Miss Helen:

I'm planning to sit down and write a long book about something. My scheme is to start with an extensive introduction, and then a prologue, and then a preface, and then something I've seen here and there called "author's notes."

(I'm not sure what order those things are supposed to come in; I'll look it up later.)

These things should really give the final product some heft and bulk and thereby render it a substantial and serious-looking piece of work. I could maybe add a table of contents and a dedication page; and—since I plan to write it in English—then perhaps a section explaining, in a general sort of way, the evolution of the English language from, say, a thousand years before the invention of the printing press until just now.

Wouldn't that impress the reader, and make my contribution to literature, whatever it turns out to be, a glittering commercial success—plus required classroom reading for generations to come?

I'll fill the middle with material about something or other, all divided into chapters, and then the chapters grouped into sections—for easy reference. Naturally, the beginning of each chapter would require an illustration to hold the reader's attention, and lend drama; and then each section would have a blank page preceding it (more drama), followed by the section number and name big and bold and occupying its own page, so as to demonstrate its importance, like this:

"SECTION THREE: THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE WALLABY"

The middle part—the big part—will naturally be either horrifying and bloodcurdling, or touching and heartwarming. I haven't decided yet. Which do you suppose sells best?

After that I'll add an epilogue, and a substantial collection of appendixes or appendicitises or whatever they're called. To top it all off and secure my place in the pantheon of literary giants, I'll add an index so detailed that it will practically reproduce the middle part, and greatly increase the size of the finished product.

I know that most great works of literature don't have appendicitises and indexes; but I intend to break with tradition and thereby produce something unique, groundbreaking, and unreadably long. My goal is not only to increase the overall number of pages and thus make the published work intimidatingly substantial; but also to turn it into an instant classic, in the sense that it will be bought, but not necessarily read (like that other great classic, "War and Peace").

Do you read footnotes? Me neither. I suspect a lot of people don't. One could make the argument that if the information in the footnotes is so important, it wouldn't be in small type at the bottom of the page, but instead would be right up there with the big boys. Still, footnotes can take up a lot of space in a book, which, from the standpoint of bulking up, can be a fine thing.

I don't think anyone bothers to read footnotes that, instead of being at the bottom of random pages, are bunched together in a section all their own somewhere in the back. Perhaps you've seen books like this, with a thoroughly unread footnote section adding countless pages to the whole.

They don't even have to be something I wrote; furthermore, they can be utter nonsense and still pass muster with the legal department. The footnote could say, "That reminds me of..." and then include, for example, a long passage from one of Shakespeare's plays—maybe with hand-drawn illustrations—that will take up plenty of space (Shakespeare wrote a lot of stuff, and so did a bunch of other fine authors like myself that I can quote).

I don't know what this book is going to be about, but it's going to be big!