Charles Tenney Jackson: The story alone. I have never given the reader much thought. Now and then I wonder what the devil's the matter with an editor!
Frederick J. Jackson: In writing I center my mind on the story itself; the same fellow who takes the hindmost can take the readers. If my story can interest a critical reader like myself, it's a cinch it will interest others. I have a large number of partly completed stories. They were never finished because they did not interest me. If they have failed in this initial test they are too dead to have much chance with others.
Mary Johnston: The story. In revising, the same.
John Joseph: I am quite sure that I never write a paragraph without pausing to consider the reader's probable reaction to it. Lately I have been learning to keep one eye on the editor too.
Lloyd Kohler: I think that as a rule I constantly keep my readers in mind while writing a story. At any rate, the stories which I have really wanted to write I have never written—because I know it would be dangerous to try to "get them over."
Harold Lamb: Think only of story.
Sinclair Lewis: Both, inextricably mixed.
Hapsburg Liebe: I don't have anything in mind but the story itself when writing a story.
Romaine H. Lowdermilk: I center on the story alone in the first draft. Thereafter I keep the reader in mind as I revise. Especially do I try to make each sentence and paragraph clear. I try to be merciful as well as lucid and say what I have to say as clearly and as entertainingly as I can without artificial means of tricking for interest. Though I do resort to sustained suspense in the body of the tale as well as bring in obstacles and the like much as we encounter them every day in our efforts.
Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.: I'm afraid my mind is centered mostly on the story itself and I'm not thinking of the reader. Get a good story clearly told and you needn't bother about the reader; he'll do the reading all right.