Pacing For Non-Fiction

Non fiction authors often face a challenge in needing to get a lot of information to the reader so the rest of the book makes sense. It’s a difficult balance, similar to pacing exposition for fiction authors.

This was a problem facing Michael Lewis as he began writing Moneyball – how to make a book about baseball statistics interesting and not overload the reader with facts.

Where most sports books would look at the Oakland A’s and the season as the focus, Lewis used the season to look at other factors. That season was one story in the book. The other was manager Billy Beane’s own path from prospect to player to manager. At the core of the book is the need for a new look at how to value baseball players.

Each chapter in Moneyball contains this concept.

Lewis structures the book in a way that each chapter starts with a situation and asks why. The why is the conflict that draws us into the book. Then the chapter turns to the statistics – or sabermetrics – for that answer.

This allows Lewis to do two things: the first is to show different aspects of the question, why is baseball deeply misunderstood? These are: why was Beane valued so highly as a player? why did Beane crash out? why did the A’s over perform the previous year? why are their stars leaving? why are they filling their roster with players no one else wants? why do they sign a catcher who can’t feel his arm? why are players playing out of position?

The second thing that this approach allows Lewis to do is introduce the idea of sabermetrics slowly before bringing it in heavy in Chapter Four. Each chapter builds on the previous to add a new perspective – one that’s deeply personal when it comes to the chapters on individual players. After this, the understanding we have of this rather technical statistical approach allows us to follow what’s happening in the book with an opportunity to explain sabermetrics further.

To cover a difficult topic in a way that’s as engaging as Moneyball, there must be a question that pulls us into the book. The chapters, or sequences, must develop from each other. Plunging head first into sabermetrics would have left most readers striking out part way through the first chapter. Instead, Lewis finds a way to open with the narrative to hook us, then deliver the ideas through the question that draws us deeper into the book. And at no point does the reader feel overwhelmed by the theory he’s trying to explain. Lewis is a master of this. He also wrote The Blind Side and The Big Short, both which were adapted to film.