthy Hall: I plan a story in advance only in so far as the development of the main situation is concerned. The ending, however, must be clearly in mind. I usually take as much time to write the first two paragraphs as to write all the rest of the first draft. Ordinarily I complete a first draft in a day or two—and a revision in ten days; but the time taken in revision is generally for style, and not for treatment. That is because, in the first draft, the sequence must be right, or I make it right before going ahead. I ought to say here that by a "day" I mean a working day of ten to sixteen hours.

Richard Matthews Hallet: I have to have a pretty definite scheme, a sequence of events with a denouement very clearly in mind, before doing much writing. This probably comes from being a cripple in the art. Scott certainly didn't. He wrote The Bride of Lammermoor when he was so nearly out of his head with pain that when the proofs came in he read them, he asserts, as if they were the work of another hand altogether. William de Morgan, to give a late instance, said he let the story drip off his pen-point. If I did this, it would drool, not drip.

I revise a great deal, three or four times, often, of next door to complete rewriting. Too much probably. Take a warning from Balzac's Unknown Masterpiece.

William H. Hamby: If the story is based on character, I let it work itself out. If it is to be a plot story made up largely of action, I outline it ahead.

Joseph Mills Hanson: I usually map a story in advance and write it straightaway as a whole, but revise it a great deal after finishing and on reading it over, chiefly to improve the style and polish it up. I have the ending pretty well in mind at the start, though it often changes considerably in detail by the time I reach it.

E. E. Harriman: I start my central character out and make him live the story. Follow him all the way through and get so darned anxious about him that I can hardly knock off work to eat. The end is oftenest clearly defined before I begin, but at times turns out differently, as the gaul-darned central figure takes the story out of my hands and does as he pleases. I revise from one to four times.

Nevil G. Henshaw: I generally have the story pretty well in mind before I start it, and write it straight through to the preconceived climax. Details, of course, shift about throughout, often changing the story materially, but usually the ending is clearly in my mind. I make one draft in ink very slowly and carefully, correcting as I go, and then do the final revising when typing on a visible machine. I always cut, but seldom if ever add.

Joseph Hergesheimer: It is planned wholly emotionally and partly in detail, and written straightaway. I revise interminably.

Robert Hichens: I do not map a book out in advance, except to some extent in my head. I have the end in my mind when I begin. This, I consider, is essential. I write straight on from the beginning to the end. Naturally I have to revise some passages. I usually write slowly and carefully and try to set down my exact meaning as I write, therefore I do not have to revise very much.

R. de S. Horn: I invariably map my story out in advance, although I don't always go to the trouble of writing out the plot diagramatically. Generally I have had the story in the back of my head for weeks or months. It starts with the story germ, and at odd times I find myself thinking about it unconsciously. Ideas, incidents and complications begin to collect around it and before I know it almost I feel that I have got a complete story. Then I sit down and write it at a single sitting if possible, without trying to exercise any great amount of word selection or any other consideration of technique. What I'm after in this first script is to get my story or rather expanded plot down on paper where I can look it over. I write in longhand and don't worry about fine considerations of sentence or paragraph structure. The ending is always in my mind before I begin, though I frequently change it before I am through with the final draft. But at any rate I have an ending which at that time seems to me to be the desirable ending. I find that in this first draft I usually write about three thousand or four thousand words.

Then I revise—and revise—and revise. I study my characters, dialogues, incidents, everything, with a view toward the demands of unity and consistency and, most of all, dramatic effect. I type my second draft because I find it necessary to be able to read exactly at the same rate as the reader if I am going to get my reader's impressions and reactions. I finish one revision, type it and start another one. My story mounts up to six, seven, nine thousand words. I sail into it, looking for non-essentials. I cut it down to five thousand or so. Then in my final drafts I bring it to the proper length; it is always easier to write in than to cut out. My revisions number as high as a dozen sometimes. In fact the enthusiasm with which I started the first draft has greatly abated before I finish and I grow very tired of the thing; so much so that I sometimes set the thing away to cool before making my final draft. But I believe that it is this cold critical attitude toward the end that really does more for the story than anything else. In other words I believe that the story-writing ability is mainly the ability to recognize some germ as having the story possibility, then the imagination to expand it, and lastly the will to work at it until it is improved to the readable state. Germ recognition ten per cent., imagination ten per cent. and hard work eighty per cent.

Clyde B. Hough: I do map out my stories ahead. One of the first things that I must have after the plot germ has reached maturity is the climax. After that, and of second importance only, is the title. All that I need to know then is the high lights, the points along the way on which the story makes its various turns. Then I sit down and write the beginning, say the first typewritten page, three or four times. Next I dictate straightaway from the title to the climax, creating the minor situations and the action as I go. Thus you see the ending is clearly in mind when I begin. "To what extent do I revise?" Always twice. Mostly three times and often four. The first revision is devoted strictly to cutting, compressing.

Emerson Hough: I see it clear in advance and revise but little.

A. S. M. Hutchinson: I start with the character, and he or she, and the friends they assemble, do the rest.

Straightaway from the first word to the last.

What I would call the ultimate goal is, when I start, at the end of a long passage. It is the characters' business (they having suggested it) somehow to get there.

My second novel I rewrote almost entirely. Normally, I revise scarcely at all.

Inez Haynes Irwin: I map out a story as carefully as possible in advance. The beginning and ending and the thread of the psychological development are ordinarily perfectly clear when I start. It is the middle or developing portion which is most difficult for me to write. It is difficult because it is always vague in my mind. I work my stories out on paper and make several versions. I write my first ten pages three or four times and the whole story at least twice before it goes to the stenographer.

Will Irwin: I can not begin writing on a story until I see its framework pretty clearly in mind. Getting that framework ready involves several days of beating my brains in agony. Recently I have found it helpful to try to write out from time to time a synopsis. Especially must I see the end—know toward what I am working. The incidents which develop the situation, I invent as I write. Usually, I begin at the beginning and write straight through. However, I sometimes find after a few days that I have begun in the wrong place. That happened to my latest story. Having finished a scene with which I intended originally to lead off, I realized that I had begun too far along in the action. Getting in the background of previous events made the writing awkward, clogged the action. I went back therefore and began with a previous event. Then I patched these two fragments together, and proceeded to the next scene. As concerns the main structure and method of a story, usually I revise very little. When the first draft is finished, I spend two or three days in "tightening up" the English and enriching the conversations and descriptions. I am impatient of rewriting—probably a lingering trace of old newspaper habits. However, I am married to a fiction writer, who reads my first drafts. Quoting "Merton of the Movies," "she is more than a wife, she is a pal and, I may add, my severest critic." Once or twice, when I have told my story awkwardly, she has sent me back to my desk to write it all over again from another angle of approach.

