When the answers began coming in, it became at once apparent that here was material far too valuable to be tucked away in the appendix of any book. The questionnaire had gone to only those writers who had contributed to my own magazine, Adventure, some of them beginners, some of them established writers appearing in all our magazines and between book-covers. It was then sent to a general list of authors and their answers were added to those first received.
The result is a broadly representative list of authors almost perfect for the purpose. It includes the tyro and the writer of life-long experience, those little known along with our best and our most popular. There are those who write avowedly for money returns alone; those who make literary excellence their single goal. They come to authorship by various roads from all walks in life, from England as well as America. They run the whole gamut of difference in schooling, method, aim, ability, experience and success.
The value of their symposium to the beginner is beyond easy calculation. If there is an experienced writer who can not find profit as well as interest in these ideas and methods of his fellow craftsmen, considered both individually and collectively, I can not at the moment guess his identity. If other editors can learn from it as much as I have, they will find it difficult to name any other one thing from which they have learned so much of value in so short a time. If literary critics will bring to it a consideration of fundamentals and of facts, that their general type is none too prone to exercise, there will be a gain both to them and to the standards of criticism and valuation they so largely control. To readers of fiction it is the opening up of a fascinating world hitherto seen only in detached glimpses. And if the average writer of text-books or teacher of class expounding the art of writing fiction will let go of formulas and theories handed to him by others and consider the actual laboratory facts of what he is trying to teach, the gain to American fiction will be tremendous.
If my summaries and discussions of the answers group by group leave much to be desired, I plead the difficulty of exactness in dealing with matters of infinite variations and subtle shadings, the impossibility of covering even sketchily all the points that arise, the limitation imposed on entirely free discussion of material furnished one through courtesy and good will, and the fact that in any case my comments are of extremely minor importance in comparison with the answers themselves.
The answers have in most cases been given in full. What cutting was necessary in places has been done, I think, with as little bias as is shown in the questions. Where specific teachers, books, authors and so on were mentioned, there have been some omissions, nearly always of those unfavorably mentioned. If specific instances seem ill-chosen for either cutting or exceptions, I can plead only good intent and the best judgment I could summon. I have been editing copy for more than twenty years and have found few cases offering greater difficulties to consistency and intelligent handling. The specific difficulty mentioned is, naturally, far from being the only one.
My sincere thanks go to the authors whose kindness furnished the material for this book. While some of them were personal friends or acquaintances, there were others upon whom I had no shadow of claim and who responded only through an innate spirit of helpfulness—helpfulness not just to the asker but to the host of aspiring writers who they knew would profit from the information experienced writers could give. My thanks, too, for the good will of those authors who were prevented from answering by circumstances beyond their control. I have dealt with writers most of my life and, as in any other group of people, there are disagreeable, trying, ridiculous and even criminal exceptions, but as a whole I have found them very kindly, human folk. Perhaps it is because the material of their life-work is human nature, or because their natural bent is such as to make them choose that life-work. It would, I think, be a vastly kinder, gentler world if all who live in it were equally ready with the helping and friendly hand.
QUESTIONNAIRE
Answers to Which Constitute the Body of This Book
I. What is the genesis of a story with you—does it grow from an incident, a character, a trait of character, a situation, setting, a title, or what? That is, what do you mean by an idea for a story?