Hi everyone. This is Janice Thompson, full-time freelance author and speaker. Welcome to this lesson, which I’ve titled “The Slender Thread – Compiling Your Information.”
For the sake of this lesson, let’s assume that you’ve already researched the market and have come up with a great idea for your non-fiction book, one that publishers are sure to love. You’ve written a few chapters, have researched like crazy, but you’re stuck. You don’t know how to make the various parts flow together in seamless fashion, and you’re not even sure that you can make it work. Don’t give up the ship. Merging your topics might be easier than you think!
BRAIDING
Putting a non-fiction book together is much like braiding your hair. You take a handful over here and a handful over there and you thread it together with the part in the middle.
A braid is very, very strong. Don’t believe it? Try braiding rope. You strengthen it several times over. The same is true when you braid your non- fiction books together with what I call a slender thread.
Let me share a fun story: Years ago I taught creative writing to teens. One of our favorite exercises was something I called “Story in a Bag.” I put several bags on my desk: one held slips of paper with settings, one had characters, one had emotions and one had props. The students were instructed to pull out two characters, one setting, one emotion and two props. Then they had to take these seemingly unrelated things and thread them together into a story. Somehow they always made it work, though some of the stories were a bit nonsensical.
You have to think about the braiding of your non-fiction book in much the same way. You’re taking a lot of ideas, tons of research, lots of individual topics, and forcing them together. In the end, it can’t look nonsensical to the reader. It has to flow seamlessly.
So, what are these threads? Do you have to go to the fabric store to find them? Absolutely not. The three threads I’m referring to are THEME, HOOKS and SYMBOLS. Once you’ve firmly established these three critical non-fiction threads, you can begin the delicate art of ordering your book.
THEME
Let’s start with the book’s theme. A theme is a broad idea. The general message. Some would say it’s the overarching moral of the story. It’s your theme that gives your non-fiction book unity. It’s what ties the whole thing together.
LET’S GET MORE SPECIFIC
Your book’s theme is its central idea. It should raise a question about human nature and should shed light on some on the reader’s response to the problems and situations he’s facing.
How do I, as an author, identify a theme?
Theme is either stated or implied through the text you’ve researched. You will also pick up on the theme by examining the micro-topics within the book. What do they all have in common?
COMMON THEMES FOUND IN BOOKS
- Love
- Loss
- Friendship
- Good vs. Evil
- Coming of Age
- The unlikely leader, called out of his comfort zone Man against nature
- Sacrifice and love of family Facing giants
- Boldness in the face of adversity Hidden shame/inner healing
These things are more obvious in fiction than non-fiction:
Moby Dick: Man against nature, facing your goliaths
Robinson Crusoe: The unlikely leader called out of his comfort zone
Roots: Deliverance
The Gift of the Magi: Sacrifice and love for family
The Red Badge of Courage: Facing Your Goliaths
Pride and Prejudice: Pride Goeth Before a Fall
To Kill a Mockingbird: Justice and Courage
The Last Leaf: Trusting in Impossible Situations
All Quiet on the Western Front: Courage and Boldness in the face of adversity A Christmas Carol: Being Chased by God
The Pearl: Running from God and paying the price
The Grapes of Wrath: Concern for the poor
The Scarlet Letter: Hidden Shame, Inner Healing
A Tale of Two Cities: Laying down your life for others
Gone with the Wind: Hope for the Future
I GET THE POINT. . .BUT THAT’S FICTION
This same idea holds true in non-fiction. Let’s say you’re working on a biography of an athlete who has faced many storms in his life. That theme—storms—could recur throughout the book, threading the whole thing together.
What if you’re working on a non-fiction book for women who’ve been abused? Isn’t that an inner healing story? Then make healing your over-arching theme.
Writing a book for people struggling with weight issues? Why not use a David and Goliath theme—the little guy facing a huge obstacle—in this case, excess weight—and winning with both his attitude and his persistence. Can you see how you could thread the “warrior vs. giant” theme throughout the book?
Writing a business book for unlikely leaders? Be sure to thread it with positive stories of people throughout history who have fought their way to the top of the pack.
Trying to write a book to help women who’ve faced significant losses? Set the book up in seasons: winter, spring, summer and fall, focusing on the fact that time progresses and pain eases as we shift from one season to another.
In his book The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren uses the word purpose throughout. He played off of our need to find purpose and fulfillment in every area of our lives. That book really resonated with readers because of its compelling theme.
You get the idea. Knowing your theme is critical to knowing how to braid the information.
HOOKS & SYMBOLS:
Now let’s look at hooks and symbols, the other two threads. A hook might be an actual thing—or item. Something visual that the reader can connect to. The hook can act as a symbol. For example, an ice cube—which melts more and more as the book progresses—might represent letting go of the pain of the past.
In my first non-fiction book: Parenting Teens, A Field Guide, I used the hook of a backpack filled with items you would take on the wilderness trail. Each chapter in the book focused on one item in the backpack. For example one chapter focused on the compass—which symbolized the parent trying to find his way on the trek through the jungle. Another chapter focused on a medical kit, which symbolized helping your child heal from a time of wounding. Another chapter focused on a tent, the symbolic covering that a parent has over a child.
