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Carla King interviews Dave Goetz and Melissa Parks – Lost in the muddy middle of your book? This structure technique can save you!

Nonfiction Authors Association Podcast | March 15, 2023

“It’s so critical that you know what that thesis statement is. In fact, often, when you’re stuck and you’re in the middle–you’re lost in the muddy middle–it is because you don’t even know what your thesis is anymore, or it’s too general.”  -Dave Goetz

Dave Goetz and Melissa Parks - Lost in the muddle middle of your book

About Dave Goetz and Melissa Parks

Dave Goetz and Melissa Parks are co-founders of Journey Sixty6, an online learning and coaching community for writers seeking a warm, supportive community and are serious about completing a writing project.

Dave is a former magazine and book editor and the author of Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul (HarperOne). He is also a passionate fly fisher, podcaster (2  Guys and a River), and author of The Fly Fisher’s Book of Lists: Life is short. Catch more fish.

Dave has coached hundreds of writers and served as editor for books in the area of philanthropy, leadership, spirituality and religion, legacy memoirs, and business.

Melissa is a speaker and a writer, contributing to online shelter publications. She is also an Instagram expert, growing a large following under her account Megillicutti. She and Dave started working together more than twenty years ago at a publishing company. She holds an M.A. in English Literature from Loyola University Chicago.

In addition, JourneySixty6 is a 2023 sponsor of the NFAA’s Nonfiction Writers Conference, which happens in May. 

Nonfiction Authors Podcast: Dave Goetz and Melissa Parks

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Show Notes

Links

In this episode…

  • Why a thesis statement or story arc for your book is so important.
  • How a thesis and topic differ.
  • How to narrow down your thesis.
  • When you might find yourself stuck in the ‘muddy middle’ of your book.
  • How to structure the chapters of your book, and how JourneySixty6 uses a movement model.
  • Various methods authors may use for their books, and the ones that may be the most effective for you.
  • The three things you can do with an idea.
  • The importance of a meta idea in memoir writing.
  • How to organize your major and minor stories when writing memoir.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the interview series for the Nonfiction Authors Association. Today’s session is with Melissa Parks and Dave Goetz from JourneySixty6, and we will be talking about what to do when you’re stuck in the muddy middle of your book. I’m Carla King, your host, and I’m happy to have you with us today. This interview will last only 30 minutes and you can find the replay on our Nonfiction Authors Association website and social media platforms including YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

And now I’d like to introduce our guests. Dave Goetz and Melissa Parks are co-founders of Journey Sixty6, an online learning and coaching community for writers seeking a warm, supportive community and are serious about completing a writing project.

Dave is a former magazine and book editor and the author of Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul (HarperOne). He is also a passionate fly fisher, podcaster (2  Guys and a River), and author of The Fly Fisher’s Book of Lists: Life is short. Catch more fish.

Dave has coached hundreds of writers and served as editor for books in the area of philanthropy, leadership, spirituality and religion, legacy memoirs, and business.

Melissa is a speaker and a writer, contributing to online shelter publications. She is also an Instagram expert, growing a large following under her account Megillicutti. She and Dave started working together more than twenty years ago at a publishing company. She holds an M.A. in English Literature from Loyola University Chicago.

In addition, JourneySixty6 is a 2023 sponsor of the NFAA’s Nonfiction Writers Conference, which happens in May. 

And welcome to the podcast, Dave and Melissa.

Melissa Parks  2:26

We’re so grateful to be here, and so proud to be a sponsor of NFAA. Thanks for having us today.

Dave Goetz  2:33

Really grateful.

Carla King  2:34

Thank you. Yes, we are too. And so our listeners, because we all get lost in what we call the ‘muddy middle’ of our books, and you’re going to help us out with a solid technique that can help us get through that. This is not an outline, it’s an alternative. And something that we don’t have to be so rigid about, right?

Dave Goetz  2:58

What the book is about. And it’s so critical that you know what that thesis statement is. In fact, often, when you’re stuck and you’re in the middle–you’re lost in the muddy middle–it is because you don’t even know what your thesis is anymore, or it’s too general. So a thesis has both a subject and a compliment. So if you’re going to write a statement about what your book is about–you’re saying, ‘Okay, what is my book about?’ That’s the subject. That’s the topic of your thesis. And then what are you saying about your book topic? That’s the other half. That’s the compliment. And those two together make the statement.

