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.