Authors rarely state the central idea in narrative nonfiction. how can a reader find the central idea when the author doesn’t state it explicitly? to find the central idea, you look for outside resources about the text and try to determine it through their analysis. to find the central idea, you look at the details in the text: what characters say and do, the events that occur, important challenges or conflicts represented, and the setting. then you think about how these details work together to build and convey a big idea or message to find the central idea, you look at the first paragraph of the story and make a guess. none of these.