So every nonfiction book has a thesis. And of course, every memoir has a plotline, has a story arc. And it’s not quite the same as a thesis, but there’s what they call a story arc, or a narrative arc. So depending on what you’re writing–and even if you’re writing a how-to book, a practical book–there’s an underlying thesis that governs what goes in the book and what stays on the cutting room floor.

So I wrote a book, as you mentioned, called ‘Death by Suburb.’ And in fact,  just last night, I was at the house of my editor from many years ago who helped me on that project. We were kibitzing about the book and talking about what the thesis was. Somebody was sitting there and they said, ‘So Dave, what was the thesis of your book?’ I thought, ‘Man, that’s a great question.’ And so the thesis of the book was that–there’s these invisible environmental toxins that we don’t see that pollute the water system in our lives, and kind of destroy us spiritually. We don’t see them. So I identified eight toxins, and then there were the corresponding eight disciplines to help us overcome that. But the thesis was all about these environmental toxins that we don’t see, that are invisible, and they shape us in ways that we don’t really know.

Melissa Parks  5:01

I’ll also add that people often get thesis confused with topic. And I think that that’s where a lot of writers go wrong–is that they have a topic that they want to write about. And then they get into it and they’re like, ‘Wow, I’m lost because it isn’t narrow enough. I haven’t done enough research, I haven’t talked with enough people in this field to really crystallize my thinking on this topic.s And a thesis really forces you to narrow down what you’re specifically going to be writing about. So your idea is different from the other books that are in that category already.

Carla King  6:11

I’m so glad you mentioned that–the competitive analysis are what they’re called in traditional publishing. And book proposals, the book comps, right? The comparable books. So yes, how do you delve deep and use that information to narrow your thesis?

Melissa Parks  6:30

I’ll say this on the outset–is that there might be a book very similar to yours out there. So I want to say that you can have a very specific thesis, and there still might be a book out there that is a little bit like yours. But the fact that you’re writing it with your unique voice and your unique stories is going to make it different. That being said, however–to go more focused, to get more narrow with your thesis–yes, look at every book in your category. And we’re not being flippant when we say that. You need to know what you don’t know, as we like to say.

And often, we just have a general idea of what’s out there. And then you start to dig deeper and deeper, and you’re like, ‘Oh, there is a book on this. And this informs my own thinking.’ And that doesn’t mean you have to read every single chapter of the book. Usually you can read the dust jacket copy. You can read the intro, you can read the first chapter–which often has the thesis laid out–and maybe even get to the end to see where they go with it. But you should have a good idea of what each book’s thesis big idea is, to help you really narrow what your idea is. Dave, would you add anything to that?

Dave Goetz  7:40

I just think it’s easy to get lazy. And I’m this way, right? I have an idea for a book, and I want to start writing and I say to myself, ‘Oh, nobody’s ever written on this before,’ which is, of course, not true. And so I don’t do that research. So if you’re stuck, I would actually say, ‘Hey, slow down. You’re focusing on your thesis. And to help you winnow that, and to sharpen that, you look at let’s just say 10 books.’ I mean, honestly, once you have those 10 books identified, you could go to your library and spend three to four hours and scan. Look for the thesis chapters, Melissa says, and get a pretty good idea of what’s out there. Again, you don’t need to do 100 books, but it’d be good to see the top 10 books, at least, that are similar in kind to yours.

Carla King  8:28

When do people typically get lost in their book, and find that they need to go back to the beginning and find their thesis?

Melissa Parks  8:35

I don’t know if there is a typical bit. It could happen early-midway to late-midway, but it’s usually in the middle, as the title of this podcast suggests. And they’re building to this moment, and then they’re like, ‘Ugh. This chapter that I had in my outline–it is totally unnecessary, because it doesn’t fit what I really want to write about.’ Or they have engine run on, and they’re saying the same thing over, and over, and over again in the chapters. And the chapters just lose focus, and they’re not seeing anything unique. Or they’re running out of stories, or they’re running out of evidence, or explanations. And it’s probably because they haven’t sharpened their thesis enough. So I would say probably in the middle of the book is when they start to see the repeating themselves–they just don’t have enough material to make a convincing and compelling argument.

