In writing your book, what’s your organizing principle?

One of the most powerful kinds of help you can give your reader is an organizing principle–a way to put together the pieces of what you are trying to teach. More often than not, that will be a metaphor of some kind.

What’s a metaphor? One definition is, “An answer to the question, ‘what is this like?’”

For example, in my approach to writing a book, I say, “The diamond is your friend.” The diamond is a shape that visually describes what for me is the “shape” of every good book: A question-mark at the top of the diamond indicates the question that the book promises to answer; an exclamation point at the bottom symbolizes the promised answer.

The wide part of the diamond are the points that must be established to help your reader make his or her way from the question to the answer. They are the chapters of the book–and each of them is a diamond.

In the wide part of each chapter are its intermediate points–the subchapters of that chapter.

So in a sense, the diamond, and two layers of diamonds nested within it, is the organizing principle of every book.

But your subject matter also needs an organizing principle. What is it? Perhaps it is

• Chronology; first this happened, then that
• Complexity; the topic divides naturally into 4 parts, then each part has sub-parts
• Some kind of “natural” order; the US, then states, then counties and cities

Do you see a pattern? By appealing to a framework that is generally understood, you give your reader a way to find their way around your material, which may be new to them.

What’s your book’s organizing principle?

Filed under: book love • book writing • planning

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