Shaping a Book with Maps
Or, why you sometimes don’t realize what your book is about until the very end
Some years back, a publisher in the design world whom I had long admired named Lou Rosenfeld reached out to me out of the blue. He had stumbled upon some pieces I’d written on the topic of privacy and UX and he wondered if I’d be interested in exploring a book on the topic. While I was flattered beyond belief, I was also a bit hesitant.
For one thing, I didn’t feel like privacy was a very good topic for design. I couldn’t imagine writing an entire book on, for example, how to design forms that don’t collect too much user data. (Besides, others had already produced fantastic guides on how to incorporate privacy into the design process that I didn’t feel I could, or want to improve upon.) For another thing, I felt like I’d explored the topic enough and reached the edges of my interest in it. And lastly, I had just started a new job as a product strategist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was a challenging position and I needed time to settle in and give it my attention.
But, I was being asked to write a book! I felt like a door had opened for me and I wanted to walk through it and see what was on the other side. Just one problem… what would I write about? I was at a loss.
I knew I wanted to explore the harms of digital technology; after all, that was my motivation for writing about privacy in the first place. But I wanted it to be more encompassing. I landed on the vague idea of policy because it felt like a durable way to address lots of different types of harms. Now, what did I want to say about policy? Another head scratcher.
Enter… sketching and maps.
I remember sitting in my work cafeteria sometime in early 2019 and handing Lou this diagram. It outlined the vague ideas I was interested in exploring, and those I wasn’t. For example, I knew I wanted to explore “where the rubber meets the road” on policy and design, and that I didn’t want to write a “how-to” book. Lou was intrigued and we kept the conversation going. Meanwhile, I started making calls and talking to people (which, as a former reporter, is basically the only thing I know how to do when it comes to writing).
Now, the idea of using maps to clarify squishy ideas is nothing new. “Mind maps” are typically credited to English author Tony Buzan who wrote about the process in the 1970s, and the idea of brainstorming originated in the 1950s. But, connecting ideas visually is much older, dating back as far as the 3rd century AD, when the Greek philosopher Porphyry of Tyros used the idea of a tree to represent concepts in a work by Aristotle. Because many human brains learn visually, the associations, shapes, colors and sizes in maps can clarify ideas in ways that text on a page can’t.
Back to my WIP book…A few months later, I handed Lou this. Not quite a map, but writing it on paper helped me flesh out my ideas a bit more. We were starting to get somewhere. I made more calls, developed my ideas. And eventually, sometime in 2020, I was able to make the leap to producing the chapter outline that Lou required to officially move forward.
I won’t delve too much into the depths of the writing process that I went through in part of 2020 and all of 2021. Let’s just say I’m not sure I could’ve written this book if not for COVID and my nonexistent life, as I was able to go to sleep at 9PM every night and wake up at 5AM to write before work started. Eventually, around the end of 2021, I was close to finishing up a 10-chapter book based on [checks Google Docs] a 214-page document of research and interviews.
Now, it was time to sharpen it up. I let colleagues, friends and experts read the book and asked for their feedback. Only, they felt a little lost. In my mind, each chapter led to the next in a perfectly logical fashion. But that wasn’t quite coming through to my readers. I knew what I needed yet again — a map.
I produced a rough diagram to explain what I wanted to do. And, luckily, Lou & co were very open to the idea of having a map in the book. They hooked me up with the inimitable illustrator MJ Broadbent to work with, an experience about which I can’t say enough. Basically, being a client for a super talented, thoughtful and professional person like MJ rocks and I wish I could do it all the time.
MJ gave me multiple map options to consider…
And after some more iterations, we finally landed on this.
It all hung together, and you could see that visually, at a glance. Having the map would not only help my readers make their way through the book. It also helped me see the arc of my book and truly grok what I had been wanting to say the entire time.
In journalism school, I got the chance to hear a talk from the incredible author Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. One thing she said has stuck with me all these years later.
“Once I’m done writing about something, I’m ready to write about it.”
What she meant is that she learns about her topic through the process of writing. During all my time reporting, I learned firsthand how true that is. But the many years-long, meandering journey I’ve been on writing this book drove the point home even more. Luckily, I had maps to help me all along.
If you’re interested in purchasing the book referenced in this article, you can do so here. Publication date Nov 15, 2022!
