When I clicked on this blog post from literary agent Janet Grant and read …
Nonfiction Book Structure = More Than a String of Blog Posts
… I stood up and cheered. Because, yes, she’s said a mouthful. You cannot just cut and paste together your blog posts and call it good. As Grant notes:
- Book: it’s more than a string of somewhat-related articles
- Structure: each chapter builds on the one before
- Chapters: showcase the structure
- Theme: should be carefully built into each chapter
Have a look. You can thank me later. 🙂
Tweet: Got a few dozen blog posts? You might have a book but it’ll take some work.
Tweet: Writing nonfiction? Here’s a way to use your resources.
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Couldn’t agree more. The non-fic I’m working on now was actually derived from a string of blog posts ironically. But I quickly realised how different it is. So had to go back to the drawing board and restructure the whole thing THREE TIMES. Added a month to my timelines, and learnt a big lesson. But reassuringly, I think *she says tentatively* I have managed to do the 4 things mentioned- hopping off to read the post. But the biggest irritation to me was getting the chapter order right – that was the cause of endless hours of structuring because I wanted the chapters to build and when I started, they really didn’t. What a timely post – *hops over to read the rest*
Oh, YES, structure is so important. I often rearrange the paragrphs in my blog posts alone several times.
Clicked and read! ‘Twas very much helpful, as I’m trying to write a narrative out of 3 years of blog posts and 6 paper journals. It’s a book people have been telling me to write for years, but I’ve always put it off because I knew I couldn’t just cut and paste. How to actually make it work has eluded me, but now I think I can finally make some headway!
So glad I passed this one on! It struck a nerve with me too. Thanks for commenting!