T. Von Ziekursch: Genesis of a story.—I have little idea where the ideas for stories come from. They merely seem to be dreams in which the characters become clearer and clearer until I live through the incident with them in an existence that is very real. I always have regrets when a story is finished; then the characters seem to fade out like old friends, gradually becoming hazier until they are lost. In my animal stories I believe incidents that I have seen and animals that I have studied form the stem about which I build the branchings. Perhaps the same thing occurs with the human characters.
Henry Kitchell Webster: My theory of the genesis of a story is a dynamic one. The motive power behind any story is furnished by the setting up in some life, or group of lives, of a condition of strain or disequilibrium, and the story itself is the sequence of events by which equilibrium is sought to be established. I never started a story from a title, but I fancy I have started at least once from each of the other items of your list.
G. A. Wells: Story ideas occur to me in flashes. As a rule it is no more than an idea, very brief and not, in most cases, sharply drawn. Most ideas come to me while reading the work of others, whether of fiction or fact, and it may be peculiar that the idea as it occurs is never similar to the story or article as a whole or any part of it that I chance to be reading at the time. To name a case in point, I distinctly remember that the idea for one story came to me while reading the third book of Dryden's translation of Virgil's Æneid. The idea hit me so hard that I dropped everything else and began the story at once. I don't attempt to explain it. I have never deliberately set about to invent a story idea. That is beyond my mental capacity. Ideas occur to me unwilled or not at all. But, given the idea, I will with confidence contract to work it out in any manner suggested.
William Wells: Anything gives me the idea for a story; my head is full of them all the time.
Ben Ames Williams: It is quite impossible to answer generally any such question as this. Some of my stories grow out of incidents observed or imagined; some are transcribed almost literally from experiences related to me; some grow up around a character, or an apt title, or a trait of character; some are built up as a play is built up, to put forward a definite dramatic situation; some put in the form of fiction a philosophic or religious idea which has appealed to me; some are merely whimsical studies in contrast. The only general statement I can make is that George Polti's book on dramatic situations has been of great help to me, not so much in suggesting stories as in assisting me to see more clearly what effect I want to produce.
Honore Willsie: I always start with some bit of human philosophy that I want to get over.
H. C. Witwer: I'm afraid I must answer this one rather generally. That is, I mean the genesis of a story with me grows from not one, but all the elements you mention, viz., character, situation, setting, title. Sometimes I hit upon a good title and write around that; sometimes I spend days on the proper title after the yarn is finished. A chance remark of an individual, quaint, funny, philosophic, etc., may furnish a story and so with the other ingredients above. I would say, though, that the majority of times the first thing I get to work on is a situation. Next title. After that, I go to it!
William Almon Wolff: If I go back I can find that stories have grown out of all the things you mention. But the actual making of the story never begins until one or more persons are in my mind. I have to deal with people, and the real planning and building of the story nearly always begins with speculation as to what this person or that would do in a certain situation. Here is a concrete example:
My friend, Robert Rudd Whiting, gave me, years ago, this, as an idea for a story. Repairs to a post road in Connecticut made him, for several days, take a detour; a little, lonely sort of road. And he used to pass an old house, where two old ladies sat, looking out eagerly at all the bustling life that had so suddenly come along their road.
Bob had tried to write the story, and failed. The idea fascinated me, too. My notion was to try to work something out and do it with Bob—I know, of course, that, if only he kept on, he could do the story, and do it better than I could ever hope to do it. But the war came along, and it took Bob. He was killed in action as truly as any man who died in France, although the records don't show that. So I felt that I was doubly obliged to write that story. But it eluded me until, at last, I saw in my mind exactly the right man, troubled, oppressed, sick of heart and mind and body, lured from the great road, with its rushing motors, by the peace of the little road.