Rescue the Structure of Your Nonfiction Book

Have you been struggling to keep your nonfiction book on track? Are you not sure which information belongs in it, and which doesn’t? Do you worry that the whole thing just isn’t quite fitting together? 

If you’re still struggling with getting your idea off the ground, you may need the post “How Do You Know if your Nonfiction Book Idea is Good?“. On the other hand, if you’ve been proceeding with a draft but keep running into problems, you’re in the right place.

Now, this may be the point where you say, “Erin, you’re out of your mind. A thesis? I’m not writing some academic text on particle physics. I’m teaching people to crochet tiny monsters out of yarn.”

Doesn’t matter.

The subject of your book may be tiny crocheted monsters. But if you only know your subject, how do you curate your content? The realm of crocheted monsters might include patterns at all skill levels or the history of a monster-themed fibre arts exhibit. You might wander off into instructions for dying your yarn the perfect shade of green. So, to keep that from happening, you need to drill down and identify a thesis, a single controlling idea around which everything else is organized:

Even beginners can make these easy crocheted monsters. ◄ If any content doesn’t serve that one statement, it doesn’t belong in the book. 

That’s a simplistic example, and you may think I’m only pointing out what’s painfully obvious to everyone. But this kind of struggle with focus is the most common problem I see in the nonfiction manuscripts I edit. The author knows the subject they want to write about—say, outdoor skills for camp counsellors—but they haven’t found the thesis that makes their book unique, compelling, and organized. If you were their target audience, which of these books do you think you’d be most likely to pick up?

1. A book that starts with the author’s history attending and working at summer camps, then describes every outdoor-living skill the author can think of
2. A book that wanders between some campfire recipes, a set of knot-tying instructions, and a section on fundraising to keep camps open
3. A book that explains the value of place-based outdoor experiences for kids’ development, and provides session plans based around those principles

Each of these examples is about the same subject, but the first two are so unfocused that readers won’t be certain who the books are for or what they’re going to deliver. The third, on the other hand, hooks us with a single organizing concept: summer camp can benefit kids’ development through place-based outdoor experiences. That’s the book’s thesis, and that’s what every single paragraph within it will deliver. Readers who can benefit from learning about that idea will know it’s the right book for them, and they’ll feel satisfied when it consistently delivers on its promise. 

Want to make sure your book does the same? Try this: brainstorm twelve possible theses for your nonfiction manuscript. Even if you think you already know what yours is, challenge yourself to keep writing new variations. You’ll roll your eyes at me, but this exercise can reveal unexpected nuances in the way you understand your own work.

Here are some examples from my ebook, Gentle Gardening: A Low-Energy Guide for Uncooperative Bodies: 

1. People with disabilities and chronic illness can still garden if they have the right knowledge.
2. People with disabilities and chronic illness should garden because it’s good for them.
3. Gardening doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated.
4. Gardening doesn’t have to take a lot of energy. 
5. Gardening won’t be overwhelming to people with disabilities and chronic illness if they use low-energy approaches.
6. Lots of tools and practices exist to help people with disabilities and chronic illness engage with gardening.
7. Permaculture is a useful framework for gardening with disability.
8. Gardening becomes accessible if your primary goal is to grow your own well-being.
9. A mindset shift is all you need to embrace gardening as a disabled or chronically ill person.
10. The right accommodations can make gardening accessible for anyone.
11. Knowledge and a small mindset shift can make gardening accessible to anyone who feels overwhelmed by it.
12. Knowledge about low-energy approaches and a small mindset shift can make gardening accessible to people with chronic illness and/or disabilities.

All of those sentences accurately describe the content of my book, but #12 is the most all-encompassing. It’s the controlling idea I chose to represent my book as a whole. When I realized that some of my content was actually more relevant to #7, I pulled it out, making the whole book much stronger. And that content wasn’t wasted: I dropped it into a Word document and later expanded it, turning it into a blog post, a YouTube video, and a TikTok series to promote the ebook.

(Case in point: I was sorely tempted to write a lot more today about how you can reuse discarded information like that, but it would have meant wandering away from my controlling idea of “Identifying and sticking to a thesis will help you successfully organize your nonfiction book.” Not to worry; I can still expand on those ideas in this week’s newsletter.)

Which of your brainstormed theses is the best fit for you? Once you’ve chosen it, review the parts of your manuscript that have been giving you trouble. I’m willing to bet that they simply don’t serve your chosen thesis. If that’s the case, then your task now is to either tweak them to fit better, tuck them into sidebars where they’re less distracting, or pull them out entirely. Save them to repurpose later as support content or marketing for your book, or for a future companion book. 

You can also drill down on this approach to organize your chapters. Instead of choosing a subject for each one, choose a mini-thesis. Any content that doesn’t support that mini-thesis doesn’t belong in that chapter. It’s the best way I’ve ever found to make selecting the right material straightforward and intuitive.

Have you been staring at your project so long you need some outside help sorting out your thesis? Check out my options for counselling calls and editorial services.

Happy writing!

Erin