Samuel Hopkins Adams: It depends largely upon the nature of the stories. In my "Our Square" stories, setting, color, style and atmosphere. In my more serious works such as Success and The Clarion, character, plot, structure and the interplay of living forces which partake of and fuse all of these elements.
Paul L. Anderson: Character, material, color, style, structure, setting, roughly in the order given (not invariably; it depends on the story). Plot is essential; it's the skeleton on which the living thing is built. To my mind, the greatest of fiction writers, in the order given, are Shakespeare, Sienkiewicz, Defoe, and Hugo. The setting is, properly speaking, a part of the plot.
William Ashley Anderson: Material, setting, character, and color. But this is accidental, and the result of personal and unusual experience. All these elements ought to be of value, and relative importance.
H. C. Bailey: Character is far most interesting and important to me, then style, and construction comes in the third place.
Edwin Balmer: Answered under I.
Ralph Henry Barbour: I hold character the most important in writing. If you've got that, you've got the rest.
Frederick Orin Bartlett: Material.
Nalbro Bartley: Character development.
Konrad Bercovici: All the things put together make a story.
Ferdinand Berthoud: Setting. My old Africa always. I couldn't write a story of anything outside of Africa to save my miserable life. Then I like fooling with the various men I've known and making the poor beggars laugh and suffer. Those who are alive of my characters would murder me if they caught hold of me.