Let’s say that you have gathered a lot of stories, photos, and assorted documents that you want to include in your book. Now it’s time to take the next step, to organize them. But how? Most people begin gathering their ideas with a linear timeline, and then it seems logical to group stories chronologically. Others organize stories around particular topics. You can change your organization to either method at this point, no matter how you gathered your materials.
First, do you really want or need chapters? You might simply pick out your favorite stories and illustrations and present them as a collection. Short story writers do that all the time. The stories in a book are presented as complete in themselves and the task of making any connections to be made among them is left to the reader. The stories are simply slices of life. It’s what James Joyce did in the Dubliners and John Steinbeck in books like Cannery Row and Tortilla Flats. It’s what many popular sit-coms do. Think about the show Seinfeld. The stories are presented as interesting in themselves, and that’s enough.
There are some situations in which a simple story collection might be the best option. For example, if you are working with an elderly relative you may simply want to collect their best stories without trying to weave them into a narrative. A family historian may find large gaps in the information she is able to locate about ancestors and simply choose to tell the stories she has been able to gather as slices of life that may at least give a sense of what the person was like. By just focusing on a vignette, you can often create an illuminating impression of a person or an idea.
However, in most cases your readers will get more out of your stories if they are organized into chapters. A chapter, especially one with a clear title, helps to focus you and your reader on what exactly the main idea is. There are no hard and fast rules about how to organize chapters. But generally, they fall into two broad categories: chronological or topical.
The majority of memoirs and family histories are chronologically organized. They rely on the deceptively simple technique of describing events in the order in which they occurred. You are better advised though, not to just ask yourself, “What happened next?” Trying to give equal time to all periods of your life is not so likely to produce a good book as asking, “What are the most important events?” The bulk of the book should be devoted to chapters about those important events. Don’t feel obliged to include boring “fillers” to fill gaps in the chronology.
Topical organization can take as many forms as there are topics. Generally, authors tend to organize their stories into chapters around topics like turning points, personal themes like family, friends, career, or hobbies, character traits, values or accomplishments. When organizing a book into topical chapters, you may find a story or two which don’t seem to fit. When that happens you need to decide whether these stories are so important that you want to find a new topic under which to place them, or to eliminate them for the sake of your book’s organization.
Decisions about which method of organization best fits your book can only be made after you have taken the time to gather the stories and photos you want to use. Your material will often dictate how best to organize it. Remember, it is your book, and you are free to include the stories that you think are best, most interesting, and most valuable. The quality of the stories you include will be the most important thing to the reader, whatever order you place them in.
