Sure this can get pretty complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. While no chapter within a novel is an island, it can work as a short story where you have a decided beginning, middle, and end. One popular way to approach chapters is to consider each as its own short story. Pull the reader in and make them care about what’s happening as soon as possible. You don’t want to bore the reader with your endless, even if beautiful, descriptions of the scenery. Remember that you want to get the reader involved with your characters as soon as possible, otherwise they’ll lose interest and put down your book. Of course, main character activity is always preferable. Philosophy makes the reader sit back and ponder the deeper meaning, and there’s certainly a place for that, but it’s not at the beginning of your chapter.īy action, I don’t mean high adrenaline, heart-pumping action, I mean activity- even if that activity is simply a butterfly flittering into your scene. Action engages and immediately pulls the reader into what’s happening. I’m a big fan of starting with action and not philosophy. Use your writer’s discretion when coming up with a title for your chapters and, if you don’t feel good about the titles you’ve chosen, simply use numbers instead. While titles may be natural for some novels, it can be jarring or disruptive for others. Titles can help to distinguish and provide a small glimpse into the purchase of each chapter. Titles define and differentiate one chapter from the next.Titles can serve as useful reference points. Some readers like to refer back to an incident that happened earlier in the novel. Titles provide easy reference points for the reader.Your title can motivate the reader to continue pushing through the novel to see what will happen next. Titles provide hints of what to expect within the chapter.There are three major benefits to titling your chapters. But you may be wondering, What are the benefits of titling chapters? If you wanted, you could simply use numbers to denote different chapters. Titling your chapters is a personal preference and not mandatory. In chapter 4, we’ll flash back to the protagonist’s childhood. In chapter 3, we’ll set off on a journey. In chapter 2, we’ll meet the protagonist’s love interest. In chapter 1, we’ll be introduced to the protagonist. This allows you to assign each chapter a purpose. I recommend sectioning your novel into chapters after writing the first draft. Once you know the basic story, the characters, and the main plot points, you can organize the story into sections that complement the reader’s journey. It’s during the editing phase when you’re most effective at correcting flow, pacing, and logic. Instead, wait until you’re in the editing phase to think about the structure of your story. If you lock your narrative into chapters too early in the writing process, you’ll suffocate your creativity. Chances are high that whatever you write in your first draft will get mixed up, divided, and added to other sections, if not tossed altogether. When penning your first draft, don’t worry about sectioning your story into chapters. It’s possible to spend so much of your time plotting and planning that you never actually end up writing anything. While I’m a big fan of outlines and planning, I’m also a fan of getting it written and out of your head. Your first draft is no place to think about chapter structure. The intentional absence of chapters feeds into the overall bleakness and never-ending grind of the story. An excellent example of this is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. You may find that leaving chapters out of your novel actually adds to the mood. Many readers use chapter breaks as an opportunity to break away and do something else. No matter how spellbinding it is, it’s pretty rare for the average reader to consume it all in one sitting. You’re asking the reader to stay with you through a 200+ page novel. Each milestone means that the reader is one step closer to the story’s conclusion, and that can be both satisfying and motivating.Ĭhapters are also practical. Think of chapters as mini milestones posted throughout your story. Chapter breaks allow the reader to digest everything that’s happened within that section. Chapters give your reader a mental respite. Let’s start with the last question first. Chapters are one of those structural elements that you probably don’t think about much until you’re tasked with dividing your own book into sections.
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