I do not think that I elaborate on other men's work in a creative sense,
although many stories have started me thinking on certain lines which
ultimately rewarded me with a plot germ. But in all such cases I have
been extremely alert to avoid allowing any similarity between such a
story and the other author's story which fathered the embryo thought.
I do not believe that I have stock pictures for either pirates,
preachers or church steeples. I make this statement because I am never
surprised at meeting people differently garbed or at seeing things
differently shaped from what I have been accustomed to see them.
When I am reading, my imagination works, I believe, just about as much
as the suspense, thrill, emotion, etc., recorded in what I'm reading
requires--no more than that. But when I'm writing my imagination is
brought under the pressure of my will and driven to its uttermost
capacity--with the guiding hand of judgment at the reins always of
course.
Some of the phases of the writing craft thus far touched upon I have
considered and used consciously. Some I have missed automatically.
This laboratory test will be of inestimable worth to any author.
=Emerson Hough=: I have no mental contortions. My mouth never waters.
Just see the pictures clear, as nearly as I can tell. Geometry? You are
getting too deep. All mathematics troubled me plenty. As to response, I
don't savvy this. No, I don't think any writer has stock pictures who
has resources of his own. I don't resent; sometimes I don't read.
Reading _vs._ writing? I'll say there is! Tools? I never throw fits. I
am a very plain, ordinary person.
=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: When reading a story my imagination is entirely
and most vividly with the persons of the story. When one of them is
about to become the victim of a misunderstanding I find myself simply
longing that he will somehow escape it, and this never mind whether the
story is good, bad or indifferent.
Limitations depend entirely on the extent to which my interest is
aroused.
No, far less trouble from solid geometry.
Response depends entirely on how much the thing described, well or ill,
interests me.
Each its own picture.
Not a bit, unless I resent them as images. But suggestion, leaving me to
do the rest, is what I most enjoy.