Structure

Gary Paulsen divides his book Guts into seven chapters, including a Foreword. The Foreword serves as a kind of introduction as to why Paulsen has written the book, in the attempt to answer a deluge of questions from readers about his own true-life experiences upon which he based the Brian novels. The following five chapters, Chapters 1 – 5, deal with the core of the purpose, in which Paulsen answers the questions by speaking candidly, graphically, and in detail about his life experiences.

Each chapter weaves back and forth to different points in Paulsen’s past as he recounts relevant information relating to the subject of the chapter. Each chapter is also organized around a specific set of circumstances. For example, Chapter 2 deals with moose attacks. The final chapter of the novel, Chapter 6, is much less a part of the narrative than it is a basic how-to guide for primitive...