Charles Tenney Jackson: As for "mapping out a story in advance," that is done as far as may be. A very good thing, indeed, but not indispensable. Very often the ending is not in sight. And I revise but little. I start a story with a lead pencil, write a few hundred words, and invariably turn to the typewriter to go on with it. That first hurried dig may be ignored entirely thereafter, but the thread of this beginning is in my mind all through. Very often I set down the incidents, numbering them in order as they seem to fit in, and this stamps the scheme in mind for work, although I rarely turn to it. In fact, the yarn goes on to succeeding impressions, keeping always the first idea that was its genesis.

Frederick J. Jackson: Do I map it out in advance? Often. Just as often I don't. If I map out a story in advance, have a regular skeleton laid out, the story is apt to be stilted. I'd rather have just a hazy idea of what I'm leading up to, or, better still, a definite climax, nothing more.

When I can just ramble on and write snappy stuff that interests myself it will be a good yarn. If it interests me, it will interest the editor. I'm rather cold-blooded about my own stuff. I have a jaundiced eye when I look at it. I like a story about a character like "Mr. Conway."

I never write a story in pieces to be joined together. Always straightaway. Make one continuous first draft—slow work at times—and then copy it over. Typing over my original draft is about the total extent of my revision, except for a word here and there.

About the ending clearly in mind. I wrote about a dozen stories—most of them had the same plot—the old "perfect crime" that proves decidedly imperfect—and in every one of these I always had the ending clearly in mind. That's all I had to work on. I'd build up a story to fit the climax. A different method here from that which I usually employ.

Mary Johnston: I usually see it in advance, see the whole more or less completely. I do not mean, of course, in full detail. Usually it is written straight through from beginning to end. The type of ending is in mind from the first. Not necessarily the detail. In revision I excise a good deal.

John Joseph: The story begins always with a character; then a plot is conceived to "fit" that character. After the main plot is outlined (always mentally) situations or episodes, and dialogue to fit, are studied out in the rough. The typewriter now comes into play and the story is written "straightaway," with the ending always in sight. It runs to five thousand words perhaps. Frequently I roll the paper back and write between the lines. I pay some attention to phraseology, but am not particular. At page ten, perhaps, an idea comes which belongs on page five, so I turn back and jot it down between the lines with a pencil. When the first draft is finished there are always several pages that are a perfect mess of scribbling between the lines, so I rewrite these pages and renumber on through to the end. I have then perhaps a six-thousand-word story. I begin then at page one and rewrite the entire story, paying pretty careful attention to the phrasing. This copy will be nearly as badly scribbled and double-lined as the first, so it has all to be written again. This time very careful attention is paid to phrasing. Certain episodes may be rewritten many times, independently. (A recent page was written fifteen times—and then it didn't suit me.) With the third draft the story is complete except for a more careful typing and an occasional minor change.

Lloyd Kohler: Until recently I always mapped a piece, as a carpenter puts up a house. Then, when I was sure that I had the whole story well in mind, the actual writing was begun. This, in my mind, is the only reasonable way for the beginner to proceed, who has his hands full without worrying along as to how it will all end. It should be understood that I only plan the main trend of the story—the situations—in advance; the smaller details, most of the conversation, etc., must be left for the actual writing of the story. The reason for this is easily seen: If everything, even the smaller details, were figured out in advance the result would likely be a fearfully dull story—Heaven knows it's hard enough to keep a breath of real life in them, anyway.

But although I'm strong for mapping a story out in advance, I'll confess that there are even drawbacks to this method. The writer who said that he wrote the first word of a story and trusted to the Lord for the next withheld, consciously or not, the real reason for his use of this method. The reason, or at least one of the reasons, was that the fellow who writes half or two-thirds of a story without knowing what the end will be has at least the big advantage that he can be assured his interest in his story is not going to flag before it is finished. And as long as the writer's first enthusiasm in a story can be kept fresh and vigorous, the story will not likely be dull. I want to admit, right here, that regardless of the good points, the author who is bold enough to follow this method is flirting with danger.

I always start at the beginning of a story and plug away until the last word is written. May the Lord help me if I ever attempt to write a story in pieces to be finally joined together—it's hard enough to keep something akin to artistic proportion without doing the thing up in bits and then splicing the pieces.

Now the ending of the story is different. Although I know, generally speaking, how the story is going to end before it is ever begun, I rarely know just exactly what the ending is going to be until it is reached. That sounds like a paradox, but it isn't, and I know you'll understand what I'm getting at.

I don't do a great deal of revising—even though I am well aware that I am far from being a master hand at fiction writing. I believe that there is a danger of revising being carried so far as to take the life out of a story. Personally, I'd much rather see a few grammatical mistakes than a dreadfully dull story.

Harold Lamb: Usually the story is thought out fully in advance (and as often changed from beginning to end in the telling). The telling of it is straightaway, with an ending tucked away somewhere in the back of the brain.

As to revision, very, very little, except of wording and often an accident altered after story is finished.

Sinclair Lewis: Map it out in advance. Straightaway as a whole. I revise enormously—five or six times with great care.

Hapsburg Liebe: I try to map it out in advance, but I never write it as it has been mapped out, unless I'm working to one of those darned mechanical things called a surprise climax—and even then I often have to change everything but the climax. Usually I begin to write when I have my situation. When I've finished this, the rest is apt to come naturally. A lot of my stories have fallen flat at the end, however, with this method. But if I mull the story over in my head too long before I begin to write it, it dies. How much do I revise? In the case of any of my best stories, I know the thing by memory when it is finished. I revise that much—over and over and over. I've wondered if I wasn't in too big a hurry in the first writing; it sets, perhaps, like cement.

