Story structure: A writing tool used by JohnMcPhee

By Mackenzie Ryan Walters

I stumbled upon a master of writing recently, and I'm kicking myself for only now discovering this four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who finally won in 1999 for his stories on rocks.  

Yes, rocks. John McPhee is best known for his writing on geography and, more broadly, wilderness. His books are proof that any topic can be interesting if you take the right approach.  

What McPhee mastered is story structure. When properly structured, a book conveys a sense of purpose and forward movement. It invites readers into a logical and progressive journey that invites them to turn the page. 

The book-writing process has many steps. Structure, by far, is my favorite. There's a sense of discovery when you sit down to structure your book. A sense possibility.  

You’ve gathered your material, you have a sense of what you want to include, but as McPhee details in his book, Draft No. 4, getting that first draft on the page is never as easy as it looks. 

Structure your book  

As a newspaper reporter who excelled at explanatory, long-form journalism, I want to know where I’m going before I sit down to write. Like McPhee, I need a sense of the topography before carving a trail.  

If you don't have the "lay of the land," as I called it as a reporter, all you have is a blank page. A sense that there’s a trail you want to carve, but no information or direction on how to proceed to accomplish your goals. The possibilities, or lack thereof, become oppressive.  

"Developing a structure is seldom that simple," McPhee writes in Draft No. 4. "Almost always there is considerable tension between chronology and theme."  

Chronology is a great place to start. Except, as McPhee explains, when it’s not. If only writing were as straightforward as a math equation! 

Take the first section of his book, Coming into the Country, which I read next. McPhee starts in the middle of an Alaskan trip and jumps quickly into a heart-pounding encounter with a bear. 

This opening scene adds stakes – personal, life-and-death stakes. The kind that kick off blockbuster movies. Except McPhee's writing a nonfiction book on the 1970s debate on whether to create national lands in Alaska, not a John Grisham book. 

If only it were that simple! A more nuanced look reveals how his beginning reflects, in an asymmetrical way, his ending. And how this book’s structure is a representation of the subject itself.  

“Meteorological cycles, biological cycles. Pendular swings in the populations of salmon, sheefish, caribou, lynx, snowshoe hare. Cycles unaffected by people. The wilderness operating in its own way,” he explains in Draft No. 4.  

“Seasonal cycles, annual cycles, cycles of five, ten, fifty, a hundred years. Cycles of the present and the past. This would obviously be an essential theme for a piece of writing about such terrain.” 

Writer’s block and getting unstuck  

How do you structure a book, then, if there are rules that don’t always apply, and themes that seem to dictate their own spherical approach?  

In the summer of 1966, McPhee lay on a picnic table and looked up at an ash tree that towered over his back door.  

He was stuck, he confessed. Hopelessly and unequivocally stuck.   

"I had no idea what to do with it," he explained. "If I was blocked by fear, I was also stymied by inexperience."  

McPhee went back to that picnic table, day after day, breaking for lunch and supper, for nearly two weeks. Hour after hour he fought "fear and panic, because I had no idea where or how to begin."  

Then it arrived. A memory that promised a solution. McPhee recalled his high school English teacher, Mrs. McKee, and her insistence that students hand in an outline with every piece of their writing.  

Take your English teacher's advice 

It didn't matter what type of outline, McPhee recalled. Roman numerals, scrawling doodles, whatever. That wasn’t the point. The process — the intentional step of creating the structure — was the critical piece. 

"The idea was to build some form of blueprint before working it out in sentences and paragraphs," he wrote. 

If McPhee's teacher was OK with "a looping doodle with guiding arrows and stick figures," that's good enough for me. And for you.  

When I work with aspiring authors on their "chunky outline" in our private book workshops, laying out your book can feel intimidating. After a client sees it, fully, on the table, however, there’s a sense of relief. Their hodgepodge of ideas and stories and lessons came together, seamlessly, like a puzzle. 

Creating your book’s structure through an outline does two things. First, it gives you a "lay of the land," as I used to say as a journalist, to see what material you must work with. Second, it gives you a direction: a place to start and a place to end.  

Say you found yourself in the Alaska wilderness, and say you needed to carve a path through the woods. Hopefully you wouldn’t bushwack your way up a cliff. You’d find a route with a more doable incline.  

If you didn’t survey the land before you went, you might miss the waterfall tucked against the river or an overlook from the top of that cliff you switchbacked. Hopefully you mapped out the route before you started, ensuring your trail would incorporate these spots along the way. 

Similarly, if you'd discovered a waterfall or an overlook as you surveyed the land, you'd carve the path toward them, incorporating these spots on the journey. 

You're not just building a path for you; you're building it for all the hikers who will start down this trail. Hopefully they continue, instead of turning back, and find the exertion worth it. Ideally, they tell their friends about this path you carved. They saw the most magnificent view.  

If you want to write a book but don't know where to start — or if you're midway through the first draft and feeling stuck — reach out. You may benefit from a private book workshop and collaborating on your book outline and structure.   

Don't just take my word for it. Take McPhee’s.  

Mackenzie Walters is the owner of StoryStruck Marketing, the author of “Faith Storytellers: Unleash the Power of Your Story,” and a national award-winning journalist. Mackenzie now offers book writing services for business leaders who want to grow their business by becoming an author and thought leader. Learn more about our private book workshop and our ghostwriting services.