George M. A. Cain: I can not answer this at all. Plots are my chief difficulty. Structure comes next. Style is unconscious. Material comes easily after a plot. Settings present difficulty or interest to me, only when some peculiar market requirement demands fitting stories to them rather than them to the stories. My early ministerial experience fastened my attention upon characters, and I find them without effort. On the question of character in fiction I shall say more under X. Color interests me only when I have to get it from outside my own experience. To me the supreme interest is always the reaction between situation and character.
Robert V. Carr: I do not know.
George L. Catton: Theme first, then style, then characters; the rest about equal in importance, with color last.
Robert W. Chambers: Fifty-fifty.
Roy P. Churchill: Plot and character first with all the rest trailing after.
Carl Clausen: In their order named: Character, plot, structure, color and setting.
Courtney Ryley Cooper: All these ingredients are necessary, with plot, structure, material, and one which you haven't mentioned, accuracy, very much to the fore.
Arthur Crabb: Mind. Or if you prefer character. Next to that is style. The structure is, of course, taken for granted. The plot, setting, color, etc., seem to me to be, as I said before, frames of the picture. One of my greatest weaknesses is my inability, or possibly unwillingness, to make the plot strong enough.
Mary Stewart Cutting: I think that structure, style, material and character are important in the order mentioned.
Elmer Davis: Character, feeling. (If you've ever seen any of my stuff you won't believe this, but you ought to see the stuff I haven't sold.)