Moreover, since the emotions are affected in much writing, the skilled strategist will instantly bear in mind just what emotion he wishes to rouse, and will see that the ideas of greater moving value receive larger development. Mr. Burroughs gives much more space to the sections that deal with the excitement and the joy of bee-hunting than to those that deal with the less pleasant side. To the difficulty of detecting the flight of a bee he gives the single sentence: "Sometimes one's head will swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out by the sun." To the interesting actions of the bee when it is caught he gives at least ten times as much space. In this way he guides the reader's emotions in the way he wishes them to go--and makes successful writing.
The chief strategic problem in exposition, then, is that of so choosing and arranging the material that the point of the writing is made with the proper emphasis. For the accomplishment of this purpose the writer must be able to answer the question, "_What do I wish to do in this piece of writing?_" Then he must bring all the material and its expression to bear upon the reader's mind so that the desired end may be inevitable. To determine what his purpose is the writer must consult the subject itself, his own personality, and the reader. He must also bear in mind the reader's intellect and his emotions. And he must unify the approach to both intellect and emotions. The firmly held conception of what his purpose is will determine what material he is to choose--what is useful and what is not--and also how to arrange this material and how to proportion the space that different sections shall have. He will arrange the material for the greatest advantage to himself and the least resistance from the reader. In other words, to make his writing successful in the sense of accomplishing its end, the writer must, before he sets down a single word, decide upon what his controlling purpose is to be and just how he intends to make material and expression--even in the individual sentence--unite to drive in the one direction of that controlling purpose.
[7] John Burroughs: _Pepacton_. Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers, Boston.