Carla King  9:32

Or maybe they have too much.

Melissa Parks  9:35

That’s true, too. That’s also the flip side, Carla. You’re absolutely right. They have so much and it becomes this junk drawer. And a book can’t be a junk drawer of material, right? We all have those junk drawers where we stuff everything in, and then you can’t find the one thing that you want to find. And it’s similar with a book–if you throw everything in–your reader is going to be lost if you have everything in there.

We find that we’re often telling writers that you may actually have two books in you, and you’re trying to write everything you know, rather than separating out–what is it that you want to actually achieve in this one particular book? And we take them back to their thesis. And is your thesis narrow enough? And as soon as you have that narrowed down thesis, you can begin to say, ‘This material doesn’t belong in this book. Maybe for a future book’. And we always give authors hope that there could be a future book, right? And don’t get rid of the material just because it doesn’t fit. But yeah, that’s absolutely right–you often get lost in the middle when you have too much, and it becomes that junk drawer.

Dave Goetz  10:32

A couple things I’ll just add. One is the assumption that we have, always, is that if you have a real outline to start–which you do need in your book proposal, right? You need an outline. If it doesn’t change, and morph, and switch, you have a problem. Because that means you’ve done no thinking as you write. To think is to write, and to write is to think. And as you’re writing this book, that outline has to change. Because your thesis–you’re stepping in a river different from when you started that book, to when you start chapter three, right? The river is changing, it’s moving. And so your book is like that river.

And as you write, you get new ideas, you have new directions, you look back and go, ‘Man, this chapter just doesn’t work here.’ I remember with ‘Death By Suburb,’ I thought I had the first draft completely done. Then I realized there was a huge hole. Where chapter three now was, I needed a different chapter. And so that upended my whole structure. And when you’re lost like that–and sometimes you’re just exhausted with the project, right? You’re like, ‘I’m done with this,’ and you just want to push it out the door. But you do need to slow down in those moments, and rethink, ‘Okay, so why is this? Why has my outline changed? And should it change?’ And I would say most often–in fact, 99% of the time–your outline should be changing as you write.

Carla King  11:57

That’s a great point. I know that, having run writers groups–and I know you guys do book coaching–a lot of people come to writing groups and book coaching after they’ve given up, and throw up their hands and go, ‘I just don’t know what to do next,’ right? So feedback is so important.

Melissa Parks  12:17

It absolutely is important. And I think of the writers with whom we’ve worked, and there is this struggle–where they’re in the middle, and they just don’t have clarity. And they’re writing on a few different things, as we already mentioned. And if you can get that feedback–even just one person to ask you questions–again, what is it that you want to say in this book? And just force somebody to ask you that question so you can answer it very explicitly. That will often take you back to your thesis statement and what is motivating this writing project to begin with. So yeah, feedback is critical. Having somebody to ask good questions–we always talk about that. Like, you need somebody to dig deeper and to really help you unearth the thing that it is that you want to write about.

Carla King  13:07

Well, let’s dive into what you want to talk about today–of how to conceive your chapters in your book, and structures, and all of that.

Melissa Parks  13:18

Well, I’ll start out, because I think I mentioned to you earlier that I always failed with the traditional outline. And I think that traditional outlines typically don’t work for most writers, as Dave mentioned, because you’re thinking as you write and as you write, you’re thinking. And that is a contraction of ideas, right? Your ideas are contracting and expanding at the same time.

And so as your ideas expand, you’re gonna have to take some ideas out, and suddenly, that structure–that traditional outline–no longer works, because now you’re missing a whole component–a whole chunk from that outline. And it can be very defeating and very confusing. And so we like to think of it in terms of movements, like Dave had said earlier. It’s like a river, it’s a flow. How ideas move from one to the next, rather than thinking of this as, ‘If I take out this rigid portion, then I need to replace it with another rigid portion.’ So ‘movements’ has a much more fluid quality to it. And it allows for expansion and contraction, which I think is so critical when you’re writing and thinking.

Dave Goetz  14:29

So we think about your book as a series of movements. What are you going to say first? What will you say second,? Is your thesis chapter at the beginning of the book, or is it at the end of the book? Let me give you an example. We worked on a project where it was a person who had this really innovative approach to eating. She dealt with and worked with young women, mostly, who had eating disorders. And the project was called ‘Unweighted Nation.’

