Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/111

THE AUTHOR'S PURPOSE

But whatever a writer's purpose may be, and whatever type of literature he has chosen in which to express it, he has got to do something more than idly say to himself one fine day, "I think I will write (let us say) a sonnet about a pearl, or a novel about the beef trust,"—and then on another fine day formulates his first line or his opening sentence without the slightest idea what is coming next or where he [97]