[Blog] How to Structure Your Book - Movements

By: Melissa Parks

It was a hallelujah day when my Tupperware drawer stopped shaming me for being dysfunctional.

Pieces we inherited after dinner at friends’ homes were tossed. Pieces that didn’t have lids were tossed. Repurposed sour cream containers were tossed.
 
Basically, every piece that didn’t originate from the superset we bought on Black Friday from Sam’s Club (the one with the red lids) was tossed.
 
Like Russian nesting dolls, our Tupperware stacked one inside the other, largest to smallest. A perfectly complete puzzle.
 
That was four years ago. And I still can fearlessly open the Tupperware drawer.
 
The Types Who Love and Hate the Traditional Outline
 
I can’t take credit for the organizational feat. It was all my husband.
 
He’s a software engineer, who possesses an “if-then” mind.
 
“If we get rid of all these pieces that don’t fit, then we will have an organized Tupperware drawer.”
 
I’m grateful for his clear-minded, simple logic. I’m not bent that way.
 
My husband is the type who loved the traditional outline in high school. The hierarchical one. The one with Roman numerals, capital letters, lower case letters, and Arabic numerals.
 
Traditional outlines always felt like a puzzle I couldn’t put together. If it had a “little a,” then I needed a “little b.” But what if I didn’t have a “little b”?

What then?
 
Or, what if it flowed better to put the thesis in the second paragraph, rather than at the end of the first paragraph?
 
In high school—to get the “A” on the assignment—I’d shoehorn my content into an outline. Unsurprisingly, when I wrote my paper from my outline, the outline fell apart. My paper also fell apart.
 
The outline wasn’t flexible enough to adjust to the ways my ideas expanded and contracted as I wrote.
 
Alternatives to the Traditional Outline
 
Over the years, new ways of outlining for writing have emerged for people like me.
 
There is “Mind Mapping” (or “Array Outlining")—diagramming that allows you to visually relate ideas. It’s an amoeba of ideas that would boggle the linear-minded.
 
There’s the “Writing Wheel” method: Your topic is the hub, the spokes are your supporting ideas, and your thesis circles the exterior—because it’s what gives your ideas movement. It’s clever but almost too simplistic.
 
There’s also “Box and Card” outlining. This is also a visual way of categorizing material. Create “boxes” on pieces of paper (or notecards) that you dump related material into. Then logically order the boxes from beginning to end.
 
Over the years, we’ve developed our own method for outlining. It’s called the “Movement” method. It’s a simple concept.
 
How to Structure Your Book - Movements
 
I like to think of outlining like movements in a musical composition.
 
Each movement is an independent composition, designed to be played in succession. One movement builds to the next and to the next.
 
There’s the opening movement, which is typically bright and upbeat. Themes are introduced that will be repeated throughout the other movements.
 
The second movement often is typically (but not always) slower paced, and gains momentum and increases tension as it goes.
 
The third movement can take two forms, slow and stately or lively and boisterous.
 
The final movement is the climax and denouement. It reflects the opening movement but with gusto. And it pulls all the other movements together.
 
The Movement method of outline is about moving your reader from one idea to the next. It's fluid and flexible.

Writing What Needs to Be Written
 
Writing has a beginning, middle and end, much like a composition with multiple movements. You make your case in the opening movement; you prove it, apply it, or explain it in the middle movements, creating tension and release along the way; and pull it all together in the final movement.
 
Each movement has its own rhythm and pacing—so long as it engages your reader and moves them forward.
 
It’s not so much about having a point one, point two, and point three, as it is about writing what needs to be written to move your idea to completion.
 
When I write, I open a document and create headers.  “Movement 1,” Movement 2,” etc. Then as I research, I begin dumping into it ideas that relate to the particular movement.

I also dump in the paragraphs of writing that I’ve already done on the topic. Anything, really, that relates to the big idea. What doesn't fit, I move to another Movement (or put in a document called "Writing Notes").
 
When I write, the material is all there, and I can figure out intuitively how it all relates. I don’t need a Big A and a little a, b, and c.
 
It’s not Tupperware stacking. But it works for me. And maybe it will work for you.