How to arrange your points to win over your readers

You know what it’s like.

You have a whole bunch of things to say in your business book chapter, but arranging your points in the right order seems inexplicably difficult.

What should go first, second, third, and so on? How do you decide? No matter what you try, you keep thinking there must be a better way to do it.

The fact is that order of your points makes a crucial difference to your readers. So many business books and self help guides fail to hit the mark, not because their authors aren’t knowledgeable but because the topics within them don’t take people on the right journey.

If you’re writing a book you’re in the business of influencing your readers to think or behave in a certain way. That means your writing needs to have these two qualities: clarity and persuasiveness.

I’ll take you through how to put both those qualities into practice in the way you arrange your topics.

Arrange your chapter points clearly

You know your subject inside out, but your readers need leading by the hand.

First, jot down the main objective of your chapter. What’s it for? Why do people need to read it? What’s the point of it?

Next, create a list of subsidiary points that serve the purpose of your objective. They should expand upon the topic but don’t need to be in any particular order just yet.

Now ask yourself: ‘Given this important thing I want people to know, what’s the first element they should understand? And the second? And the third?’ And so on.

You can walk this out on the floor if you want. Write each point on a separate sheet of paper and lay it down, stopping in front of each one. Or put them on post-it notes and re-arrange them on the wall. You should end up with a coherent sequence of elements that have an intrinsic link from one to the other.

Just as importantly, you should ask yourself if you’re starting in the right place. In Your Business Your Book I put it like this:

‘Picture your readers ambling along a familiar country path. The scenery is well known to them, and each twist and turn leads to a spot they’ve visited before. But when they walk around a corner they find themselves standing before a wide open vista. The knowledge they’ve used to reach this point won’t help them now, so now it’s up to you to make your entrance and give them the direction they need.’

At what point are you joining your readers on their journey? It might not be where you think, because your role as a clear writer is to imagine where they’re at right now and take them from there.

For instance, if your readers are wanting to learn about business strategy, do they know the fundamentals? If not, you’ll need to begin with the basics. To decide this, it’s essential to know who you’re writing for.

Now you have a logical order for your points you can stand back and see the overview.

Imagine you’re in a helicopter hovering over them. Do they follow closely from one to another, like stepping stones across a river, or would a reader find themselves plunging into cold water part way through? Take some time to make sure that everything makes sense.

Arrange your chapter points persuasively

Being clear is the first vital step, but it’s not enough on its own if you want to influence and persuade.

To do that, you have to consider what order to present your information in so that the conclusion you want your readers to reach seems as if it’s the only obvious one.

This requires two things:

• for you to be clear about your own business objectives for writing your book, and
• to have an emotional connection with your readers.

Suppose you’re a lawyer writing a chapter explaining data protection law, and your business objective is to showcase your expertise so you build authority in this space. You also know that your business readers feel fearful and confused about this area, and are worried about making a mistake that could cause them to be fined.

You might want to start by outlining the legal pitfalls they need to know about – this gives people an incentive to read on.

You could then present your points in a logical way so your readers gain a clear picture of what they need to know, with lots of helpful and actionable advice.

And you could finish by explaining how specialist lawyers help business owners to avoid falling foul of the law. You could even give a case study of where this has worked for a specific entrepreneur.

If you’d started by emphasising the role of lawyers you might have come across as too self-promotional (ugh). But given that you’ve spent the bulk of the chapter detailing the difficulties and their solutions, your point about the importance of legal expertise comes across as natural and logical.

Now you know the importance of clarity and persuasiveness in arranging the points in your book chapters, there’s an added bonus.

It’s that you should also find it much easier to get your words down. It’s amazing what a solid structure can do for your writing productivity and creativity, never mind the quality of the end result.

You have everything you need now to draft a chapter that wows and wins over your readers, giving them – and you – the results you’re all after.

This post originally appeared on Ginny Carter's blog.