Quick overview:
I'm a beginner writer planning to write a book on evolution and the history of life just for 'fun' really. I'd probably just self publish using Amazon. I don't really have the time to start writing yet but am reading/researching whenever I can.
I can see two difficulties in structuring the book. I would like to tell the life history story chronologically but chunks of the story would need to be told at a time to make it clear, and there would need to be a lot of backtracking. For example it might work to cover the 160 million years of dinosaur history in one section, but then I might have to backtrack 150 million years or more to tell the mammals story. It strikes me as a very complex structuring exercise. It wouldn't work to be strictly chronological since you'd be constantly jumping between different groups of organisms.
The other issue is concerning the fact that the book is two parts really - one is explaining evolutionary science and the other is telling the life story. I could just split it into two but I'd prefer not to do this. I'd prefer to tell the life story and bring in the science as a series is 'asides'. This strikes me as quite difficult and I wonder as a beginner if I'd be able to pull it off. It has been done in that way by a very skilled writer on the subject.
I'm not sure what I'm asking about the writing. I'm wondering just how difficult it might be, and any tips on how to deal with the problems? Some textbooks put asides in separate boxes but I'd like them integrated in the narrative ideally. I wonder if some kind of hybrid idea might work.
Re publishing, I'd like to see some examples of books self published using Amazon (to get an idea what they're like) but when I search on Amazon books are only ordered by best selling and I can't get to the end of the search where I imagine most would be. Is there a way to find self published stuff?
I'm a beginner writer planning to write a book on evolution and the history of life just for 'fun' really. I'd probably just self publish using Amazon. I don't really have the time to start writing yet but am reading/researching whenever I can.
I can see two difficulties in structuring the book. I would like to tell the life history story chronologically but chunks of the story would need to be told at a time to make it clear, and there would need to be a lot of backtracking. For example it might work to cover the 160 million years of dinosaur history in one section, but then I might have to backtrack 150 million years or more to tell the mammals story. It strikes me as a very complex structuring exercise. It wouldn't work to be strictly chronological since you'd be constantly jumping between different groups of organisms.
The other issue is concerning the fact that the book is two parts really - one is explaining evolutionary science and the other is telling the life story. I could just split it into two but I'd prefer not to do this. I'd prefer to tell the life story and bring in the science as a series is 'asides'. This strikes me as quite difficult and I wonder as a beginner if I'd be able to pull it off. It has been done in that way by a very skilled writer on the subject.
I'm not sure what I'm asking about the writing. I'm wondering just how difficult it might be, and any tips on how to deal with the problems? Some textbooks put asides in separate boxes but I'd like them integrated in the narrative ideally. I wonder if some kind of hybrid idea might work.
Re publishing, I'd like to see some examples of books self published using Amazon (to get an idea what they're like) but when I search on Amazon books are only ordered by best selling and I can't get to the end of the search where I imagine most would be. Is there a way to find self published stuff?