I thought I could go to part III, creating a chapter outline, without writing out my "in-between." After all, I've been working with my in-between material pretty intensively. Why did I need to re-hash it? Then I got stuck on my chapter outline. It was organized, but I could feel that creating a nice flow between chapters and figuring out which material belonged where, just wasn't falling easily into place.
Okay, I said, stop being stubborn and follow the process without trying to skip steps. I went back and wrote out my in-between. Lo and behold, an entirely new organizational schema showed up! I like it much better than my first one.
As you said in part III, this is an iterative process, so I understand there could be many more revisions ahead. But I wanted to let you know that I've found this process very helpful.
Now, if only I could mimic Malcolm Gladwell and make my nonfiction writing read like a Robert Ludlum thriller.
Dan, I love this comment so much! :) I'm so glad you found it helpful!! Often seeing everything in the in-between laid out on the page is the only way we can begin to intuit what the inherent logic of our book will be. And hey - if you start mapping out Malcolm Gladwell's books (we have one mapped out as an example in our cohort!) and Robert Ludlum's, I bet you'll learn a lot about how they do things!
I thought I could go to part III, creating a chapter outline, without writing out my "in-between." After all, I've been working with my in-between material pretty intensively. Why did I need to re-hash it? Then I got stuck on my chapter outline. It was organized, but I could feel that creating a nice flow between chapters and figuring out which material belonged where, just wasn't falling easily into place.
Okay, I said, stop being stubborn and follow the process without trying to skip steps. I went back and wrote out my in-between. Lo and behold, an entirely new organizational schema showed up! I like it much better than my first one.
As you said in part III, this is an iterative process, so I understand there could be many more revisions ahead. But I wanted to let you know that I've found this process very helpful.
Now, if only I could mimic Malcolm Gladwell and make my nonfiction writing read like a Robert Ludlum thriller.
Dan, I love this comment so much! :) I'm so glad you found it helpful!! Often seeing everything in the in-between laid out on the page is the only way we can begin to intuit what the inherent logic of our book will be. And hey - if you start mapping out Malcolm Gladwell's books (we have one mapped out as an example in our cohort!) and Robert Ludlum's, I bet you'll learn a lot about how they do things!