Walter A. Dyer: I would advise beginners to practise restraint in writing and to seek to be sincere. Also to cultivate the imaginative qualities in the development of character and the making of pictures. To a practised writer I have no right to advise anything, but I admire independence and a devotion to the highest ideals of style and structure; I despise the tendency to fall in with the crowd and devote the greater energy to the invention of the plot and emotions that "the public wants."
Walter Prichard Eaton: To a beginner—remember that the Book of Ruth is told in three thousand words and Guy de Maupassant's Price of String in three thousand words.
E. O. Foster: The most valuable suggestions I would give to a beginner are: First, to write; second, to write and third, to write.
To a practised writer I could say first a big mailing list, such as technical, sporting magazines out of the ordinary line, so that "pot-boilers" could be adding to the regular income, second to originate a style of your own.
Arthur O. Friel: Having admitted that I can't boss my own work, I'm hardly in position to tell another writer how to do it. Since you ask for suggestions to beginners, however, here are one or two for which there wasn't room on the questionnaire:
Study words. They're the bricks with which you build your story-house and you should know how to lay them right. Learn just what they mean. You can not correctly express your ideas without the requisite vocabulary.
Avoid using long or unusual words or complicated sentences, so far as possible. You should know what the long and unusual words mean, for occasions may arise when no others will express your exact meaning; but usually you can, and should, use simple words and simple sentences. This makes your stuff easy to read. The reader doesn't want to be forced to consult the dictionary in order to find out what you're trying to say.
Read as much as you can. Reading will help greatly to give you the hang of writing. But, in writing, don't try to model your stuff on something you have read. Develop it in your own way. Don't be a copy-cat.
Keep trying; that is, keep writing. If your first stories don't "land" with editors, don't quit. Consider these rejected stories as practise work, and write new ones. You will gain in ease and power with every new tale written.
As for suggestions to a practised writer, the best and only one I can give is this: