Thompson Burtis: I am somewhat uncertain as to what technique means, to be truthful. If it means skilful construction, well-turned phrases, proper handling of suspense, etc., as my instinct leads me to believe, I am strongly of the belief that it is very important. I read so many good stories that interest me not at all—so many others which, boiled down, have nothing much to them but which through the skill and facility of the writer are charming and interesting to me. I have read stories where the young fellow met the girl, they liked each other and got engaged, which pleased. Others with colorful background, unusual characters and rapid-fire events have been murdered for me because I sat back and watched the green author botch them, annoy me with missed opportunities, prick me with unfortunate phrasing, harass me with clumsy construction, etc. There are a fluency, an inevitable, logical interest and a sense of complete satisfaction in a sound, properly constructed, skilfully written yarn told by a master of his craft which are unmistakable, I believe. Tricks of the trade, many of which I see through, nevertheless add life and personality to a story for me. Take Talbot Mundy and his trenchant by-passages on everything in general. I enjoy them, and yet I can see him sticking them in, sometimes. And I couldn't read a page without knowing it was Mundy writing.
George M. A. Cain: In that attitude, technique has become so much a habit of feeling that I can not tell where it begins or leaves off in my own construction of a story. Where I consciously resort to technical tricks of writing, such as deliberately arranged shifts from one to another view-point for the sustaining of suspense, I am always hampered with a sense of cheapening the work by the introduction of a mechanical device.
Robert V. Carr: I am insensible to technique. I know what the dictionary says about it, but the dictionary is full of words. A lot of things that many discuss glibly are just words to me.
George L. Catton: Am in doubt of your use of the word. My dictionary says: "manner of artistic performance," which would be, in this case, style. And in this age of a used up supply of plots and themes and characters and incidents, style must be about everything. An author's personality is the only new thing possible to-day in fiction.
Robert W. Chambers: It is an essential part of all creative work.
Roy P. Churchill: Frankly, technique is something I have never seen a synonym for. It is evasive. Perhaps you might say that technique is the life of the story. Without it a story is dead. With it alive. And there are a great many kinds of life. Some pleasant and some ugly. Some appealing to one person and some to another. For me this thing called technique must be in a yarn to make it live, and the more of it the stronger. That's why just polish isn't technique.
Carl Clausen: If over-emphasized, it kills the spontaneity of the story.
Courtney Ryley Cooper: Technique is excellent, but it is like the frosting on pie. Sometimes we would like to scrape it aside and find something REAL underneath.
Arthur Crabb: I think it is at least one of the most important things in writing. Some genius may get along without it, some isolated individual may evade the issue for a while, but not for long.
Mary Stewart Cutting: I think technique has great value.