This hook worked so well that I decided to use it in a curriculum that I wrote for our children's church. I called the curriculum Trailblazers. Each week I taught
with an item that I pulled out of the backpack. The water canteen represented living water, the matches represented staying close to the campfire—or, God’s presence. The rope represented a way to rescue those who were perishing. Walkie-Talkies taught the kids to keep the lines of communication open. You get the idea. And you can see how much fun it would be to thread an entire book this way.
In an earlier lesson I mentioned my nonfiction book Everyday Joy, which hit the ECPA bestsellers list a couple of years ago. The hook in that book—the thing that threaded it from chapter to chapter—was the word joy. In my nonfiction book I must Decrease, which was a humorous dieting book, I used the hook of the race horse. Each section of the book represented the horse on a particular leg of the journey around the race track. You could almost see that horse circling the track as the information in the book progressed.
In the empty nest book that I co-authored with Kathleen Y’Barbo, we used bird images throughout. Those visual images of the mama bird pushing the baby out of the nest were perfect for the empty next mom. We even subdivided each chapter into sections using headers that also referred back to birds: Bye, Bye Birdie; Flight Patterns, Spreading Your Wings, Liftoff, and Smooth Sailing. These sections were were consistent from chapter to chapter.
If you read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman you know that he used the hook of languages throughout, each representing a different method of communication. How do you show love? According to his book, in one of five ways. These languages threaded the book from beginning to end, but each represented something much deeper.
Years ago I co-authored a children’s book with my daughter Megan. It was a devotional about the life of King David and the battles he fought. We were able to use battle imagery throughout from beginning to end. Talk about a great hook! And the symbols are clear: You are a warrior. You can win this battle, no matter what you’re facing.
Hooks and symbols offer an easy way to thread your chapters together.
If you're writing a book about the life of the photographer you might use photographic images throughout and let the symbolism come out in the phrases you use—phrases like “shutter speed” or “Keeping Things in Focus.” If you're writing a book for people who like food you might use food images throughout, giving them “food for thought” at the end of each chapter.
ORDER:
Now let’s talk about the order of your book. You’ve got your theme. You’ve settled on a hook and you know how you’re going to use it to symbolize something deeper to the reader. Now what? How do you decide what order to put things in?
Some books are laid out like cookbooks, in sequential order: you start with your appetizers, then salads, then the main courses, and so on. Some books are laid out like quilts, randomly placed according to what feels right. Some run backwards, like a crocheted blanket coming unraveled. Some, like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey simply work off of the seven points alluded to in the title. The primary question you need to ask yourself is this: “Which makes more sense to my topic/information? Do I need to serve it up buffet style, or course-by-course?” Do I move in chronological order or deliberately choose a random order?
The recent mini-series, The Kennedys is a great example of mixing up the chronology. For the sake of our lesson, we’re going to call this a documentary, though some might argue that the series is more fiction than fact. The action picks up in 1960 on the eve of JFK’s election. You see a forty-three-year-old Jack prepping for the big day, but you see something else, too. He reaches into the medicine cabinet and pulls out several prescription bottles, then proceeds to swallow several pills. You have no idea why. A few minutes later you watch him putting on a back brace. Now, if you’re like I am, you’re wondering at this point: “What in the world is wrong with him?” The story shifts a bit and JFK’s father— clearly an aggressive and unkind man—is thinking about his oldest son, Joe, who passed away years prior. On the eve of one son’s election, he’s thinking about the other son who is no more. Intriguing, right? Well, don’t get too hooked to that information, because, just about the time you’re good and curious, the story jumps backward in time to 1937, where a young Jack is watching his father, a congressman, give a speech about Hitler. The story then eases forward, unraveling all sorts of critical details. I, for one, love this approach. It makes sense for several reasons. Primarily, it hooks me. It takes me to the moment of JFK’s triumph, reveals his physical struggles, raises a dozen questions, then propels me backwards to what really happened. We learn that Jack was injured in battle as a young man. He also suffered from Addison’s disease and a host of other maladies, which accounts, at least in part, for the pills he’s taking in 1960 and the back brace he’s wearing on the day he heads off to vote for himself for president.
Writers, you can see that the layout of your book—the compiling of your information—is a subjective process. As the author, you get to decide. Remember, the popularity of your book depends, in part, on how it’s threaded
together. So, choose a strong theme, use great hooks, add relevant symbols, then place the information in the order that makes the most sense.
EXERCISE:
Let me leave you with an exercise. Take a look at the non-fiction idea you’re working on and list its theme. Once you’ve clarified the theme, begin to look at several different types of hooks and symbols you might use. Once that is done, do multiple outlines of your information. Lay it out chronologically at first, then try other orders. If you like, share your journey in the forums, where we can all work together to help you put your book in the best possible order.
That’s it for this lesson on the slender thread. I can’t wait to see how those books come together!
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