Romaine H. Lowdermilk: I map out in advance. The ending is in sight. But...! The map constantly changes as I go along. The ending advances or retreats or dissolves and changes completely as new angles creep in. But I must have the map and the definite goal before I start. I can, and sometimes do, "let the story tell itself as I write," but the result is appalling. I must set a goal and make each paragraph and each incident carry the action along toward that definite end. I do, sometimes, write the last two pages, and a few pages here and there in the body, or work out a choice incident, or one that presents the most difficulties in the way of brief expression, before beginning. It is like collecting material. I get it together and fit it in where it seems best suited. Anyway, when I get the whole thing down on paper, all jumbled as it may be, I rewrite—on the typewriter—trying to use my brain as I go along, and then view the result. Usually I mark, cut and interline every page, using a system of proof-reading all my own, then—rewrite. I do this three or four times. Then comes the final draft. How careful I am to get this exactly right! No erasures, no vague sentences, no misspelling, no "wrong" words. Then, when it is done I read it over. Alas! There is a mistake on every page and gross writing everywhere. I check, mark and interline that lovely last copy until it looks like all the rest. Then I flop the carbon copy over and make a new draft using the backs of the second sheets for the carbon so as to preserve both versions in case an editor suggests changes. And I usually find the first version the better! Upon reading this final and hard-boiled edition I am no better satisfied with it than with any of the others and could go on cutting and revising forever, but I call it quits and lay it in the laps of the gods of the editorial offices. Most of my stories so far have been sent back for some change before final acceptance. I certainly do appreciate that and I take great pleasure in the revising. For then, and then only, do I know how the story is striking the editors and, when I know that, I can revise like a bear-cat. At last I am on solid ground, whereas before I have been groping on quicksand. I like to revise and when I know exactly what an editor wants I have always been able to deliver the goods. It is not only inspirational, but I work with a surety I do not feel when fighting along with the preliminaries.

Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.: Lord, yes—I have to map it out in advance. Then there's a rough draft. This may be pretty fully written out in parts, and other parts be sketchy, which have to be filled out later. There may be pieces—merely notes—which are later joined into the whole. The ending is nearly always in my mind when I begin—at least some ending, though this may be later changed as the actual writing develops the story. I revise and revise and revise.

Rose Macaulay: I map it roughly out in advance, altering as I go along.

Crittenden Marriot: I revise as I write; that is, I go back from any place and rework till I catch up again. Finally, I go over the whole thing once, have it typed and go over it again.

Homer I. McEldowney: I map out my story before I actually begin writing—doping out a skeleton, complete, and with the conclusion determined. Then when I write, I write it as a whole. My revision is of diction and mechanical make-up, not plot.

Ray McGillivray: With slight modifications—usually the requirements of taste or demand of the market I wish to please—I have the struggle, main developing incidents, plan for character portrayal, and the climax in mind—or in a note-book—before I begin. A few times I have started with a situation and handful of characters, giving both factors free rein in naming their own destiny. Invariably such a story shoots off at a tangent—and is laid to rest, after much travel, in an old steamer trunk, my potter's field for rejects.

Helen Topping Miller: My stories work themselves out. Sometimes I know what the denouement is to be, oftener it works itself out very differently from what I had intended. I write the story as a whole, and very seldom revise my original version very much.

Anne Shannon Monroe: The story is pretty well in my mind from beginning to end before I begin to write it, but it always follows out little by-paths in coming to its end, of which I had no knowledge: I am as interested as any reader could be to see how it is going to work its way through. I follow the story, try to keep up with it, but never dictate to it, never interfere. After it's well started my hands are off. I revise four and five times,—sometimes more: the longer I write, the more I revise.

L. M. Montgomery: I map everything out in advance. When I have developed plot, characters and incidents in my mind I write out a "skeleton" of the story or book. In the case of a book, I divide it into so many "sections"—usually eight or nine—representing the outstanding periods in the story. In each section I write down what characters are necessary, what they do, what their setting is, and quite a bit of what they say. When the skeleton is complete I begin the actual writing, and so thoroughly have I become saturated with the story during the making of the skeleton that I feel as if I were merely describing and setting down something that I have actually seen happening, and the clothing of the dry bones with flesh goes on rapidly and easily. This does not, however, prevent changes taking place as I write. Sometimes an incident I had thought was going to be very minor assumes major proportions or vice versa. Sometimes, too, characters grow or dwindle contrary to my first intentions. But on the whole I follow my plan pretty closely and the ending is very often written out quite fully in the last "section" before a single word of the first chapter is written. I revise very extensively and the "notes" with which my completed manuscript is peppered are surely and swiftly bringing down my typist's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. But these revisions deal only with descriptions and conversation. Characters, plot and incidents are never changed.

Frederick Moore: I map it out in advance, but I rarely follow the first planning. However, the ending is most vital—and it is only now and then that I use the end I started with; for instance, I once plotted a short story which I expected would not run more than three thousand words—and wound up with a novel a year later which totaled one hundred thousand words. I revise to the extent that I feel a story is never done. I had eight drafts of the novel referred to above by the time I thought it fit to submit to an editor. Six drafts on a short story gets the job into workmanlike condition—but the editor sees only the few pages of complete story.

Talbot Mundy: I hardly ever map out in advance. My right hand hardly ever knows what the left is doing. But I'm not convinced that this is good. Just as an artist usually maps out his canvas in advance, without actually seeing the finished picture, so I believe that it will usually pay the writer to fix at least certain definite landmarks for his guidance.

Order is heaven's first law.

I write the story straightaway as a whole. The end is never in view (or almost never) when I first begin. But I am beginning to believe that (for me at any rate) that is an important formula—Visualize the end of the story first. It is certainly a prime essential of drama to provide a clear view of the main character just at the close; and I think that principle underlies story-writing. The writer should have in mind throughout a clear view of his main character as he will be at the story's end. The point had not occurred to me until I commenced this answer; but the more I study it the more strongly it convinces. That, and be concrete all through the piece.

Kathleen Norris: I map it out completely in advance, even to the words, and write it almost as rapidly as I could read it. My hard work is done while walking alone, or while playing patience, over which game the whole story unrolls in orderly sequence, as a rule. But frequently after beginning a story I find a better way to do it, and I have destroyed as much as sixty thousand words and then gone back to my solitaire and planned it afresh.

