The Quest for Clarity: Structuring Your Nonfiction Book Begins with Questions

By Amy L. Bernstein

When you begin with the facts, how lost can you get?

Many writers who set out to pack their hard-won expertise or their life story into a book, begin with an innocent assumption:

I know what I know. I just need to put it down in some sort of order.

But writing any form of nonfiction—whether you’re a chemist warning about the dangers of inadequate regulations or a trauma survivor recounting lessons in healing—involves so much more than, This happened, then that ...