3 Ways to Outline Your Nonfiction Book

If you're writing a nonfiction book, you need an outline. Yes, even though you'll discover things as you write that you can't plan for now. Even if you already have years of content. And yes, even if you have the entire book mapped out in your head.

A strong outline gives you the 10,000-foot view of your book while you're down in the weeds writing individual sentences and chapters. It gives you a writing plan, helps you stay focused over a long drafting process, and keeps your ideas moving toward one cohesive book instead of several different books mashed together.

In this episode, I walk through three different ways to outline a nonfiction book depending on what you're writing: a narrative outline for memoir and narrative nonfiction, a content-based outline for authors who already have a lot of existing material, and a persuasive problem-cause-solution outline.

Key topics

* Why every nonfiction book needs an outline

* How an outline helps you see the whole book while you're drafting

* Using your outline as a practical writing plan

* Why an outline keeps a long-term project cohesive

* Three different ways to outline nonfiction

* The major structural beats of memoir and narrative nonfiction

* How to organize years of podcasts, newsletters, social posts, talks, and other content into a book

* How to build a topical outline using a simple spreadsheet