And so the first two chapters were making a case about why it was so important–her idea was so important. So it talked about what she called the ‘thin ideal.’ Both chapters one and two were really using a lot of provocative stuff from the news, and The Biggest Loser, and all this data, and it was a really well done project. Chapters three, four, and five were the thesis–that was her big idea, where she explained her idea. What the book was really about. So she took three chapters to do that. So chapter six, seven, eight, nine, and ten, she applied that. She applied the idea. She applied it in healthcare, she applied it in parenting–how do you help your kids with ‘the unweighted model?’ How do you do it in education? How do you do it in these different spheres of life? So she applied that. So that was one structure that we helped her with.

So the first movement, then, would have been making a case for why the unweighted model is so critical. Second movement was explaining, right? Chapters three, four, and five. And then the third movement was applying it in these four different spheres of life. So that’s how you think of it in terms of movement. We also use movements inside chapters. So your introduction is movement one, and the conclusion of that chapter is the last movement. And so what’s in between those? What goes first? What goes second? So it’s a much different way of looking at ideas, and how ideas flow and how they hang together.

Melissa Parks 15:14

I would also add to that–I like to think of the movement method a little bit like musical movements in a piece of composition. You have the opening movement, and throughout the other movements–the second, third, and the fourth–the primary musical notes are repeated, in some form, in the succeeding movements. And so there’s this string that goes from the opening movement, to the next movement, to the next movement. And even then, is replayed in the final movement. And so it’s kind of like your thesis–it’s in that opening movement. And then, in the following movements, it’s stated again, and again. And then finally, in the final chapter. So I like the way that it relates to a piece of musical work.

Carla King  17:48

I do too. That’s what I thought about when I first heard you say the word ‘movements’ instead of outline. I really like that. It feels more organic, and more natural, and more exactly how we think when we’re not editing ourselves. I always suggest to writers, ‘Don’t edit yourself the first time around. Just put it all down, it’s easier to take it out than it is to put it back in.’ So I know you have some samples for us that we know. Can you take us through? I think first is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People–that structure, to start.

Dave Goetz  18:26

So that’s a list book. And I know that many of you may be doing how-to books. In many ways, my book, ‘Death By Suburb’–it wasn’t a how-to, but it was kind of a list. We listed the eight toxins, and then underneath–in that chapter–was also the anecdote to the toxin in some ways, or the discipline. And even though the title or subtitle of the book didn’t say, ‘The Eight Toxins of The Suburbs,’–it didn’t say that, but that was the internal structure of that book.

So the first structure that a lot of people use–and it’s a legitimate structure, especially for nonfiction writers–is the list structure. And so sometimes there’s 10. I think the principle here is–the more odd the number, the more interesting the book. It’s like those old magazine covers–’107 ways to raise your kids,’ or something like that. So a list book is a very legitimate structure. And I think it’s obviously the easiest one to do, because you’re gonna do eight principles for leadership, or handling conflict when you’re in a board meeting, or something like that. So the list structure, I think, is probably the most basic and easiest one to write.

Melissa Parks  19:46

Then there’s the deductive approach, and that’s where the thesis of the book appears in the first or second chapter. And then the rest of the book is explaining, illustrating, or applying the idea. And that’s kind of what that obesity book–or the book on living in the middle–’The Unweighted Nation’ model is about, right? You lay out the thesis pretty early on, and then you apply it to different areas. And so it’s an application, or an illustration explaining–usually you’re doing all three of those things within a chapter of a book. And each chapter then supports that thesis in those opening two–or maybe one–chapter. And then Dave, you want to talk about the third structure?

Dave Goetz  20:34

So the other one–really, arguably, there’s two–one where your thesis is developed in the middle, to where you build a case for your idea. And so let say, chapter four– actually, the whole chapter is given over to explaining your thesis. And then chapters–let’s say five, six, seven, eight, or six, seven, eight, nine, ten–you’re doing something else. Maybe you’re applying it.

