JOURNALING MY WAY TO A BOOK

by Christine Liu-Perkins                                          

One indispensable writing strategy for me is journaling. Until I write them down, my thoughts are usually a jumbled, incoherent mess. Processing them through journaling lets me see what I’m thinking and helps me develop my ideas. My “Thinking Journals” are plain spiral notebooks that I write in with a black Parker Jotter pen. Their simplicity frees me to be open and imperfect.

What do I write about in my Thinking Journals?

• I record key pieces of information from research that I want to remember. I ponder and analyze them. I consider why they are important and how they frame other pieces of information.

• I ask questions and try to answer them. What do I not yet understand? Where am I confused? What else do I need to learn about?

• I create lists, concept maps, comparison charts, timelines, and other graphics to organize information and help me see patterns.

• I identify themes that I see emerging from the research. At some point I decide which theme will be the center of the book.

• I express problems, frustrations, and disappointments and talk myself through ways to solve them. I also take note of progress, insights, and encouraging experiences.

• I brainstorm different ways of approaching and structuring parts of the book. What are the pros and cons of each? What best fits what I want the book to be?

• I’ll freewrite several different opening sentences for a chapter or section. Which sentence best leads into the material? Which one is most interest-grabbing? Which one invites me to keep writing?

• I consider the audience. What will readers want to know? What background information do they need to understand the book? What do I want them to gain from reading the book?

• I’ll try whatever helps! I’m no artist, but once I made a sketch with stick figures that turned into the conclusion for my first book. For my upcoming book, I wrote out a song for one of the characters.

Like an incubator, a Thinking Journal is where I develop a book. It gives me space to explore and process ideas without feeling pressure to make them presentable to anyone but me. By the time it comes to write, I’m well prepared to turn my thoughts into words for readers.

What are your experiences with journaling? How have you found it useful in your writing?

Meet the Author:

Christine Liu-Perkins is a founding member of the Nonfiction Ninjas. She is the author of AT HOME IN HER TOMB: Lady Dai and the Ancient Chinese Treasures of Mawangdui, which received starred reviews and appeared on multiple “best books of the year” lists. She has also written articles for Dig Into History and Highlights. For her upcoming book, THE QUEST FOR A TANGRAM DRAGON (Bloomsbury, August 2024), she created numerous tangram configurations that she traced into a Thinking Journal while travelling overseas.  Learn more at www.christineliuperkins.com .   

Coming this fall from Bloomsbury 

Words by Christine Liu-Perkins and illustrations by Lynn Scurfield  

What's the Question?

 By Christine Liu-Perkins

My favorite book on writing nonfiction is Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great

Serious Nonfiction—and Get It Published by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. One key concept they discuss in Chapter 2 is the importance of having a question that drives the book: "Every work of serious nonfiction begins with a question the author has about the topic and ends with an answer the author wants to provide." (p. 77) That question determines how interested editors and readers will be in the book.
 
I find that asking an overall question also focuses my writing. Knowing what question I'm trying to answer helps me decide how to structure the book and helps in making those many decisions about what to keep and what to leave out. For At Home in Her Tomb, my question was, What do the tombs and their artifacts tell us about life in ancient China?
 
Sometimes authors reveal in interviews, Author's Notes, or blogposts what question(s) inspired them to create their books. Here are a few examples:
 

• In Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented the Wild West, Candace Fleming explored: "Who was Buffalo Bill? Was he a hero or was he a charlatan? Was he an honest man or a liar? Was he a real frontiersman or was he a showman?"

 

• In working on Feathers: Not Just for Flying Melissa Stewart wondered, "How else do birds use their feathers in unexpected ways?"

 

• In her Author's Note for The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus, Jen Bryant said she wanted to know, "Who was this man Roget? . . . And what compelled him to undertake this immensely difficult task?"

 

• "Every day, creatures lose their lives on our highways. What, I wondered, can we learn from them?" This question led Heather Montgomery to write Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill.

 

• At the end of her prologue for Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend, Karen Blumenthal wrote of the two outlaws, "They are romanticized, celebrated, and remembered as the stuff of legend. But why?"

