Emerson Hough: To the beginner—Don't! To the practised writer—Quit!
A. S. M. Hutchinson: No practised writer wants suggestions—not my suggestions anyway. To a beginner—Read all you can of the best stylists, write all you can, and when you have started a thing always finish it, never abandon it.
Inez Haynes Irwin: I have only one suggestion to the beginner—getting into the habit of writing every day. I have no suggestion to make to the practised writer.
Will Irwin: To the beginner. Get the writing habit. Train yourself to write every day, whether you feel like it or no. Write only about the life you know. Try to be yourself. Avoid the habit of abandoning a piece of work half-way through. Finish what you have begun, no matter how bad it seems to you.
To practised writers—I humbly withhold advice!
Charles Tenney Jackson: As to suggestions to new writers, I should think, whether of any value or not, they are given above.
Frederick J. Jackson: To a beginner? First, second and fourth sentences in VIII. To a practised writer the same.
Mary Johnston: Feel and think. Continue to feel and think.
Lloyd Kohler: To the beginner I would advise that, after he has studied the numerous books on fiction writing, he forget about them entirely when he begins the story. The minute he attempts to write a story according to rule, he is playing with fire. He should study form and technique, study the masters, and then, when the story is actually begun, forget everything but the story itself.
Without doubt the greatest number of rejected stories are rejected because of either the weakness or triteness of the plots used. Beginners should always keep uppermost in mind the fact that "the story's the thing." Get the story first; technique and style are secondary—but always very important also.