Ben Ames Williams: I've never taken any "course" in story writing. I once read a book on it. It helped me not at all. The books that have helped me most in the technical work of writing are books of criticism. Any of the standard works.
Honore Willsie: Neither.
H. C. Witwer: I have never had any course of any kind in short story writing, or, I should say, in writing. Nor have I read or studied books on the art, gift, trade, profession, crime, or whatever it may be. I have about me at all times as working tools, a dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, Shakespeare, Encylopedia Brittanica, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Find all invaluable.
William Almon Wolff: No courses at all. The best book I know is not about narrative fiction at all—it's William Archer's Play Making. That has been and remains, invaluable to me. I think, incidentally, that it's helpful to think of a story in "scenes."
Edgar Young: No classroom course. Wrote several stories before I ever knew there was such a thing as a book on the subject. Must have learned something by reading current magazines but was where I couldn't get them for years when in South America. Since being here in New York have read many of the books concerning writing.
Summary
Of 113 answering, 55 have used neither class, course or book, 56 have tried one or more of these, and 2, saying only that they took no course, are probably to be included with those having tried none of the three.
Of the 56 who have tried one or more of the three, 40 give definite reply as to whether, in the elementary stages, they derived benefit, as follows: much benefit, 6; benefit, 4; some benefit, 5; total 15. No benefit, 11; some harm, 1; harm, 2; much harm, 1; total, 15. There are 10 who state they derived "little benefit" and this presumably is to be taken as a negative answer. In any case, out of 40 there are 25 who derived little or no benefit in the elementary stages of learning their art, and 4 of the 25 state that they derived actual harm instead of benefit.
Add the fact that if the remaining 16 of the 56 who have used one or more of the three derived any benefit they did not take the trouble to say so, which would indicate that, if there were any benefit at all, it was not a considerable one. Add the additional damning fact that of the 113 answering the general question 55 (probably 57) have not found it necessary to success to use any of the three. Out of 113 writers only 15 claim any benefit, in even the elementary stages, from classes, courses or books purporting to teach the writing of fiction! Ninety-eight against fifteen!
That testimony fills me with joy. Yes, I've written a book myself on fiction writing, but it had not been published when this questionnaire was answered, it was written largely as an earnest protest against present methods of teaching fiction and a chief purpose of this questionnaire and of this present book giving its results was to get proof in facts from a final source that present teaching methods, as practised in all but a tiny handful of cases, are badly in need of revolutionary revision.