Finding Story Arc & Structure in Non-Narrative Nonfiction

By Debra Kempf Shumaker

 

In narrative nonfiction picture books, like biographies or ones about historical events, the story frequently has a natural story arc and structure. Not that they are easy to write, but it’s pretty likely the author will work in chronological order, maybe with a flashback or two, and that the arc will build toward the climax - the subject’s invention or big moment in history. There are exceptions to this, of course, but narrative nonfiction frequently has that built-in arc.

For science-based nonfiction, I found finding a story arc more difficult. With both Freaky, Funky Fish and Peculiar Primates—rhyming nonfiction books about strange and odd adaptations—I decided to end on a nighttime scene to provide a subtle arc.

Several years ago, I wanted to take some drafts of poems I wrote about the wind and make a picture book out of them. Finding a structure and arc proved to be really challenging. Just stringing the poems together felt disjointed. I wanted something to tie the poems together with an opening and closing that made it FEEL like a picture book vs. an anthology of poems.

Looking back at my computer folder of my many, many file names for this wind manuscript, you can see I tried a huge variety of ways to find that “something”, that structure and arc:

•    Wind by Location

•    Wind Season

•    Wind Mood

•    Wind Story

•    Wind Dance

•    Wind Blow

•    Wind Can Be

•    Wind Is Riddle

•    Dance of Air

•    Stripped Down

•    Wind Is

With each attempt, I revised and polished the poems—adding poems, taking them out, adding them in again, and drafting different openings and closings based on the structure I was attempting. A few drafts in, I realized that the poems where I used metaphors to describe different types of wind—wind is a butterfly, wind is a boxer—were my strongest and soon I rewrote every poem as a metaphor and added new ones. Fun, but challenging!

One of the metaphors from my initial set of poems was a general poem about what wind is instead of poem about a specific wind. It read:

The wind is a dance of air.

Warm air steps up and then floats high.

Cold air steps in and stays down low.

Up, in. Up, in.

Sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

As I played with different structures, I frequently deleted that “dance of air” poem but found I kept putting it back in. Finally lightning (or windstorm?) struck—wind as a dance of air could be the overarching metaphor and my opening! Transition lines about the dance of air getting faster and stronger gave me the arc I needed. By progressing the winds by speed, it gave the story a climax point. Finally, my set of poems FELT like a picture book. It seems obvious in hindsight, but it wasn’t during the process, LOL.

Here is that revised poem used as my opening:

 

While this story took me years to find the right structure, every draft I wrote and every structure I tried gave me new insight into finally finding the story I wanted to tell.

If you’re struggling on a nonfiction project’s structure or arc, take some time to play! Brainstorm different ways you could tie the information together. Try them all. You might be surprised at what works.

Take a look, too, at recent non-narrative nonfiction books. Not every one of them has an arc, but many do. They may be subtle. Here are a list of a few and their arc:

By size, getting smaller:

•  Meet the Mini-Mammals: A Night at the Natural History Museum written by Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Brian Lies.

By depth, going deeper:

•  Scratching the Surface: Exploring Earth's Layers written by Kate Allen Fox, illustrated by Erin Brown.

•  Deep, Deep Down: The Secret Underwater Poetry of the Mariana Trench written by Lydia Lukidis, illustrated by Juan Calle.

Span of time:

•  I Am We: How Crows Come Together to Survive written by Leslie Barnard Booth, illustrated by Alexandra Finkeldey. (Dusk to dawn.)

•  When Twilight Comes: The Animals and Plants That Bring Dawn and Dusk to Life written by Marcie Flinchum Atkins, illustrated by Michelle Morin. (Dawn progressing to light and dusk progressing to dark.) Publishing in March!

If any of you wrote a non-narrative nonfiction book, I’d love to hear in the comments if you have an arc and how you found it!

Debra Kempf Shumaker loves weird and fascinating facts. When she isn’t reading or writing, she enjoys hiking, gardening, setting puzzles, and watching Jeopardy. She writes from her home in Northern Virginia and is the author of several nonfiction  and concept picture books, including Wind Is a Dance, an NCTE 2025 Notable Book in Poetry. Her first fiction picture book—Sunday Scaries—hits shelves August 4th. Fire Is a Chorus, a companion to Wind Is a Dance, will be published in Spring 2027.