12/18/2023 0 Comments Profile drafting in weaveit proYou’ve figured out a loose idea of what content goes into which chapter. Step Three: Separate your pieces into color themes - determine what content fits within each theme Now that you have your core themes, we move on to marking up the content so that you can easily see what goes where.įor a more specific piece about creating an outline, check out Melinda Crow’s Step-by-Step Guide to Outlining a Non-Fiction Book. If it were a real book, I’d use other content and materials to create the rest of the chapters for the book to get to anywhere from 8–14 chapters. This will then determine at least four of my book chapters. Keeping them entertained (parrots & penguin stories).Space requirements (parrots & penguin stories).Social needs (parrots & penguins stories).Animals in captivity - general discussion.Going back to my example book on zoos, I have: What do you do with those smaller themes not fit for a full chapter? You have two choices: combine them all into a chapter that touches on each of them or see if you can sweep them in under one of your larger core themes. You don’t want a chapter that is either small compared to the others or has a lot of filler and fluff to make it look and read bigger. Take a step back and write down the big topics you’ve covered - these are the themes with the most meat on them. This is where your theme list comes in handy. Step Two: Create your puzzle frame - determine your main categories of themes Now that you’ve written down all of your themes, let’s move on to how to categorize them all. However, were she to get me a stuffed Opus from the Bloom County comic strip, well, I wouldn’t say no to that and I might even scream a little.īut I digress. There’s a multitude of readily available information about them from which to craft a simple and quick example. Side note: I use penguins a lot for my writing examples, to the point that my boss thought I had a thing about them and she almost bought me a plush toy penguin. Next story - Penguins: Intro, common types of penguins at zoos, space needed to roam & swim, social needs, toys and entertainment.First story - Parrots: intro, discussion of parrots in natural habitat, parrots in zoos & captivity, language skills, social needs, flying vs clipped wings, toys & entertainment.I have two stories - Parrots in Captivity & Penguins in Tanks. I read all of the stories I want to include and on a separate sheet of paper or document, I write in order what was discussed. The key to this exercise is to write down every theme you find in your content first.īecause it can be hard to understand what I mean by themes and grouping, I put together an example using my very fictitious book, Chapter 4. What you want to end up with here is a full list of themes you can then break up into separate chapters. Use a spreadsheet (I love spreadsheets).Create a list in Word, or on pen and paper.If there are multiple themes in a story, interview, or block of research, write them all down. You start at the basics - narrowing down what topics and themes appear in the content you want to use. Step One: Sort your pieces - determine what each content covers With this method, you do the same with your content for your chapters and book. And then you put the frame together before filling in the middle. What do you do first? You sort it by edge pieces, color scheme (if you’re like me), and other variables into piles around the table. You come home, clear the table and dump the pieces out onto it. Now that you know what it’s called and where it works, let’s dive into how to do it. If you are a bit more structured and have a TOC, you can use this method to figure out what content goes where, just skip Step Two or use it to confirm your themes.If you’re pantsing it and haven’t created a table of contents (TOC), you can use the full method laid out below.It’s where you take a lot of different themes and narratives and piece them together to create a pretty picture - or rather, a chapter or a book. Having worked with a multitude of nonfiction writers as a development editor, I’ve honed a method I like to call The Jigsaw Method. Now what? How do you take all of this disparate material and craft a thread to weave it together into a chapter and a book? And potentially (hopefully) you’ve written them in some form of narrative, even if it’s just summaries of the research. You want to write a nonfiction book and you’ve pulled together a lot of information - research, interview notes, TED talks, your own experiences.
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