 
To identify the question driving your own project, Rabiner and Fortunato recommend recalling what originally captured your interest in the subject "and why you find it compelling enough to write a book to answer it . . ." (p. 78).
 
What's the question driving your work-in-progress? Defining that question will help you research, write, and market your book.
 
Happy questioning!

Who's There?

 by Christine Liu-Perkins

​
​Powerful nonfiction draws readers in by exploring some aspect of being human. As Susan

Rabiner & Alfred Fortunato wrote, ". . . you find your narrative by humanizing your story" (Thinking Like Your Editor, p. 192).
 
Even in writing about science and nature, "Create a connection between your subject and your reader's life," advised Margery Facklam and Peggy Thomas (Anatomy of Nonfiction, p. 155).
 
I learned the value of building on a human connection when I was assigned to write about the Temple of Heaven located in Beijing. My first draft described the temple's architecture and its (very cool) hidden symbolism. I used lively language and a sense of progression. I included wow-type details. Surely readers would find the temple as awesome as I did.
 
But in reading it over, I sensed that draft still lacked something. It was dry; it was boring. What was missing?  
 
I pulled back and started wondering, WHO used the temple? What did they use it for?
 
I dug deeper into the research. The answer was emperors. Considered to be mediators between heaven and earth, the emperors themselves performed ceremonies at the Temple of Heaven. These ceremonies involved three days of fasting and mental preparation, a parade of some 3,500 people, and elaborate sequences of offerings and prayers.
 
Eureka! Here was the focus I needed to help readers connect to the temple. Describing the emperor's actions and his desire for heaven's blessings brought the article to life and gave readers a way to feel the significance of the temple.
 
Question for you: in your current project, can you amplify a human connection to deepen the reader's experience?

Christin Liu-Perkins writes both nonfiction and fiction. You can learn more about her work at https://christineliuperkins.com/

 

TABLES OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

By Christine Liu-Perkins

I love research--diving in, searching wide and deep, digging up as much treasure as I can find.

But then comes the puzzle of how to shape all that wonderful material into a proposal, book, or article. How do I arrange my notes to facilitate my writing?

While I’m learning about a subject and thinking about what to write, I formulate key questions to focus on. Besides an overall question for the book or article, I develop specific questions for each section or chapter.

These questions arise from what the research says about the topic — what the major issues are, what discoveries have been made, and what puzzles remain to be solved. I also consider what questions readers will be asking and what information they need to understand the topic.

I use these key questions to organize my notes into tables. On the left side, I list the questions. Across the top, I list each source. Then I fill in the cells with what each source says in relation to each question. The cells expand vertically to fit many lines, and my tables become multiple pages long. Usually, I orient the page horizontally. Here’s a sample, without the cells filled in:

Alternatively, if I have more sources than questions, I put sources on the left side and questions across the top.

Besides preparing me to write my first draft, I also find such tables helpful for other purposes. They enable me to:

• Assess if there is enough information to answer a question. Do I need to consult more sources? Ferret out more details?

• Compare and contrast what different sources say. Where do they agree or disagree? How do I make sense of a discrepancy?

• Discover new, unexpected ideas and insights. Combining my notes in this way helps me see connections across sources I didn’t see before.

• Keep track of where I found information for source notes and fact-checking (very important to include page numbers!). They’ve saved me countless times when I know I’ve seen some fact or statement somewhere, but I can’t remember where. They also help when an editor asks a question or requests elaboration.

Give It a Try: Which questions are driving your nonfiction work-in-progress? Create a table listing your questions and sources. Fill in the cells with your notes on what each source says in relation to each question. As you review your table, what do you notice?

Meet the Author: 

Happily, all of Christine’s publications involve lots of research. Her nonfiction book, AT HOME IN HER TOMB: LADY DAI AND THE ANCIENT CHINESE TREASURES OF MAWANGDUI, received starred reviews and appeared on multiple “best books of the year” lists. She has also written articles for Dig Into History and Highlights — about a king buried in a suit of jade armor, the life of an orchestra conductor, visiting her ancestors' graves, and various Chinese history topics. Her forthcoming book, THE QUEST FOR A TANGRAM DRAGON, is scheduled for Spring 2024.