To be.

Dear Reader,
I struggled with a lot, so bear with me. The organization of my story was difficult, and I sat down to write it, without knowing how it was really going to come about. I tried to organize it in a chronological manner of the evening, but then I came up to yet another wall in my organization process: What stories do I tell and which ones do I leave out? I think I still have to work on that part, as I feel like although I have tried to follow Zinsser’s advice, I am not quite there yet. Zinsser’s advice: “All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don’t keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential, that logic is the glue that holds it together, that tension must be maintained from one paragraph to the next and from one section to the next, and that narrative- good old-fashioned storytelling- is what would pull your readers along without their noticing the tug. The only thing that they should notice is that you have made a sensible plan for your journey.” (261-262)
This advice is important for me in particular because I feel I have problems when organizing my stories. I also have problems connecting my paragraphs together in a seamless manner, which does not look labored. Particularly in this essay, I had difficulty with the dialogue as well, and the decision about how I should write about the stories that I heard other people tell that night. Another thing that Zinsser mentions is this tendency to explain your feelings, when it is not needed. I have that problem as well, and its not because I am being condescending or because I don’t believe my readers will understand me, but simply because I like to tie things together and reach a conclusion at the end of the story that resonates with its beginning. I also struggle with a lot more, and one page is not enough to articulate it all. But hopefully by the time I revise this story, some of these problems will get resolved.
Sincerely,
Sofia Khiskiadze