Anne O'Hagan: I map it out more or less before I begin to write. Not on paper, but in my mind. That is, I have a pretty clearly defined notion of what I believe the outcome of the experiences they will undergo will have upon my chief characters. I never write a story in pieces to be joined together, although once or twice, when I have laid aside a story because it wouldn't live at all, I have found after a time that I needed either an introductory chapter or an interjected one to make my characters real. I do a good deal of revision, more in verbal detail than in arrangement.

Grant Overton: I do not map the story out in advance. I let it tell itself as I write it. I write it, beginning at the beginning and work it out to the end. The end may not be at all in mind when I begin. I do all my work, practically, on the first draft and revise only once and then very lightly. I aim to get it right the first time, even if that means going slowly.

Sir Gilbert Parker: Character, then plot, then as a whole, and the end is always in my mind from the first. Constant revision.

Hugh Pendexter: Often; but never follow the outlined plot, as it is impossible for me to vision what will emanate from the result of the first dialogue or incident. In book-lengths I have my background thoroughly in mind, decide on the time of the story and have for stimulus of the action something pivotal in the history of our country. I write, say, fifty thousand words, then rewrite to eliminate and interpolate according to the need of late developments; then finish in one or two installments, and rewrite. The ending usually is the moment when the accumulation of conditional causes causes the hinge to turn, in other words, the big climax. Revise very little. The story unfolds in clear-cut pictures that are as real to me as if I were seeing the incidents take place. Therefore, aside from correcting mechanical errors, it has to go as written.

Clay Perry: In general I make an effort to map out the story so that it has at least one big incident, one big character, and usually begin to write to see what will happen to them. I write it straightaway. Sometimes the ending is clearly in mind, sometimes not; if the characters develop strongly, often they furnish the ending, even when I have one in mind, and often different from the one I had in mind. I revise always, once, sometimes twice, and have revised four and five times.

Michael J. Phillips: I find I have answered most of this in the above. I can't start with a character or a situation and wander. I have to see it through, except that perhaps in a long story the characters rather take the bits in their teeth and give me a ride. New incidents are interjected that way in a long story; in a short one, almost never.

I revise like this. I write the story without searching too closely for the right word or phrase, preferring to go over it afterward and correct and fit and cut. I read the whole thing in the rough draft, then revise carefully. Then write for the editor, and revise that somewhat, occasionally to the extent of rewriting a page or two. Usually, rewriting is cold potatoes to me—that is, after the story is finished and ready and has been turned down, and some one, an editor or other, suggests I do something to it. I haven't any luck with rewriting. I want to go on with something else. That is a closed incident, more or less, like a yesterday's newspaper story. I note that a good many unsuccessful writers carefully write one thing, and then agonize over it, polishing and shining it and changing it and anxiously trying to reach and satisfy all objections, possible and impossible.

Thus they waste a lot of time, use up a lot of creative faculty on a dead horse, and get nowhere in the end. I feel that there was a good idea in the story, but I can evolve as good a one or better to-morrow; and if I can't, I have no place in the writing game. Ideas are the bricks with which we build. If you have but one idea, or one idea a year, we won't get many houses constructed.

I don't write in pieces to be joined together. I start and go right through to the finish. I know the opening sentence, perhaps the whole opening paragraph almost word for word, and the closing paragraph before I touch the typewriter.

Walter B. Pitkin: I have to map a story well in advance—though some of the minor details shape themselves as I sketch in the first draft. I have never written in pieces and joined these together. And I simply can not imagine how anybody can pick up a pen and start writing without knowing where he is headed. (I know a few authors who do this though.)

I revise every story at least twice, clean through. And I deliberately avoid trying to make my first draft a piece of good writing. I treat a first draft precisely as a painter treats his canvas and his subject-matter at the first blocking in; it is nothing but a rough shaping-up of the major features. All the minor details are ignored for the sake of the deeper structure.

I see the main ending pretty clearly when I start.

E. S. Pladwell: Always mapped out in advance. Mentally, not on paper. Sometimes I drive for a hundred miles, thinking as the motor purrs. I write a story on the accordeon system—write everything in sequence and then condense. The ending must be clearly in mind. This is my one rule. If I know where I am going, it makes little difference what road I take.

Lucia Mead Priest: There is no hard and fast method of working for me. I should judge by this last winter's action that my mind does a vast amount of milling before my thoughts are concrete enough for a writing-pad. Usually I draft, sketchily. I have a skeleton plan of what I hope to do.

I live much in what I am trying to create. A thought—an action, a phrase or a word will pop out at me and I write it down. But as a rule I write the story straightaway as a whole even though I make patchwork of it later.

Eugene Manlove Rhodes: Map it out in advance. Either in pieces or straightaway. Ending clearly in mind from the start. Revise endlessly.

Frank C. Robertson: Having the genesis of the story as above, I usually map out the rest of it in my mind in a general way, leading characters, an inciting motive, a crisis and a climax. I may do this in ten minutes or I may stew over it for that many days; then I begin to write it out as completely as I can. I never attempt to block out a story in outline on paper. This, I read, is all wrong; but if I make a skeleton draft of a story, a skeleton it remains until the end. It seems to tie me down, and the story lacks the buoyancy that comes from spontaneous thinking as I go along, with the characters living their own lives, so to speak. I know my characters and my setting, so I have no fear of the story becoming inconsistent. However, the ending is usually in my mind when I start and the characters go logically to it. When the first draft is finished I let it cool off while I write something else, and then I go over it again, pruning and padding as the case demands and changing the structure when needed. The more I write the more I find that it pays to revise, and now a story usually gets three or four rewritings. Before I began to sell any it only got one.

Ruth Sawyer: My stories are pretty well mapped out before I start writing. But there is always a time in the process of writing when the character or plot, whichever dominates, gets a firmer control of the story than I do; and for this reason the story is quite likely to end differently than I originally intended.

Chester L. Saxby: I used to write on little definite plot and seek the development as I went. That, I have come to find, is a poor way to get results and usually makes for wandering and uncertainty in the writing. One does not hold a reader's mind by maundering. The blind can't lead the blind. One does not even tell a story that way, but rather potters. I get the plot idea strongly in mind and lay in the detail that will give the most vivid feeling of the point that otherwise will be merely seen, not felt at all. That's character stuff. I do not outline; I can not hold myself down to that. Often the story takes a turn of its own, but I believe that changed plot development is in my mind, too, or it would not come out. I revise very little. It is hard for me to revise on my own criticism. An editor is indispensable for that purpose. He can actually jerk you out of a warped perspective into which you've hypnotised yourself past comprehending.

