Structure must be decided before the sentences, not discovered by accident

McPhee treats structure as the foundational decision of any piece, arguing that a writer must consciously choose the shape, whether chronological, framed by a central scene, or organized around a controlling idea, before drafting begins, rather than hoping a shape will emerge naturally from accumulated material. He describes physically diagramming pieces, sometimes with actual charts connecting notes and themes, to find the architecture that will let disparate material cohere rather than sprawl. This deliberate structuring matters most for pieces built from large amounts of research or reporting, where an writer risks either dumping material in the order it was collected or losing the reader in digressions without a clear organizing spine. McPhee's own structures were often unconventional, such as building a profile around a single day's journey rather than a chronological biography, but always chosen deliberately to serve what the piece was actually about. He treats structural planning as equally, if not more, important than style, since even elegant sentences cannot save a piece whose shape doesn't hold together. Takeaway: decide the shape of a piece before you write its sentences.