Your Book Structure

If you get your book structure right, you’ll write more easily and your reader will be looked after.

It’s a win/win!

What is structure?  

Lots of people use the words “structure” and “plan” interchangeably.

This is fine, except to me they’re separate things.

Structure is what underpins your plan. Structure tells you what goes where, a plan tells you the detail on what exactly the “what” is. You can have a structure without a plan, but you can’t have a plan without a structure.

Or, you can, but it’ll be more of a brainstorm or a brain dump of ideas and you’ll have to structure it to be able to organise it or write it.

People call these elements of planning different things – some call your structure an outline, and the plan a blueprint. But whatever you call it, you’re going to be deciding on an underlying structure for your book, then fleshing it out with what you’re writing about in the planning stage.

Why is structuring and then planning your book important?

Why can’t you just write?

Well, a tiny percentage of people can. And hooray for them! But most authors who are writing non-fiction whether that’s a how-to, a 5-steps-to, or an autobiographical memoir, start, then stop.

The main reason I’ve found throughout my work with authors is that they find all the ideas and stories try to come out at once, it gets overwhelming and then it becomes something to avoid. I avoid anything that feels overwhelming, even if I know it’s going to be a good thing for me to do!

I have to really, really be hard on myself to get myself over that hump – and it’s MUCH easier to organise things so I’m not overwhelmed in the first place.

And that’s why structure and planning are so very important: they reduce the overwhelm and soothe our overactive minds so that writing is an approachable thing to do. 
If you’re after an easy way to structure your book, then you may like to check out my Quick + Easy Book System: done for you templates so you can write straight away. It’s a set of the 4 major templates for structure that non-fiction books fall into, plus a bonus Story Planner that helps you to get clear on the stories that will land and hook your reader. Feedback is that these templates make writing a breeze.