E. O. Foster: When I write I center my mind on the story itself and I am ashamed to say that I do not have my readers in mind, except as I write I know there are over four million ex-service men in the United States who are probably watching to catch me in an inaccuracy. I also consider that I am writing about the time of the Spanish-American War and that the tactics and military evolution have changed considerably in these years. Fortunately I was also in the World War and know what the changes are.
Arthur O. Friel: The story excludes everything else.
J. U. Giesy: Mainly on the story, the scene and action I wish to paint.
George Gilbert: I think only of the story. After it is written I think of selling it. But although this answer seems to exclude the readers, it puts them first, for I have confidence enough in what I write to make me think that if it is printed readers will like it. If I did not, I would not write anything.
Kenneth Gilbert: When I write, my mind is centered on the story itself, but the reader is not forgotten, merely crowded back a bit.
Holworthy Hall: I never think of the reader at all. In the first place, I think of the story itself—and afterward if I ever consider any one else, it is the editor and not the reader. We are all constantly selling stories to editors, but never to subscribers. It is the editor's job and not mine—to consider what he imagines his subscribers want to read. During the actual writing of a story I think of nothing but the urgency of translating into words the ideas which are in my mind.
Richard Matthews Hallet: When writing I certainly think first of pleasing myself in the effects I fight for; but a habit of stepping out of your own skin and into the skin of a reader should be a healthy one and indeed is three-parts, if not the whole of self-criticism, without a wholesome infusion of which I doubt if much real work gets done. But don't start by trying to please other people. Please yourself first. As Walter Pater says of "that principle axiomatic in literature," that, "to know when one's self is interested, is the first condition of interesting other people." I have gone astray before now by deluding myself into thinking I was interested in a given story simply because I had decided to write it.
William H. Hamby: On the story itself. I never think of the reader unless it is some point that it occurs to me might be misunderstood.
A. Judson Hanna: I seldom thought of the reader, merely writing a story as it came to me, until I began receiving the circulars sent to contributors by ——. When writing now I try to consider the effect of a story on the reader. I always have the editor in mind as I write.
Joseph Mills Hanson: I think of the story; very seldom of the readers of it.