Let's talk about chapters

When I wrote my first novel, one of the things that really confused me was "how on earth do I do chapters?" As in, not only how long should they be, but what should be the shape of them, is each one its own story, how much closure should each one have at the end, what kind of note (closure? cliffhanger?) should each one end on, etc. It was interesting learning that. Now I have definite opinions on those things & think it's important to pay attention to how it's done.

So I'm curious: how do *you* do chapters? And how did you learn?

I also think it's a bit of a neglected topic when people talk about writing. I just really haven't heard much about it. I got sent a manuscript last year for my feedback and it had no chapters, it was just continuous. That's fine for a rough draft, but when it becomes a finished draft it's going to need to be broken up some way, because of the human attention span. I think it can be easy to just not do chapters in a NaNoWriMo draft, but if that's the way you do it, breaking it up into chapters is going to be part of the revision process, now.

So another question: are you someone who hasn't done chapters yet, or is still trying to figure out how? Would you be interested in talking about what has helped others learn the process?

Well, as I write I don't put everything in the exact same document. I usually write chronologically because I'm a planner, so I name the document's "Draft 1" or "Draft 2" and so on. I usually stay in each draft until I've hit 5000 words or 10 pages unless the scene has fully developed, in which case I don't drag it out.

But sometimes writing chronologically gets really hard in the middle, so I write a more exciting scene that I know I'll need later, name it according to the events, then renumber all of my drafts once I've filled out the middle.

Doing it in pieces like that helps my attention span, along with the reader. :) I somehow just ended up with this quirky method through trial and error.

I'd be very interested in a discussion on this. I see it as different than the one in the writing 101 forum, as it's talking about the learning process, itself.

I used Scrivener (pause for endorsement!) on my Nano manuscript. It encourages breaking things into chapters, and scenes within chapters. I used the breakdowns to keep track of where I was in the manuscript, not actually thinking of real chapters. For example, part of my novel takes place in Ann Arbor, and I have a "chapter" called "Ann Arbor" in which I have scenes such as "Brian homeless" and "Carmichael search 1" This let me navigate through the novel as I was writing scenes out of order.

One of the things I need to do now in rewriting is to break the thing into real chapters, and I haven't the foggiest idea how to start that.

Cool. Glad you're interested.

Here's what my learning process was: I took a novel I really liked and that seemed like what I wanted to emulate in what I was writing (I didn't pick my favorite literary novel, in other words, but a popular one I thought was high-quality, because that was the kind of thing I was aiming for) and I studied its chapters.

I went chapter by chapter and I wrote down what types of major events happened in the chapter ("a mystery introduced, some backstory given for the MC, a major change in the MC's circumstances, probably good but uncertain"--that was Chapter 1) and then I wrote down what kind of note the chapter ended on. One thing I discovered was that there was a whole variety of these. Sometimes there's a little bit of tension, with, say, the character introduced into a new situation and you kind of have no idea how it'll work out for him and the chapter ends right there. Sometimes you have no tension at all; the character's just going to sleep. Sometimes you have a downer ending where a character feels like his situation is getting worse and more dangerous and he's worried. Sometimes you actually have the happy ending of one part of the plot and a sense of resolution. And then sometimes you have a huge disaster dropped on the characters, BOOM.

And that was kind of the first thing I learned: chapter endings should all be different. Not everyone does it like that--if you look at the Hunger Games series, Suzanne Collins ends just about every chapter on a cliffhanger--but I think she gets away with it because she's really good, and I've heard people complain about it anyhow. But in most of the really good books I've read (I notice this now), they mix it up so that you don't know what kind of ending to expect. Not a regular pattern--good, then bad, then good, then bad, but more like: good with a little tension, and then good with no tension, and then very bad with tons of tension, and then still bad but hopeful, and then just plain mysterious, and then from the frying pan into the fire, and then happy resolution, and then something even worse happens... you get the idea.

So that's where I started. And now I feel like this thing about chapter endings is very important. There's other stuff I learned but I don't want to dump it all at once. Anyway, the learning process part--taking apart a published book to see how it works--is something you could do. I guess it would be smart to pick something in your genre, though I didn't. I picked The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (fantasy) even though I was doing historical YA. I picked it because think it's awesome and because it did have a similarity with mine: plenty of tension but very little of it comes from action, most of it comes from confrontation and power-games between people.

I come up with the chapters early in the planning process. It helps me organize the idea. Using chapters gives me some structure, helps me plan my story, and gives me an outline to follow. I'm not one who can write by the seat of my pants. (Believe me; I tried, and it sucked.) So before I even start writing, I have an idea where the chapters will go. (Then I might change my outline by the time I've finished writing chapter one . . . typical.)

Chapters usually cover certain events or themes. In chapter one, I introduce the characters. In chapter two, the characters meet each other. It ends when a fight breaks out. Chapter three covers the first major fight scene . . . and so on. As I write fantasy adventure, my chapters have a tendency to end with cliffhangers.

Cliffhangers are good. I want the readers on the edge of their seats, unable to put it down, hungering for more at the end of each chapter. Lots of authors do this; it's a common technique.

Not every chapter ends with the main character in mortal peril. (Although, some do, especially in my current work in progress.) Some chapters end with a question unanswered. Others end with the promise that the story is about to take a new turn.

