How to Outline a Nonfiction Book
There’s no hard and fast rule that you need to outline your non-fiction book before you start writing. But here’s why I think you should:
- Outlining lets you spot problems before you’ve spent weeks or months working on a draft that’s headed in the wrong direction.
- Outlining strengthens your argument and focus before you even start writing.
- Outlining gives you a roadmap that keeps you on track (and making progress).
- But most of all, outlining makes writing a nonfiction book feel way more manageable.
Some people find outlining reassuring—it makes the book more concrete. Others find it constricting—they want to explore as they write! If you’re in the latter camp, don’t worry. You’re not locked into anything; the outline is just a guide.
I like to think of a nonfiction book outline as a route suggestion.
I’m I’m planning a road trip from Portland to Chicago, I’ll rough out my route ahead of time. As I get going, though, I’ll come across road closures. I’ll hear about interesting new locations I want to visit. I’ll get a great deal on a hotel somewhere off the main route.
My route will change along the way—what won’t change is the destination.
In the same way, your outline will change and shift. You’ll refine it as you go.
But having that route suggestion in place before you head out will save you tons of stress along the way.
Let’s dig in.
First, a Caveat
There are many types of nonfiction books, but they fall into two larger categories.
Is your book meant to be more informational and expository? Or is it a narrative non-fiction piece that tells a specific linear story from start to finish?
Examples of the former include most self-help or educational books like The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix or my own From Chaos to Creativity. Almost any business or self-help book is going to fall into this category.
Narrative nonfiction books include personal memoir, business memoir, and history books. These are (generally) structured much more like a novel would be, with an inciting incident, rising action, a mirror moment, doors of no return, etc.
Keep in mind that memoir doesn’t necessarily need to be told in order, either. There are plenty of successful collections of memoir essays (think, David Sedaris) or memoirs told in more advance literary forms (like Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House).
I’ll tackle narrative nonfiction in a later post. In this essay, I’m going to be talking specifically about outlining self-help, business books, and other educational nonfiction.
1. Get Clear On Your Book’s Promise
What are you trying to say, and who are you trying to say it to? Nailing this can be the most difficult part of the outlining process, because when you first start thinking of writing a book, the idea will probably be very amorphous.
For example, when my current book coaching client and I first started talking about her project, she had multiple audiences in mind.
On the one hand, she wanted to speak to individuals and help them using the methodology from her day-to-day business.
On the other hand, she’s passionate about certain things her industry gets wrong, and wanted this book to educate other business owners.
The more we talked about, though, the more she realized the biggest lift would be in helping individuals. This doesn’t mean the book won’t be useful to other business owners in her industry—just that we’ve chosen a single audience to focus on.
Which let us choose a single message to convey with the book.
—> Read the rest on the Story Rebel blog.