Barry Scobee: Really, no. I must have the ending, the climax, the conclusion—usually one and the same thing, with me—clearly in mind before I start to write. Once or twice I have written the last page of my story before any other part.

I get an idea, a situation or condition and look it over or let it browse in my mind a month or a year, or three years, and when I wish to use it I figure out what the logical, or illogical, ending would naturally be, and that is my situation. I must have it before I begin to write. I must know what my destination is before I start on the journey, but I do not need to know what all I shall see on the trip. That develops as I write.

Having the conclusion in mind, I write the title—and seldom change it afterward—then begin on my story. I have written the first three or four hundred words of stories as many as fifteen times, and usually three or four times. By then I am launched and I go ahead rapidly—one thousand eight hundred words in four hours or so. Sometimes I get checked up. It is because interest is lagging, due to my getting in stuff that doesn't properly support that conclusion I have in mind, or something of that sort. Then I go back to the point where it seems to have got started wrong and write, and write, perhaps, until I get on the right track again. It may be that the mistake is because I am getting out of character, or dwelling too long on an insignificant phase. Anyhow, I am developing a hunch as to when the story interest is beginning to lag.

Then when I have written through—the copy pencilled and scribbled until I can scarcely read it myself—I clean copy. There I exercise great care, then send it to the editors. The revising and plot arrangement and the like are all accomplished in that first slow-going piece of work. In clean copying I do just what is signified—clean up the manuscript.

R. T. M. Scott: I usually let the story tell itself. Sometimes I map it out in advance but, if I follow the map, I have a devil of a time to sell the story. I write the story straightaway. The quicker I write the quicker it sells. When I begin I seldom have the slightest idea of the ending. I have almost come to the conclusion that it is better to write a new story than to revise—except when I receive an editorial request for certain changes.

Robert Simpson: Nowadays, when I am reasonably satisfied that I have a story to write, I try to map it out roughly before going ahead. As a rule, however, I have more trouble with the first paragraph than any other part of the story or book. For the greater part the story proper writes itself, and I write straight through from beginning to end, revising, chapter by chapter, as I go along. In some instances I have to go back and revise bits of the earlier chapters, nearly always with a view to boiling them down. Only the roughest conception of the ending is in mind when I begin, but I always have an eye on the possible climax at almost every paragraph. Revision is at once the curse and the blessing of my writing life. I don't like it, yet I get more satisfaction out of it than from any other angle of writing. In a recent story of mine a certain dramatic "moment" occupied nearly three pages. When I finished revising the "moment"—and it cost me a day and a half to do it—it looked more like a moment and consisted of just three lines. I can still exult over that little bit of revision; but I always begin the job by threatening to use an ax on the typewriter or murdering my family or something.

Arthur D. Howden Smith: Always map it out in advance, but sometimes alter plot as I go along. Always revise and finish a chapter definitely before I go to the next.

Theodore Seixas Solomons: I map it out in advance, mentally only; later recording the mentally conceived synopsis of plot and action development, or only recording a part. In respect to this main development—the general architecture of the fictional structure—this is prearranged, cold-bloodedly, though I am hot-blooded and interested enough and enjoy enough the coming to me of the lines of plot. But I record them mentally or on paper and thenceforward follow them cold-bloodedly. But the detail, the filling in, and sometimes much of the general action, especially in longer stories and novels, is a matter of creation and determination as I proceed with the writing. Sometimes I change considerably, but never radically, the structure lines at certain critical junctures in a long story. I write it straightaway, as a whole, unless I happen (rarely) to find my mind going ahead and interesting itself creatively in some important future part of the story, possibly my main, or a minor, crisis. Then I do not hesitate to skip ahead and write it while it's hot.

The end is not clearly in mind in these mental and written synopses (the latter, by the way, are usually brief; even for a novel, referring to plot and story movement alone, rarely exceed a thousand words). But the theme end always is. I know in the larger, better sense how my story is to end simply because it has formed itself to me from nearly the beginning of the plotting as a single entity—à la text work insistences. It can't change at the end organically without making of the whole a monstrosity.

Ordinarily I have a rotten memory, even for my own cogitations. But fictionally I possess a jewel. It works this way. I have Mr. Plot-germ—the odd character confronting some appropriate situation, or the situation or incidents without any special character, and I say to myself, now how shall I get the story out of this embryo that I know is in it? Then plot material is drawn into my mind from somewhere in the fancy and squared and fitted into and around my foundation and ascertained by my critical faculties to be appropriate or inappropriate, more or less. An idea comes and goes—useless. Another comes and looks propitious, but not unless something else, provisionally retained, can be modified to suit it. A lot of material comes on to the lot, one way, one time or another, and some is hustled off, some immediately purchased and marked, and some left to one side, or, tentatively permitted to stay where it may finally lodge, if other things fit into it, later. Now all this would be rather cumbersome, complicated, and altogether impossible to such a poor memory as mine if it were not for what seems to be my peculiar faculty for retaining a grasp of what I have conceived directly in proportion to its degree of promise of utility. My memory doesn't let go of any plot or incident—nor of any detail matter, either—that is cognized as utilizable, in other words, that is either outright purchased and designed surely for use, or that has been tentatively held, in the thought that before I get my problem worked out these, or some of them, may be the very things needed in the structure. Though I make notes, more or less, as I say, I find I seldom have to refer to them. I always do as a precaution, but it almost invariably transpires that I have forgotten nothing.

In this preconstruction of a model for the story that is to be written I concern myself, however, only with essentials. I do not inhibit the flow into my mind of little bits of almost-text—detail, expressions, description and the like. I receive these as a listener might, approvingly or disapprovingly, and I usually retain them (but not so surely as true plot material). But my main creative business, which is the only thing I attempt to spur, is in finding, out of the trial suggestions of my fancy, the right main timbers for the structure that satisfies the possibilities of the foundation plot-germ, grown now into something like a theme or fiction thesis. Thus the ghost of the story is born, the better part of it, the complete theme and spirit of it. Then I'm ready to write it—when I feel like it, which is usually soon after the conception, though I can go weeks or months without losing anything of what I have prefigured. The discarded material has mostly vanished, to be recalled with difficulty or not at all. The material that had been more promising, and yet discarded, remains, in proportion to the degree of suitability it had shown. The really suitable—and adopted—remains forever clear in my mind. Seemingly, with the recognition by my critical or creative judgment of that suitability, I have, as it were, nailed them into the structure, and thenceforward they remain, visually almost! Therefore I can not forget them, for I can almost see them.

