Words Fail Me Read Online Free Page A

other.
Why do you want to say it?
To show that puppy love isn't for grown-ups.
How do you want to say it?
By using his-and-hers remembrances of things past and present.
Flesh and Bones
    Once you have the what, the why, and the how, you need a skeleton to hang your material on. Does this mean making an outline, one of those charts with Roman numerals and tiers of this, that, and the other? If you're comfortable with outlines, fine; make one. Some of my best friends are outline people. If you're not, here's a suggestion.
    Draw up a list, which you may find less intimidating than a formal outline. We make lists all the time: lists of groceries, errands, correspondence, calls to answer. This is simply a list of the ideas you hope to get across or the points you want to include. Arrange the ideas in a logical order, one idea leading to the next.
    What's a logical order? That depends on your material and your point of view. If your list of ideas is mostly a series of events, a straight chronological arrangement might work best. If you're building an argument, you might want to rank your ideas in order of importance. If you want to entertain in a speech or a light essay, you have to wow the audience at regular intervals, so spread the good stuff around and don't blow it all at once.
    Perhaps you're giving a talk before the local garden club about repotting bonsai. If you choose a chronological approach, you might begin by talking about the first signs that the tree needs a transplant, then go on to picking a time, choosing a pot, pruning the roots, mixing new soil,
and so on. If you want to build an argument, you might open by describing a pathetic, withered bonsai whose owner waited too long or ignored the danger signals. If you want to entertain, you might start by recalling how you were all thumbs (none of them green) the first time you repotted, but that the plant somehow survived the bungling.
    Keep in mind that two different writers, given the same material, might organize it quite differently, yet just as effectively. There's no single answer to what makes a logical sequence. Pick one that makes sense to you, seems right for your material and your audience, and leads the reader smoothly from point to point.
    If the items on your list don't readily fall into place, try this. Write them on sheets of paper, one item per sheet, with a word or two representing each item. Lay the sheets out—use the floor, if it helps, and invite Macavity to lounge somewhere else. Then arrange and rearrange the sheets into a chain of ideas, perhaps adding connecting items as links, until each idea naturally follows the one before and leads on to the next. Don't think sensational writing isn't put together this way. Ann Beattie used the floor to rearrange the parts of her novel
Picturing Will
. When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote
This Side of Paradise
and
The Love of the Last Tycoon,
he covered the walls with charts showing the backgrounds and movements of his characters. And J. D. Salinger has been known to hang sheaves of notes from hooks mounted on the wall of his studio.
    When you've put your ideas in order—you can get up off the floor now—take out your stash of notes and sort it. For each idea on your list, collect a pile of material(evidence, research, anecdotes, explanations) you might use to make that particular point. Steel yourself and put aside what doesn't belong. Sure, that bit about your seventh-grade homeroom teacher is a gem. But if it doesn't fit now, don't try to squeeze it in. Save it. There will be other days, other writing. Hoard your ideas like a miser.
    You now have the bones of your piece (the list) and some of the flesh (the piles of relevant material). This framework is a guide to the size, scope, and structure of what you want to write, whether it's a short story, an office memo, a speech, a sermon, an essay, or a book.
    As for the physical arrangement, or what you should have on your desk by now, that's up to