H. H. Birney, Jr.: To me, plot and material are the most interesting, but I consider structure and style by far the most important. Setting is of minor value if style and structure are good. Witness Arnold Bennett! A man who has solved the secrets of style and structure can write about anything and make it salable and interesting.
Farnham Bishop: Plot, probably, at present. I feel the story first, as a whole. Then I begin to see the men who are behind it and ready to begin living it—character. Perhaps I should have put material before plot, as the latter usually springs from the former. Setting and color I find very easily, after I have dug up all the available facts, which is much more fun than setting them down, for I write slowly and laboriously, forming each sentence carefully in my mind before I set down a word of it. Therefore my style is terse and bare.
Algernon Blackwood: Material, style, setting, character, color.
Max Bonter: Style, I don't bother about. I just try to make my lingo appropriate for the thoughts I want to express.
Material, setting, character and color always interested me more than plot and structure. I am just now beginning to realize the importance of plot and structure and to pay to them the attention that they require.
Katharine Holland Brown: Most interesting—and most difficult—the translation of the story, from an image (very much scrambled, but clear to myself,) to one that will be clear to others.
Therefore, the structure, and the pointing-up of the plot.
F. R. Buckley: Most important ingredient to me? Color! With five exclamation points.
Prosper Buranelli: Structure and style. The rest are easy.
Thompson Burtis: In order of interest: Characterization, plot, structure, material, color, setting. Style means nothing whatever to me as yet. It never occurs to me. I write as naturally and with as little trouble as I talk. Consequently I have no style, probably.