As to revision, it is a process that takes usually twice the time that the original consumed, and, in the case of a short story, probably three times.

Raymond S. Spears: I have written half a million words to get eighty thousand words completed. Revision is generally according to my wife's ideas, or, if I don't agree at first, we work over till both are satisfied.

I have written a seventy-thousand-word serial without knowing what the next paragraph would contain till more than half-way through. This, I know, is wretched and time-wasting practise—but once in a dozen times this method brings my best stories.

Norman Springer: I always map the story out in advance and write straightaway from beginning to a definite ending. Sometimes, though, when half-way through the yarn, a new complication, or a better ending is thought of and the whole story is changed. But there is always a definite end in view.

Revision. I hate it, and do it—sometimes. Not nearly to the extent that I should. I write very slowly and previse. That is, I carefully think over each situation and think out each paragraph before I write it down.

Julian Street: I map it out. Talk it out, and make notes on outline. The more sharply I have it outlined in my mind, the less trouble I am likely to have in execution. Revision, with me, consists chiefly in polishing, eliminating awkwardness of phrase, undesirable repetitions of the same word, and cutting.

T. S. Stribling: No, I don't exactly map it out, "I" don't seem to have much to do with it. I simply sit around and presently an incident will bob up, or a character or a scene or a bit of scenery and, if the thing strikes me as funny or pathetic or containing human interest, I sort of accept it mentally. If I am afraid of losing it I make a note of it—and I usually do lose the note, but not the incident. Then I stick about and wait for more characters, more incidents, more of everything.

All this time I have a theme I want all these incidents and characters to illustrate, and naturally I want all my bits arranged in a climax. And the things apparently arrange themselves. I am sure none of my readers can ever be so surprised at what turns up in my stories as I myself. It is so much more exciting than reading a novel that I almost never read one.

No, the ending is not clearly in mind. I have a vague notion of what I want—I know the mood I want to leave my reader in and usually when I get him in that mood I just quit writing.

I write every story three times, once with a pencil, twice with a typewriter. My pencil draft doesn't make any sense at all, my first typed copy is the story roughly told with endless unnecessary ramifications, my third copy I send to the editors.

Booth Tarkington: The answer differs with every story.

W. C. Tuttle: I have never mapped out a story in my life.

I do not bother about plots nor situations. A typewriter and some paper seem to be all I require, and I let the story tell itself. When my lead character gets bothersome enough to worry me I know he is ready to tell me the story.

Lucille Van Slyke: I start with character every time on a story, but I never let the story tell itself. Nor do I ever write in pieces, as you call it, on a short story. In working in book-length or serial-length things I work in chapter lengths at a time. Ending is so clearly in mind when I begin to write that it sometimes very much hampers me; I have a petulant feeling that I wish I didn't know so positively how it ends. I mean that I resent having to build up a plausible reason for an ending that is so clear for me that it's inevitable whether logical or not! I revise much too much—short stories I write not less than four and sometimes as many as twenty times. And every time I am less satisfied. Always find myself wishing I could give my situation or plot to somebody who knew how to write—the idealized story of my beginning seems so many miles ahead of what I can get on paper.

Atreus von Schrader: I have found by cruel experience that unless I have my entire story clearly in mind I am apt to make a mess of it; chiefly because some character in the yarn picks it up and runs away with it. I write what amounts to a very rough copy of the whole piece, from which I rewrite the finished copy. I have heard of many writers who never revise, their tales springing full-fledged and polished from their minds. Can this, if true, be explained as resulting from an unusually clear connection between their conscious and subconscious mentalities?

T. Von Ziekursch: I simply can not map out a story in advance. The whole thing seems to start in a haze and work nearer until it bursts out full and ready. I can not write them fast enough, it is always so clear. In four or five hours a five-thousand-word story is written. Only once has it been necessary to revise anything other than the punctuation, and that story was a failure.

Henry Kitchell Webster: I must see my objective, in general terms, before I can begin a story, but I am careful not to commit myself to any predetermined mechanical devices. These must spring, seriatim, out of the situations which the characters themselves create. I am obliged, sometimes, to do a great deal of revising with an ax, but I don't do much of it with the smaller implements.

G. A. Wells: My chief pleasure is walking. I find greater satisfaction in taking the roads and paths as I come to them than in having previously fixed upon a route and destination. The same way with a story. I let it choose its own route, though I do dictate the general direction. I think most stories tell themselves anyhow. If the characters and situations do not occur logically, automatically, the writer should not force them. At least not too much. It is one of the rules of mechanics never to try to force a nut on a bolt. It strips the threads. Forcing characters and events in a story strips it of spontaneity. When I read a good story I am satisfied that the writer merely recorded what happened instead of making things happen himself.

Unless one has a good memory, however, it is a good rule in the longer stretches to have some plan of work. At least the principal characters and the events should be set down on paper. New ideas are occurring and being incorporated all the time during building. While writing a long story—fifty thousand words or more, say—if new characters and incidents don't pop up it is a sure sign that the story is not moving properly.

At present I have on hand six stories that I have been writing over a period of about three years. They run from fifty to eighty thousand words. They are all complete in the first draft, though none of them has ever been submitted for the reason that I am not satisfied with them yet. One of these stories in particular was planned carefully from start to finish and a detailed synopsis made. When I had written about thirty thousand words of it an eccentric old gentleman popped in and demanded a part. And the funny part of it is that he "belongs." I don't understand how I planned the story without him in the beginning.

Therefore I would say that it is essential that a plot be kept elastic. It should be like a pot of vegetable soup simmering on the back of the stove—one never knows when one may find an extra potato or a lump of meat to add.