By the way, this is a good place to talk about–there’s only three things that you can do with an idea. Only three things. You can explain an idea. You can prove an idea. Or you can apply an idea. There’s really only three things. If you can think of a fourth or fifth, let me know. And so often, when we get stuck, we’ve been spending so much time explaining the idea that we need to ask ourself, ‘Okay, who’s our audience? Maybe we need to prove that this thesis actually is true.’ And so sometimes, you might spend a chapter or two just proving that your idea is true, based on either some research that you’ve done, or some secondary research.

And then we talk about the third thing. So you explain you can prove it–so you can spend time proving the idea. And then the application, or applying the idea. And so that is the example with this ‘Unweighted Nation,’ this obesity book. She spent the last four chapters–it was all about applying her big idea, or the thesis, in these different spheres. And even within your chapters–as you structure your chapters–you can think, ‘Okay, I’m going to open this with a story.’ Now this chapter has a thesis that must relate to the larger thesis of the book. So is this chapter about proving that idea? Is it applying it? Is it a combination of both? And so just understanding these three things that you can do with an idea can actually help you, also, with your structure, as you think about your entire book.

Carla King  22:47

It occurs to me that sometimes we don’t know what kind of book we’re writing at first. I know that I’ve written a lot of how-to guides. And I had imagined that my self-publishing guides would be a guide that people would pick through if they needed design help, or if they needed to know what to do about Beta readers–they would just do that. But I’ve heard people tell me that they read it from front to back, and that it does build. yIt does build and prove. I think that just came out organically. I don’t know if I was lucky. But people use it in both ways, for sure. And I do wish that I had known about these structures before, so I could have done it intentionally.

Dave Goetz  23:34

I think you did it. Because there was this natural flow that you followed, and I think as you get that feedback–they just read the whole thing–that shows it really worked, right? And that’s really good news. I think, even in a how-to book or a how-to structure, or a list structure–within those points, let’s say you have 10 points. And most of them are really explaining. Let’s just use something really simple, like how to read a river when you’re fly fishing. I’m a flyfisher. So one of the things you have to do when you’re fly fishing is you have to read the river. Where did the fish sit in the river? You can’t just fish the whole thing. So where do you start? And how do you cast?

And so you might, ‘This book is about nine ways to read a river.’ So you have your first chapter. So in that chapter, you’re doing some explaining, but you’re also doing illustrating–you’re telling stories that illustrate it. And maybe you’re applying it to a certain kind of stream in the Wisconsin Driftless Area. Or let’s say you’re in Montana or Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park–how it’s different in the western rivers. So even within a chapter in which you’re explaining, you can use proving and applying, you can use illustrations, you can use stories. And I my guess is that’s what you did with your book, which made it so readable.

Melissa Parks  25:04

I would also imagine that you knew where you wanted to end up in the book. And so you had a sense of a beginning and an end. And my guess is that you knew these movements, as we’ve discussed, that needed to happen between the beginning and the end. ‘Okay, somebody who wants to self publish a book needs to do this, they need to do this, it needs to do this,’ and you introduced some complications along the way of what people overlook. And so I think you probably had this movement in mind as you’re writing it. And I think that that’s the wonderful thing about thinking in terms of movements instead of outlines–is that it is a little bit more fluid.

Carla King  25:44

And a lot of nonfiction authors who are writing prescriptive nonfiction intimately know their topic, right? What do you have to do first? And what do you have to know? And what are the mistakes that are being made? And after having done something for 20 or more years, you kind of know what the flow is. But it is nice to be able to apply this intentionality to it. And so our final structure is the memoir. Which is not prescriptive at all. Can you talk about how to tackle that? So many ways. Oh, my gosh. I feel like that’s the one that has–because of all the flashbacks and backstory–it’s the most problematic for authors to tackle.

Melissa Parks  26:29

Dave, I’ll let you answer this. But I will start out by saying–when we have coached authors who are working on memoirs, their tendency is to want to create another junk drawer type of book, right? They want to tell their entire life story and put in so many details that are irrelevant and are really not interesting, except to anybody but themselves. And so we really–not force–but we encourage our writers whom we work with to, again, think about–what is the meta idea of your memoir? What is the big idea that’s going to tie each part of your story, each chapter together to tell a story that’s convincing and that people actually want to read?

