Get the Word Out: Write a Book That Makes a Difference by Anne Janzer

Author:Anne Janzer [Janzer, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Business Writing, Language Arts & Disciplines, Authorship
ISBN: 9781952284045
Google: GC0DEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B08KRNGLR6
Publisher: Cuesta Park Consulting
Published: 2020-11-09T18:30:00+00:00

Create Your Provisional Outline

The outline isn’t for anyone other than you, right now. Everyone approaches the task of structuring the book in their own way. You officially have my permission to make whatever kind of outline works for you.

If you like the old-school outline structure with numbers or roman numerals, go for it. But that’s not your only option.

For example, Jennifer Dulski shared with me her process for outlining her book Purposeful, about becoming a “movement-starter.” (You’ll read her story in Part Four.) She listed the ideas she wanted to get across and put them into a general order. Then she thought about what stories and data would back up those ideas and conducted the research to fill it out. Each chapter had a set of themes, and each theme had a story. The chapters are themselves sorted into sections that map to the movement-maker’s journey: being purposeful, getting started, transforming intention into action, persuading decision-makers, inspiring teams, and more.

Visual thinkers may find mind mapping to be a useful path to outlining. William Gronke is such a fan that he has written a book on the topic of mind mapping. His practice is to listen to upbeat music before he starts working, because positivity and relaxation are conducive to creativity. Then he begins looking for connections and creates beautiful, colorful mind maps of his topics. For him, the act of mapping generates deep thought. The ideas on the maps are not ordered, so mapping becomes a step in identifying the final structure.

If you’re a tactile person, you may prefer working with index cards. Many authors write key concepts on cards then sort and arrange them.

Film and television writers often use storyboards to create a visual outline of the film. You could do something similar. Sam Horn works with authors writing from personal or professional experience using a storyboard approach. She suggests you create a grid of four rows of five boxes, for twenty boxes in total. If each box represents a chapter of about ten pages, you’ll have a 200-page book. Fill each box with pivotal scenes or lessons from your life and career, creating a storyboard that represents your book.

If you are verbal, try talking through the structure, using a voice recorder to capture your ideas. It really doesn’t matter how you come up with the structure as long as you can capture it, then use it to track and guide your progress.

Scrivener, Microsoft Word, and other writing applications include outlining capabilities. Personally, messing around with the software distracts me from the ideas. I prefer to outline on paper first as a way of communing with my ideas, then move it into the software so I have a clean format to work with. Do whatever works for you.

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