The genre might influence the chapter structure. My historical fiction books showed different episodes, with gaps in time between chapters. I didn't use a lot of cliffhangers, like I do in my fantasy adventure stories.

I don't make a conscious effort to think of how I define chapters. I just go by the general idea of how other book I read have them and where they seem to divide the chapters. I don't usually think in terms of how long I want my chapters to be. It just kind of falls into place. I just think, "this seems to be a good place to put the chapter break." It just seems natural to me.

I kind of see it a a good place for the reader to be able to stop reading at the end of their reading session. You want to reader to feel okay with putting the book down at that time, but you still want them to want to pick up the book later to continue reading. When I'm reading in bed at night, I'll check ahead to see where the next chapter or scene break is and decide whether I want to close the book where I am or start reading a bit more before I go to sleep.

For me, a chapter basically tells a complete scene or scenario that I want to get across at that time. The chapter may include only one scene or several scenes. It may cover a long period of time or a long time. If there is going to be a break of a long period of time in the story, there will be a chapter break there.

Most of my chapter breaks seem to be at the end of a day or major event, and then the next chapter starts at the next day or next major event.

In my readings I have seen chapters in a lot of different ways, and, in most cases, the way they are done fits in with the way the story is written.

I do break the story into chapters as I go, I just have trouble with the idea of one long continuous story. If a book I pick of doesn't have reasonable chapter breaks, I usually won't read it, And I like to see the breaks in manuscripts.

Chapter divisions is one of those things that is difficult to put a precise definition to. With a sentence, you can say come to the end of sentence and put a period. Chapter divisions are usually put where the author decides to pout them. I've read writing books where the writer says several guidelines for chapter divisions, but when you read the books they've written, they haven't gone by their own guidelines.

Basically, do what works for your story.

My two cents.

My "chaptering" has evolved over time, and i don't always do it the same way. For the last NaNo, I just wrote, and added a highlighted break wherever a natural ending seemed to be. I drop a row of asterisks between scenes, and when the scenes add up to anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 words, and also indicate that a major shift is coming up, that's a chapter. I don't follow any rules, except that I don't like chapters to be too short or too long. When I start the second draft, that's when I look harder at where the chapter breaks should be. Most of them stay the way they were originally, but I've been know to shift a few around when that made sense.

I used to get really paranoid because people were always talking about things that happened in their third chapter, fifth chapter, ninth chapter, whatever, and I had no idea what happened in my third/fifth/ninth chapter. I tend to just write until I hit about 1k words (short because it's middle grade). Once I do, I finish the scene I'm working on, wrap it up, and I have a chapter. I don't think of my books as happening in chapters; I mentally tend to lump two or three chapters together and think of that as "part one", "part two", etc.

My first two books had chapter divide where they felt right. After chapter 4 in this year's nano chapter divides no longer worked so I broke it down by reasonably lengthed "scenes" which were prefaced by a quote and the whole larger work divided into three parts.

I write in scenes. Depending on what I'm writing, I might reach a point where I go "Okay, these last four scenes would make a good chapter", and that's how a chapter is formed. Other times, I'll just keep writing in scenes, and then once I'm done with the entire story, I'll clump a few scenes together that make sense.

What I consider "making sense" varies; sometimes it's a matter of how much time passes during those scenes. Sometimes the group of scenes all revolve around the same theme or event. Sometimes I decide to have an individual scene per chapter, even though it makes lots of short chapters (that was for a fanfiction, though).

I've co-written a couple of fanfictions with friends, and both of my co-authors are the type to think in terms of chapters, so often we'll be working and there will be a list of scenes or events that they want to cover in a certain chapter. Sometimes things don't work out as planned, because we'll add a scene we hadn't thought of in the planning stages, or a scene will end up longer than we thought, or we'll write a scene, look at it and go "Yeah, that's an awesome place to end this chapter."

Cliffhangers should be used somewhat sparingly, I think. Once you hit the action sequence of your novel, then they're a great tool to keep the pace going and to keep your reader invested in the story.

I write in scenes as well. There are natural transition points in the scenes and good groupings that lend themselves into creating chapters. Sooo . . .

I plot out the flow of the manuscript. From there I can delineate scenes around major sections. As I write the scenes, I end up with groupings that work well together and could form chapters. After completing a grouping with natural transition points, I check the beginning and end of the chapter.

Here's the hard part for me. Both the first and last parts of the chapter must have "hooks". Without something to drag the reader into the chapter kicking and screaming, there's nothing to keep them reading. They need to think, "Oh, this is going to be good!" when they start the chapter and "I don't care if it's 3:30 AM, I have to read the next chapter to see what happened!" at the end of the chapter.

Chaptering was the biggest part of making an outline for my book! I followed it almost religiously. Once every idea got fit into a chapter outline, I wrote the first one, then tried to make the second chapter about the same length, then the third, and so on until I had my book finished and each chapter was 5000-7000 words long.

Definitely not a pantser here!

Wow. 5000-7000 words per chapter means just 10 chapters in a 70K word book.

I'd ask how long should a chapter be, but I already know the answer will be "whatever feels right to the writer."

I'm avidly watching this thread. The whole idea of breaking my novel into chapters has me terrified. Fear of the unknown, I'm sure. After all, at one time, writing a novel terrified me!