Save Your Nonfiction from a Fate Worse Than Death

This is the first in a two-part series on book structure. The second deals with fiction.
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I have a question for you: what is the worst sin a book can commit?

Take a moment to think about it. If you were a book, what is a fate worse than death (getting thrown out/deleted/never completely written)?

But don’t think too long, because I’m about to spoil the answer for you.

The worst thing a book can do is be BORING.

Boring is a fate worse than death. The poor book exists, but nobody wants to read it. Haunting thoughts fill the author’s mind…how did this happen?!

Going Nowhere

The number one reason a book is boring is because there is no point to what we’re reading. There is no clear destination. The book doesn’t have a goal!

Why is this even here? we want to know.

Indeed. Why is this here? If by “this” we mean a small passage, the immediate intervention is obvious and straightforward: cut it out. But if by “this” we mean an amorphous, large chunk of ideas and commentary that infiltrates every web of literary tissue, then the issue is more insidious and the remedy is systemic, not surgical. This book is lacking in structure, and no amount of cutting will save you. We need to rebuild from the ground up.

If your book meanders and never goes anywhere, it might be interesting to you, or to your Great-Uncle Steve, who always loved to palaver with you about the joys of owning iguanas. But it’s unlikely to be interesting to other people. Do you have a destination in mind while you’re writing? Readers can tell.

You Need a Skeleton Before You Walk Anywhere

Think about a skeleton (yes, the Halloween theme in this post is intentional). If you feel squeamish thinking about skeletons, bear in mind they don’t need to be human (or dog, or whatever gives you feelings). Think about dinosaurs. I’ll pick everybody’s favorite: Tyrannosaurus Rex.

If you were a child at some point, you’ll have seen illustrations of this fearsome creature. T. Rex is huge! Powerful! Every other dinosaur’s worst fear!

And how did T. Rex become everyone’s worst fear? Was it because T. Rex sat in one place, gently soaking up sunshine like a lily? No.

T. Rex roamed around on big, strong legs and bit into other dinosaurs with large, sharp teeth. (We’ll ignore the tiny little arms for now.) T. Rex managed to do this because, for starters, he had a skeleton, and the skeleton gave him shape.

Your book needs to have a skeleton, too. Because that’s the only way it’s going to roam into the minds and hearts of your readers, and bite into their imaginations: if it’s got legs and teeth.

The Shin Bone’s Connected to the Knee Bone

The trick to creating a skeleton for your book is understanding that all the pieces need to be connected.

It’s hard to understand the shape of a Tyrannosaurus if we don’t have any bones, or if the bones are on a messy pile on the floor. Also, if we put the bones together and realize some are missing, we’ll end up with an incomplete and confusing skeleton. Can we be sure this isn’t a Velociraptor?

All the pieces must be there and they need to connect to each other.

When I say they need to connect to each other, what I mean, practically speaking, is that they require each other. One of my writing teachers used a term for fiction that applies to all writing, I think: contingent. Every piece is contingent on another—dependent on or conditioned by something else.

You’re holding T. Rex’s tooth. What does this tooth require? It requires a jaw bone to attach to. What does the jaw bone need? Well, teeth…and head bones (I never said I’d be scientific).

And so on.

Spend time thinking about the important pieces of your book: the key facts or information or concepts you need to cover. These are your bones. What are they? Where do they connect?

The connections are what give your book forward motion, and forward motion saves your book from being boring. You have to deliver other goods, too. But it’s a very important start. When you put together the bones in the right order, your book has a goal.

Take a look at each bone, and ask yourself: Why is this here? And how does it connect to the rest? By which I mean, How did we get here? And where are we going to go?

Bottom Line

Save your book from a fate worse than death. The pieces need to connect to each other—logically and emotionally, as well as with sentence structure. Floating ideas are a sign you need to take a radically systemic approach. Don’t create another boring specter to haunt your dreams. If it’s got bones, it’ll live longer, and there’ll be a fossil record, too.

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Not sure where your book is going? Let’s get together for a book structure intensive to figure out your book’s skeleton.

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