Generally I write straightaway from start to finish, though there are exceptions. More often than not the end of a story is vague when I begin. I would rather have it so and let the story work itself out to arrive in a neighborhood near that which was vaguely conceived. I began a story only last night and have no idea what it's to be. My imagination pictured a cowboy riding into a small town, whistling. He came to that town for a purpose, but he hasn't told me yet what it is. I am letting him go his own gait and he is.

Revision never hurt a story. "Revise, revise, revise" is one of the best rules ever offered writers. I don't follow it as I should because I haven't the patience for it. I nearly always revise twice from the first draft, however, and at times as much as eight revisions follow the first draft. I have a story in my desk that must have been revised at least fifty times. The first draft ran about ten thousand words. It now stands at about thirty-five hundred words. This story is not intended for sale, though I may eventually sell it if I can. I am writing it simply for my own pleasure and practise in revision. I hope to bring it down to two thousand words. The work I have put in on it has done me good.

I once tried an experiment. I took my time and wrote the first draft of a story in manuscript. It sold the first time out. I have tried to duplicate that performance several times since and failed each time.

William Wells: I have a very good idea of what the outline and main incidents of the story are to be before I set down a word and write the climax first, then build up to it. I sketch out scenes and incidents in skeleton form, but in no regular order, then arrange them to make a connected whole, start at the beginning and write the story, filling in and rounding out as I go along.

Most of the story comes to me as I write. That is, when I sit down I haven't the slightest idea of just what words I shall use or of many of the scenes or incidents; they just appear. And I revise to beat the band, two or three times.

Ben Ames Williams: Save in one or two rare cases, I have always outlined my stories in advance. The exceptions were novelettes in which I knew in a general way what I wanted to do—a trend of character—and let this trend develop as I went along. I write from the beginning to the end. The end is usually as clearly in mind as though it were already written, before I begin to write. I revise until I can no longer discover ways to improve the story.

Honore Willsie: I block the whole story out to the end before I begin the actual writing. Then I write it straight through, long hand, let it rest for a while, write it through long hand again and turn it over to a stenographer. I do very little revising. The story is too clearly planned before I begin to need much of that.

H. C. Witwer: I always map a story out very carefully in advance, having all my ingredients well in hand. I never let the story "write itself." I write it straightaway, as a whole, with the climax always in mind when I start. Revise once. Revising being cutting anywhere from two thousand to five thousand words out of what must be a short story, i. e., five to six thousand words. That's my greatest trouble, cutting 'em. When I first began to write fiction in 1915 I had a great deal of difficulty stretching a story out to four thousand words. Now my first draft will run anywhere from ten thousand to twelve thousand words!

William Almon Wolff: To some extent I map out a story—sometimes. I can't follow a rigidly prepared scenario, though; all sorts of things happen, in the writing, to upset such plans as I do have. I write a story whole, always.

As to revision my method is, I suppose, wasteful and inefficient, but I have no choice. I really can't separate first writing and revision, because they go on together. I begin by writing as if there were to be no revision—good paper, carbon, everything. Understand—I know I'm going to revise, but if I admit that, if I try to economize by using cheap paper, or to save the trouble of making a carbon, I can't write a line. Well, I go on until I say to myself—"This won't do!" Then I start over—usually from the beginning. I may have done two or six or a dozen pages; it doesn't matter. And I may do that twenty times.

As a result what is, technically, my first draft, is a pretty thoroughly revised story. As a rule all except the last page or two will have been written from three to six or seven times. And then, very often, I rewrite the whole story, from the start, although some pages won't be changed at all and on some there will be only a few trivial changes.

Edgar Young: Map it out ahead, seeing the climax very clearly, although many details that come up now and then make changes necessary and often help and sometimes cause a man to quit a story.

Summary

Of 110 answering there are 51 who map out a story in advance—2 of these very carefully, 5 somewhat, 1 generally, 1 a little, the remainder habitually. Those mapping out only in general number 32, while 46 let the story tell itself, a few of the latter being included also among the 32. Who is sufficiently rash to venture a general rule on the subject? Each mind must find its own best method and only experience can be the teacher.

There are 10 who write a story a piece here and a piece there, one of them writing two-thirds and then revising; 51 write straightaway, 3 of these qualifying with "usually" and 2 with "sometimes."

Having the end clearly in mind when they begin, 60, 3 qualifying with "usually," 3 with "in general," 5 with "sometimes," 1 with "fairly definitely."

As to extent of revision 84 answer. Omitting those mentioning the number of revisions, the remainder may be classed: much revision, 21; some, 10; little, 9; very little, 19; none, 1. The record where number of revisions is specifically given runs somewhat as follows: 0 to 2 times (1); 1 time (3); 1 to 2 (1); 1 to 4 (2); 1 to 5 (1); 2 times (1); 2 or more (2); 2 to 3 (1); 2 to 4 (1); 2 to 8 (11); 3 times (1); 3 to 4 (2); 3 to 15 (1); 4 to 5 (1); 4 to 20 (1); 5 to 6 (1); 6 to 8 (1); up to 12 times (1).

All the way from none to much, from 0 to 20 or possibly more. There can be no rule. There are some who ruin their work if they give it more than a revision for details; some whose first draft is too crude to serve as more than foundation for the completed structure. There is only one sound teacher in each case—experience.

QUESTION III

1. When you read a story to what extent does your imagination reproduce the story-world of the author—do you actually see in your imagination all the characters, action and setting just as if you were looking at an actual scene? Do you actually hear all sounds described, mentioned and inferred, just as if they were real sounds? Do you taste the flavors in a story, so really that your mouth literally waters to a pleasant one? How real does your imagination make the smells in a story you read? Does your imagination reproduce the sense of touch—of rough or smooth contact, hard or gentle impact or pressure, etc.? Does your imagination make you feel actual physical pain corresponding, though in a slighter degree, to pain presented in a story? Of course you get an intelligent idea from any such mention, but in which of the above cases does your imagination produce the same results on your senses as do the actual stimuli themselves?

2. If you can really "see things with your eyes shut," what limitations? Are the pictures you see colored or more in black and white? Are details distinct or blurred?

3. If you studied solid geometry, did it give you more trouble than other mathematics?

4. Is your response limited to the exact degree to which the author describes and makes vivid, or will the mere concept set you to reproducing just as vividly?

