If you are an aspiring author, you might have heard about the importance of outlining a book; however, the importance becomes more relevant when writing a non-fiction book. You might already dread the outlining process if this is your first time writing a non-fiction book.
The truth, however, is that it is a dead-simple process. Here is everything you need to know about the outlining process:
Identify Your Target Audience
You might think of this tip as a pre-gaming tip, but this one is the most crucial step that all aspiring authors should know about.
Before you start writing a single word of your manuscript or even outlining your manuscript, you need to understand your target audience – the people you are writing for.
You need to understand that your book cannot be for everyone and should never be for everyone. Make no mistakes about it – if you write for everyone, then no one is going to read your book. So, get a good understanding of who it is that you are writing for.
This way, it will make your writing process so much easier as you will be performing the outlining process.
Research Keywords
You might think of this as another pre-gaming tip – you must research your keywords and niches, especially when writing a history book. If you have never done this before, it might be absurd to you – the entire process of looking at keywords and niches ahead of time.
But, this process will also help you narrow down who your ideal reader is and how they are going to look at your book or written content. Understand this concept by the example that you might be using one word in a different context, but your audience might understand it in a context that is entirely different from the one that you use.
You must conduct in-depth research about what your reader is particularly searching for in your category of non-fiction genre.
Choose a Preliminary Title
This is another step you should ideally do before indulging in the outlining process. It is important to mention here that you might as well skip this step as it is not a must, but if this is your first time writing a non-fiction book, then choosing a tentative title might help you with getting in the right direction as you will know what you are shooting for.
Once you set out your title, you know what exactly you will put underneath the title – and more importantly, you will know what cannot and should not go underneath that title.
So, by having a tentative title, you will see that the outlining process will become so much easier, which is why you should use this tip to your advantage.
Brainstorm Your Outline
We recommend spending at least half an hour with a pad and a pen while writing out everything that is relevant to your topic. Don’t hold back on the things that are even the remotest relevant as you want to take everything out that is on your mind concerning the topic.
When it comes to the brainstorming process – nothing is really off the table. In other words, whatever crosses your mind, write it out, and write it down. At this time, you wouldn’t want your editor to come in.
You can avail the services of the best history book editors later – preferably at the stage when you have read and re-read your manuscript hundred times and cannot find errors anymore. This usually happens when the mind becomes familiar with what is next in the manuscript and tends to skip the errors that a professional editor is trained to pick on.
So, at this stage – even if you misspell something or you think that a particular thing has nothing to do with your topic – just let it be. It is okay! At this point, don’t worry about getting your ideas down on the page – you can always filter out all those details later.
We recommend you keep writing and spend at least half an hour on your brainstorming session.
Remember that if you are starting to run dry on ideas, you are probably letting that inner editor out that you want to keep inside at all costs. All you need to do is to keep writing.
Organize Your Ideas
Once you have everything out on paper, you will take these brain-dumped concepts and start organizing them in a logical and sensible order.
Again, you don’t need to stress this particular area because once you are done with your first draft and ready to step into your first editing round, you can probably start reorganizing things with the intent of re-writing them a bit later.
Right now, at this point, your focus should be on getting a sensible solution, so you can push forward to the next step.
Ask Yourself Questions
Once your topic is ready, you must start asking yourself questions relevant to the topic.
Suppose you intend to write a non-fiction book, such as a history book. In that case, it might be safe to assume that you ate a bit of authority in your particular topic, which is why you might think about common questions that people might ask when thinking about your area of expertise.
For instance, if you are writing a book related to health and fitness, people might ask you questions related to the best workout for their respective body type, or they might ask about the best way to lose weight.
You get the point – you might want to think about the common questions people ask relevant to the topic you want to write about. If you find yourself running out of ideas, then you will find Google is your best friend.
As you already know, many people go to Google to find the answers and solutions to their questions. So, you can do the same by typing out any type of relevant questions to your particular topic. Meanwhile, you can allow autosuggest to line up and allow you to see all the potential questions that are relevant to your topic.
Once you feel that you have found something close to your topic, select it and look up other relevant queries. You will come up with loads of subtopics to include in your outline for your non-fiction book.