Dave Goetz  27:12

It’s such a huge thing. We talk about the thesis for nonfiction but for novels–novels have a meta idea that drives them. The great novels–there’s something big that’s behind that. And I think as a writer, you need to know what that is, in terms of a memoir. So in that sense, memoirs are so much like novels. I would say this–that the most common structure, of course, is the chronological structure. And I think what Melissa just said–we get in trouble when we just put everything in. We’re going to start when we were a kid, and there’s no reason to start when you were a kid. But we often do that. And it’s because we’re trying to tell too much.

So we always say, ‘What’s the meta idea?’ Melissa, as you just said. And then–what are some of the key themes throughout the books? There’s not just one meta idea, but there’s these themes that you want to talk about. So, for example, we worked with an author. He was a Orthodox Jewish businessman who had been very, very successful. Came out of South Africa, and then sold his business to a German company. And you can imagine being an Orthodox Jewish business whose family was persecuted by the Germans in World War II–in that era-and had to flee the country. Or at least–I forget how it was, but in his family tree, there was a history of persecutions.

But he sold his business–ended up having this great relationship. But he wanted to write a novel. He knew exactly why he was writing it. And it was called Zaidi. And it was for his grandchildren. And so there were like six or seven themes that he had. So he organized his book around themes. He did not organize it chronologically, although it had some chronological elements to it. One of the most interesting things about that book was–it was chapter five or six. I remember it because he told about his affair that he had with his–what was it, Melissa?

Melissa Parks  29:16

His wife’s cousin.

Dave Goetz  29:17

His wife’s cousin, right? So they are part of this small community in South Africa. He has this affair, it blows up everything, he ends up moving to the United States. Long story. But he wanted to tell that story. But part of the theme, and part of the why of the book, was what he wanted to accomplish with that book. Now he only published 50 copies for his family. So it is a very focused book. So memoirs–you can do the chronological thing, but you have to do the chronological thing as it relates to your meta idea. I’ll say one more thing about memoirs. And that is, a lot of early writing of a memoir is just boring, because nothing happens in the memoir. It’s just thinking.

Carla King  30:00

And that’s okay. You know, I tell writers to write it out, and then don’t be sad when somebody says, ‘The first three chapters have gotta go.’

Dave Goetz  30:10

They’ve gotta go. Or come up with, say, that each chapter–just by the purest discipline–has to have seven scenes. And you know what a scene is, right? A scene has a setting–all the things we know about a scene. Just that discipline alone will help you prevent you from just having long stretches where you’re just thinking about your life. So memoirs are hard to write. It’s in the first person and what you select. But listen, before we end on this, why don’t you say what we always say about our major and minor stories? Because I think that would be helpful.

Melissa Parks  30:48

Absolutely. So when you’re thinking about this meta idea that’s going to be governing your memoir, it often comes from this activity that we challenge writers to do. Which are to dump in a document–all the major stories of your life. ‘This happened, and this was really major, because it taught me this, or it sent me on this path instead of this path.’ So you have these major life vectoring moments, and you put those in a bucket, or in a document.

Then you have these minor stories–they may not be as big or life changing as the big ones. But they’re still there. They’re a little bit smaller, but they’re still important. And then you start to look through these major stories and these minor stories, and you start to see threads that tie them together. You get certain themes that are related to the major stories and the minor stories. And from that, then, you often get that meta idea, and then some of your subthemes.

So it’s a really great exercise. You can begin to say, ‘Yeah, this may be a memory, but it’s certainly not significant, because it didn’t really move me forward in any way. Or it didn’t change my thinking or it didn’t maybe set me back, it just kind of happened,’ right. Something that doesn’t have any significance, you probably wouldn’t put it in a memoir. So you want to think of your major stories and your minor stories. Dave, would you add anything to that?

Dave Goetz  32:13

I just think it’s been so helpful to me, as I’ve been working on other projects for myself. Because that really forces you to say okay, then you can create a scene around those major stories, right? For example, if I were to write a book about–I went to high school on the prairies of South Dakota, and my high school class was 16 people. I’ve thought about doing a memoir about my four years there. And I would probably begin with a scene–when we were driving there on the first weekend of school. Driving this lone prairie highway, and a car swerved and almost hit us and killed us. We saw this whole thing happen, and we had to pull this body out of this car, right? So it was like this car crash that I could open up this memoir about these four years. It would be these four years that I do the memoirs. So it would be like a quasi coming of age story. I don’t think I’m going to write it. But I’ve thought about it, because it has all the stuff–the juice of, coming of age stuff. Living alone at 14, 250 miles away from your parent. But there’s all these stories during those years that could either end up as a major story, or a minor story. It’d be great grist to begin the memoir writing process.

