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.