I fear I have never thought of this as fully as I have since the question was asked by you. As you know, my writing is an avocation and pleasure—a relaxation from a professional life.
George Gilbert: If the story is good, I live it as I read; if it is without appeal to me enough to compel me to live it, I throw it aside. In regard to seeing "things with your eyes shut," this question evades a square answer, for who can analyze the limitations of his own imagination, when he must use it for the analysis? Who else can do it for him? The imagination, in its workings, is the one power that is inalienable, non-delegateable. Do I "have stock pictures for church, cowboy," etc.? I hope not. Reading vs. writing? No one can tell; certainly I can't. Tools? No; not; none. If an author kept all that in mind, he'd write, not stories, but a text-book on them.
Kenneth Gilbert: To a great degree I have spoiled myself as a reader; in other words, I have for years taught myself to be always looking for the mechanics of a story. I ask myself: Why did the author do this? And I am not satisfied until the question is answered. Occasionally, however, I read a story that by its smoothness and charm stirs my admiration and imagination, and I find myself being carried along, reacting the same as the average reader, in just the way the author wished. Then indeed do I hear the sounds described and taste the flavors of the story. Imagination does not reproduce smells very markedly, but the sense of touch is very real. Physical pain is felt; more keenly when sympathies are deeply stirred. A poignant sense of sympathy is the keenest emotion I feel, it seems to me. In addition I would say that clever dialogue in dialect, such as a negro—if he is funny—is most realistic. I can hear the words spoken.
I "see things with my eyes shut," but sketchily, only the high lights being visible, therefore the details, unless I focus my attention on them, are blurred. In colors.
Solid geometry proved far more interesting than arithmetic, which was very distasteful to me.
I have stock pictures, unless the author has troubled to depict objects otherwise. I prefer to see them through his eyes rather than resort to my familiar scenes.
Decidedly there is a difference in the behavior of my imagination when I am writing, as compared to reading, stories. Reading a story never keys me up until I am oblivious to all but my immediate surroundings, while I fairly live a dramatic scene in my own story.
I consider these matters "tools of the trade." For example, I try to test impartially my own description, to see if I have gone far enough, or too far. If I feel that it is graphic enough for the reader to "get" its highlights, his own imagination will supply the rest. (I'm taking Kipling's word for that, and I think it is correct, as I have proved it to my own satisfaction by questioning discerning friends who read my stories.) A sentence which carries imaginative stimuli, and therefore a flavor, is one of my constant aims.
Louise Closser Hale: I know that good reading makes good writing, develops style, polishes our sentences and gives us an unconscious measure for us to go by. I know that I have often written down a word and, after writing it, realize that I had no clear idea what that word meant, but upon digging at my dictionary I have found it to be absolutely the word for the definition of my thought. That comes from good reading. How beautiful it is that, like acting, we can learn and enjoy at the same time! Is there any difference in the workings of my imagination when I am reading and when I am writing? Well, I generally read authors who write better than I do and my imagination makes pictures of every situation of their story. But I resent any great description of the characters. I can make my own pictures; and I am impatient when I myself am writing if there seems any compelling necessity for going into the delineation of features and coloring and what they wear. The reader can make my people look just the way he wants to. I don't care—it's enough to be read. I might say more than that. As Kate Douglas Wiggin said once to me, teasingly: "I've bought your last book. I don't suppose you care whether I have read it or not." Perhaps it is just enough to be bought.
Holworthy Hall: Unfortunately, when I read a contemporary story I am always seeing the machinery, especially if I know the author personally. If, however, I read the work of an author unknown to me personally or an author no longer living or a so-called "classic," I am much more subject to my own imagination. It is only once in a hundred instances that any writer can make me forget the methods by which he has attempted to produce his effect. When this happens, I know that I have read something genuine. Nevertheless, even if a story is bad and even if the wheels creak, I am very receptive of any appeal to any specific sense, primarily the visual sense.