Why you should write an outline for your non-fiction book

By Dennis Mellersh

Writing an outline for a non-fiction book differs considerably from doing an outline for book of fiction, such as a novel.

Simply put, in a non-fiction book, such as a how-to-do-it book, the basic purpose of your outline is to provide you, as the writer, with a detailed roadmap or blueprint of exactly what you are going to write about.

If you don’t have an outline for your non-fiction, you can end up floundering about in a “loss for words”; you can’t “make-up” the content, because it has to be factual.

In a novel by contrast (aside from a simplified, basic outline) you need to be able to create spontaneously from your imagination as you progress with your manuscript. Because you are creating “on-the-go” you will not know ahead of time exactly what you are going to write for each page. A highly detailed and organized outline could get in the way of this creative process.

In non-fiction, because the content varies infinitely from book to book there really is no instant template or formula that you can use to develop the outline for your particular book.

However, what you can “template” to a degree is the organizational plan for your book. For the basics on writing the organizational plan for a non-fiction book, see my article at dcmellersh.blogspot.com/.../writing-outline-for-your-non-fiction.html

Your outline-for-writing is not a summary or guide to your book that you publish for the reader at the beginning of your book; rather, it is plan for you to follow in your writing to make sure you cover all of the information you want to convey to your potential readers.

You have to be very clear in your outline about all of the topics and sub topics (by subject matter) that you want to discuss in your book.