5. Do you have stock pictures for, say, a village church or a cowboy, or does each case produce its individual vision?

6. Is there any difference in behavior of your imagination when you are reading stories and when writing them?

7. Have you ever considered these matters as "tools of your trade"? If so, to what extent and how do you use them?

This question received in the questionnaire as much space as all the other questions combined because it was designed to open up a field that is practically new ground. When a student under Professor J. V. Denney at Ohio State University twenty-five years ago, our class was much surprised to learn that people vary tremendously in their ability to respond to the descriptions or imagery of an author. I, as an example, had taken it for granted that everybody saw, in his imagination, everything mentioned in a story, was much surprised to learn that some saw little or nothing and still more surprised to learn that some people had a similar ability, almost entirely lacking in myself, to hear, taste and smell as vividly as I saw. In the years that followed I questioned a great many writers and found that practically none of them was aware of this difference and that none at all had considered it a matter that might have decided bearing upon their own writing—their effort to convey to the reader what was present in their own consciousness.

Until the subject was brought up in a book of my own a year ago I had chanced never to see it mentioned in print or hear it referred to again by an author, editor or anybody else, yet during twenty years as an editor case after case has arisen in which ignorance of this simple phenomenon has proved a serious stumbling-block to a writer's progress. An author, for example, with vivid powers of imaginative visualization deems it a waste of words to describe what he believes every one will, on the mere mention, see as vividly and fully as he himself does, and as a result his stories when they reach his readers are not at all what he thought they were. To many his story-world is a mere land of ghosts moving in fog, without detail, color, individuality or reality. Another writer, himself lacking visual imagination, in the effort to put on paper a story-world capable of giving him a sense of reality uses so many brush-strokes that a large part of his readers, needing only a suggestion, are bored and read no more. A third writer, his own imagination insensitive to appeals to the senses of hearing, taste and smell, makes no such appeals in his writing and thereby fails to approximate full response from many readers. Another, with an imagination particularly sensitive to sound stimuli, gives to a story the appeal strongest to himself, neglects visual and other appeals and bores part of his audience with appeals that can not reach them while he gives to others not enough stimuli to keep them interested.

What, then, should be the general rule of procedure? There can't be any, but since readers vary so radically and fundamentally in ability to respond to sense appeals, any author, new or established, who in ignorance of this fact attempts to reach them on the theory that the responses of all of them are identical with his own is going to fall far short of his potential success as a writer. The following answers from more than a hundred writers will show that most of them are working without knowledge of this basic variation in imagination response of readers.

The part of the questionnaire bearing on imagination was designed to bring out (1) the differences of readers in natural ability to respond, (2) the resultant differences in effect upon readers of the presence, degree or absence of certain sets of stimuli in a story—in other words, the extent to which a story is dependent for success upon the use of such stimuli, (3) a general idea of the relative importance of stimuli to the various senses, (4) the extent to which the imagination differences were recognized by writers and allowed for in their work, and (5) since there seemed no available data on any part of the subject, the securing of any chance information that might shed new light.

As elsewhere in the questionnaire the desire to make the questions entirely unprejudiced in form, so that they would in no way tend to shape answers toward what I wished to see established, made them less definite and direct than they could have been made at the time—and very much less than they could be made now that the answers have shown the infinity of variations in imagination responses, the many interesting points not systematically brought out or previously considered, and the great difficulty, for any one analyzing his reactions for the first time, in giving clear-cut answers. The answerers, remember, received only the bare questions without even a hint of the explanation and purpose as fully stated here. With such explanation the questions probably seem sufficiently definite. They did to the several authors and editors to whom I turned for aid in compiling them. But the answers will show how much more definiteness would be needed for absolutely definite results.

More definite results should be secured from a questionnaire framed for that purpose. But the following answers, partly because of the very fact of comparative indefiniteness in the questions, are so richly suggestive, so stimulating and illuminating in a hundred ways, that their value transcends any mere tabulation of specific results. Also, for all practical purposes, they give sufficiently definite data for satisfactory conclusions on the points aimed at.

It is to be noted that in all but the last two questions on imagination the authors were being asked as to their reactions, not as writers, but as readers only, though in some cases this distinction has not been maintained.

The first two questions may be considered as one. The third, as to solid geometry, was partly to ascertain whether those lacking visual imagination encountered unusual difficulty in a study demanding ability to imagine a third dimension in a figure drawn in only two dimensions; partly, I confess, as a check on some who might, in all good faith, analyze their abilities incorrectly; partly to show the importance of securing proper imagination stimuli in order to get complete understanding.

Indeed, the answers to these questions on visual imagination, no matter who gives them, are bound to be incorrect in a very appreciable number of cases. Surely of all subjects the imagination is one of those that least lend themselves to hard and fast analysis and iron-clad definition. Also there can be no fixed standard or basis of comparison. Add to these difficulties the similar ones connected with the various sense impressions. No group of answers, however truthful in intent, could be expected to provide absolutely reliable data, yet very practical results can be obtained and writers, as a class dealing particularly with the imagination, are unusually equipped to furnish valuable analyses. If some of those who answer have failed entirely to grasp some of the essential distinctions, others have been unfailingly clear-sighted and have given all that could be asked in the way of nicety of analysis.

For example, some of them, like Theodore S. Solomons, draw the most important distinction much more satisfactorily than I was able to do in my questionnaire even after years of considering the general subject, and the reader is referred to them if my statement of this distinction is not sufficiently clear.

The chief stumbling-block to any one attempting to answer the first two questions is the demand to draw a definite line between an actual sense impression through the imagination and a mere intellectual concept of that sense impression. It is not so easy and simple as it may seem. For example, if I may illustrate from my own case, I find that my imagination gives me very good visual impressions but none at all from the other senses. I can, with eyes shut or open, look at any thing, person or place I have seen and again see in my imagination any part or detail that I am capable of remembering intellectually in any way—can even see what I have never seen with my eyes, though of course no one can imagine anything that is not built of parts familiar to him through some kind of actual experience. But do I see things as clearly as if they were before my physical eye? It is easy to answer either yes or no, with long arguments to support either side. If imagination gives me blurred pictures, I can focus on any part of them and make it so clear it almost hurts, yet the fact remains that most of the picture is blurred. On the other hand, that is exactly the case with the physical eye. But isn't the field of exact vision smaller in one case than in the other? And so on endlessly.