Carla King  33:32

And you told us a perfect example of beginning the story in media, or in the action, which is critical, right? To memoir–even any book, arguably.

Melissa Parks  33:46

Absolutely. We were working with a writer just a few months ago, and he was writing a memoir. And probably the first four pages were just–nothing was happening. It was an explanation of what the day looks like outside. And then he gets to this critical moment where somebody dies, and it’s a big moment. And we’re like, ‘You need to start there.’ Start with the most dramatic part of the story. And then you can go back and give some color to what the day was like. But start where the action is. So absolutely.

Carla King  34:22

So much great advice. Thank you for sharing. But before we go, I’d like for you to tell our readers where we can find you. What’s next up for you?

Dave Goetz  34:33

So we have actually provided something of value, that has to do with structure–just for our podcast listeners. If you go to www.journey66.com–if you scroll all the way to the bottom, we have something for our listeners. You’ll get a series of specific worksheets to help structure your book. And they’re really practical. In fact, I was looking at them again this morning, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, man, I should take my own advice. I’m working on this project.’ So they’re at no cost. All you have to do is scroll down, and you can just sign up to receive them. And so we’d love for you to be able to do that.

And certainly reach out at any time. We often give a lot of advice. People send us a question and we’ll say, ‘I think you should do this, this, this.’ The last thing I would say is that–so often, when you get feedback, you get proofing feedback. And that’s not what you need when it comes to structure. You need what’s called developmental feedback, or developmental editing. And you don’t need line editing at that point, as well. So structure is all about developmental editing. And it’s important that you get that when you feel like you’re stuck.

Carla King  35:53

Right. And where are you most active? Melissa, I know you’re active on Instagram at–what was that great handle you have?

Melissa Parks  36:02

@megillicutti. That’s where I do a lot of quick writing. I also have a blog. We also have JourneySixty6, where we have a blog and we do lots of writing about the writing life, and the craft of writing, and idea formation–everything related to writing. We do have a podcast also–the JourneySixty6 Writing podcast. So if people want to tune in there, that’d be awesome.

Carla King  36:29

And you can also look at our recommended resources page atnonfictionauthorsassociation.com to find them on your listing. Well, thank you again for sharing all this great structure info. It just helped me, just in this half an hour or so. I know it helped many, many people.

Melissa Parks  36:47

Thanks for having us. It was so much fun.

Dave Goetz  36:50

Grateful. Just love the conversation, and as we always like to end everything now– buckle up and write. Maybe it’s buckle up and structure, or restructure.

Carla King  37:01

Restructure. And thank you to our listeners for joining us today and every week. For a list of guests and topics just check our schedule on the site, use your favorite search engine, or better yet, sign up for our mailing list at NonfictionAuthorsAssociation.com.

Quotes from our guest

“It’s so critical that you know what that thesis statement is. In fact, often, when you’re stuck and you’re in the middle–you’re lost in the muddy middle–it is because you don’t even know what your thesis is anymore, or it’s too general.”  Dave Goetz

“We find that we’re often telling writers that you may actually have two books in you, and you’re trying to write everything you know, rather than separating out–what is it that you want to actually achieve in this one particular book? And we take them back to their thesis. And is your thesis narrow enough? And as soon as you have that narrowed down thesis, you can begin to say, ‘This material doesn’t belong in this book. Maybe for a future book’. And we always give authors hope that there could be a future book, right? And don’t get rid of the material just because it doesn’t fit.” -Melissa Parks

“Often, when we get stuck, we’ve been spending so much time explaining the idea that we need to ask ourself, ‘Okay, who’s our audience? Maybe we need to prove that this thesis actually is true.” -Dave Goetz

“So often, when you get feedback, you get proofing feedback. And that’s not what you need when it comes to structure. You need what’s called developmental feedback, or developmental editing. And you don’t need line editing at that point, as well. So structure is all about developmental editing. And it’s important that you get that when you feel like you’re stuck.” -Dave Goetz

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