The Anatomy of a Book: The Body
To get us in the mood for Halloween, we’re doing a short series on the Anatomy of a [Nonfiction] Book. We’re x-raying commercial nonfiction books at their most basic structure: their bones, you might say. Last week we covered Part 1: The Front Matter, which operates as the locus of control - the collection of pieces that establish the vision, direction, and expectations for the book. Now we’re looking at the function of the Body itself, where all of the promises made in the Front Matter come to fruition.
The Body
The body of the book is the core content - where the story is told, the case is made, and the instructions are given. The body most often consists of parts (which aren’t always needed) and chapters (which are pretty much mandatory!).
Parts
Parts operate as a larger organizational tool for chunking content into two or more overarching sections. Each part has a particular, unique focus that is unfolded in a series of chapters within that part. The end of a part usually signals a shift to a new perspective or topic. Within a story (perhaps memoir or narrative nonfiction), each part encompasses the movement of the narrative toward one climatic event. When you hear of novels using a “three-act structure,” each act would be analogous to one part.
Take a look at the way these nonfiction books separated their content into parts:
Radium Girls by Kate Moore [Narrative Nonfiction]
- Part One: Knowledge
- Part Two: Power
- Part Three: Justice
In this book, each part represents the movement of the narrative related to that theme. For example, in Part One: Knowledge, the radium girls first learn about the mysterious illness that is afflicting them - and what’s causing it. In Part Two, the girls start fighting back against the radium factory and they win more advocates to support their cause. Part Three covers their final battle for justice.
The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey [Personal Development]
- Part I: Failure: A Most Valuable Parenting Tool
- Part II: Learning From Failure: Teaching Kids to Turn Mistakes Into Success
- Part III: Succeeding at School: Learning From Failure is a Team Effort
In this book for parents and teachers, Jessica Lahey first helps readers reframe their thinking around failure. This mindset shift takes a few chapters to make the case for, but it’s the necessary groundwork before she starts explaining how to start making use of failures in a more productive way, both at home (the topic of Part II) and at school (Part III).
Chapters
Chapters are the discrete topics that make up a book; they are the building blocks (or, perhaps, think of them as each individual vertebra in our spine!). Chapters are usually organized in a couple different ways:
The Progression
In this method, each chapter builds upon the last one. You have to read Chapter 1 before you can reach Chapter 2, and so on. Each chapter is sequential. This is really useful for books that teach readers how to do something, or that tell a story. And this is probably the most common way to see chapters organized - in some kind of logical, sequential flow.
For example, Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming is told in chapters organized chronologically throughout her life.
The Pie
In this method, the order of the chapters doesn’t matter as much; what matters is that all of the pieces of the pie are there. This is useful for presenting a variety of information all related to the same topic.
An example of this is Ryan Holiday’s Stillness Is the Key, which is organized into sections covering Mind, Spirit, and Body. He could have just as easily organized it into Body, Spirit, Mind, or Spirit, Body, Mind, or some other order. The point is all three parts are necessary and equal.
Some books also mix up these methods! Carol Dweck’s classic Mindset is a good example of mixing up the use of chapter progressions and the pie method. In the first three chapters, Dweck explains her research behind mindset and introduces both the growth and fixed mindset (progression), and then chapters 4-7 explore what mindset looks like in a variety of contexts: sports, business, relationships, and parenting (pie). The order of chapters 4-7 doesn’t really matter; they’re all necessary and equal.
There are many other ways to think about organizing your book, and - for those who know me - this is one of my favorite things to do! I love analyzing how people organize information and pondering the best way to present something. I hope this helps you as you think about your book!
Next week we’ll be finishing up this short series with an intro to End Matter (also known as Back Matter).
And if you think this would be helpful to someone else writing their book, please send them this link.
Photo by Elaine Howlin on Unsplash
