Okay, when I promise “nonfiction chapter templates,” I don’t mean to mislead anyone. These aren’t fill-in-the-blank sorts of things. They’re more like schema, basic patterns that you can use as the skeleton of your chapter. They make sure you have the right pieces to make your chapter work.
I started jotting down notes for this article when I realized I kept telling authors the same things in their Developmental Blueprints. I was seeing so many disorganized or wandering chapters and recommending they get focused and organized. But then I would have authors say things that were some version of, “I’m not sure what goes in and what doesn’t.”
Any writer has been there. I like Lego analogies for writing; in this case, it’s like having a pile of pieces that all fit together, but they don’t necessarily make a design. You need something to help you decide which pieces you’ll use in your construction. Once you decide you’re going to build a plane, say, you start to think in terms of wings and wheels and so on. Suddenly, some pieces won’t work and others are perfect.
Now, there are a couple ways to approach that question. One is to review your book outline and examine the logic of the whole and each part. Assuming you have the right chapters in the right order, then you need to ask, “Does this chapter do what it’s supposed to do?” For instance, does the chapter state and support a main idea? Using these nonfiction chapter templates can help ensure that you have all the necessary pieces of a decent argument in each chapter.
Nonfiction Chapter Templates
All right, so here at last are my templates or schema. I hope you’re underwhelmed. Why? Because these aren’t secret structures; you’ve encountered them many times before. They should feel somewhat familiar. But sometimes we encounter things over and over without really paying attention to them or realizing that we’ve learned them. Sometimes we need someone to just lay them out for us.
Note that you’ll still have to do some work, here. For instance, you may need to write an introduction. You’ll certainly have to write the transitions and come up with interesting and useful ways to present the information. These templates are designed to help you get the basic building blocks of your chapter in place. You’ll need to put in the electric, plumbing, and drywall and then do the paint and trim to make it look nice.
The Basic Argument Template
Let’s start with the simplest template: the Basic Argument. It looks like this:
- Claim
- Explanation
- Example(s)
This is about the most linear structure you can find. If you use it, you’ll be sure to have a decent argument in your chapter.
Don’t get too mechanical about this one, though. You’ll still want an introductory paragraph or two preparing the ground for your main idea. Connect the chapter to what came previously or explain where it fits into the overall book. Establish the area of knowledge or experience you’re talking about. Stuff like that.
Your claim is your main idea expressed as something controversial. Controversial in this sense doesn’t mean “scandalous.” It just means, “something that requires support” or “a statement someone could disagree with.”
The explanation describes the main concepts behind your claim and gives the main reasons and evidence in its support.
Finally, you wrap up the chapter with an example or two. The example shows what your claim looks like in real life.
The Basic Argument template has wide application, and in fact you’ll use a form of it inside all the other templates. You’ll use the straight form in more academic or formal writing because it gets right to the point. It’s good when your audience needs brevity.
The Question Template
The Question template flips the Basic Argument on its head, in a sense. Instead of opening with the claim and then supporting it, you open with a question, look at the available evidence, and then draw a conclusion. In bullets:
- Ask a question
- Explore available options, knowledge, opinion, etc.
- Decide on the best answer
Such chapters can get lengthy if you’re not careful. You may want to separate some of the exploration into several chapters as part of a whole section. Or your whole book could begin with the question and explore possible answers.
Of the four nonfiction chapter templates, the Question and the Story are best at inviting the reader into a process. The Basic Argument assumes a reader open to intellectual discourse. The Question can be used when your reader may have reservations or feel skeptical.
For instance, in a book on nutrition, you might start a chapter on herbal supplements with the question, “Do herbal supplements really work?” This anticipates a reader’s objection and invites them into the process of discerning the best answer.
The Question template also takes advantage of a psychological phenomenon I think of as closing the loop. Our brains don’t really like questions. When we hear a question, some part of our mind stands there, arms open, going, “Yeah? Yeah? What’s the answer?” until a suitable answer is presented. In stories, it’s the question “What happens next?”
When you begin with a question, you’re creating an open circuit in the reader’s mind that wants to be closed. Now your job is to deliver!
The Story Template
Good stories are the meat and potatoes of any book, the stuff that will stick to your reader’s bones. There are, of course, many ways stories can appear in any given chapter. As part of the underlying structure, however, we can think of two main forms: the Illustration and the Cliffhanger.
The Illustration Template
Using a story as an illustration means just that. The story appears early in the chapter, often at the very beginning, and it serves as the case in point for the rest of what you’re going to say. It looks like this:
- Story illustrating main idea
- Interpretation (main idea)
- Explanation
- Demonstration
The story may be long or short and can be told any number of ways. The important thing is to choose a story that more or less makes the case for you—if someone knows how to interpret it. Who knows how to interpret it? That would be you, the expert! And the interpretation introduces the main idea of the chapter. Once you’ve made your claim about what the story means, you explain why you see what you see in the story, and then you can show the same principle happening in one or more additional cases.
Choose this template when the story you want to tell illustrates an action or choice that leads to success or failure. In other words, you want to focus on what the character got right or wrong or on the chain of events that led to the outcome.
(Here’s a little secret: This template works by smacking an example on the front of the Basic Argument Template. Because you start with concrete evidence [an example], it allows you to dive into your main point a little more quickly.)
The Cliffhanger Template
You know this one so well you probably don’t need me to describe it, but for the sake of thoroughness I’ll do it anyway. This is the one where the chapter opens with the beginning of a story, brings the character to a point of decision, a make-or-break point, then shifts gears, leaving you wondering what’s going to happen to that character.
- Tell a story up to the moment of decision
- Use the conflict to introduce your main idea
- Explain your main idea
- Offer other examples
- End the story
Generally, you will want to tell most of the story at the top of the chapter. You’ll introduce the characters, provide any necessary background to help the reader understand what’s happening, and introduce the main problem or conflict. The conflict should involve some clash between what the main character wants and some obstacle. Ideally, you can raise the stakes a little, taking the main character to a moment where she has to make a choice that will determine whether she succeeds or fails at her objective.
Then you abruptly stop and begin to introduce your chapter’s main idea. As with the Illustration Template, you’ll want to refer back to the story to help show the reader what you’re talking about.
Choose this template when your story illustrates a problem. The bulk of your chapter will help the reader understand the problem better in order to pave the way for the solution you want to offer.
The cliffhanger works like the Question Template because you raise a question at the beginning and then have to close the loop by answering the question at the end.
There are more templates, but these four can get you pretty far. In a nonfiction book of 12 chapters, for instance, you wouldn’t have to use any single template more than three times. So, next time you’re feeling stuck writing your chapter, try to not think about all the things that could go in and use a nonfiction chapter template to figure out what should go in.
Stuck with your book writing? Contact me and we can talk about options to help you get from the blank page to the published page.
Photo by Rick Mason on Unsplash
