Chapters vs. Scenes

Mackenzie said:

I know there are no hard and fast rules, but I often get hung up when I have a series of short scenes within a chapter. Should I keep them together in one chapter, I wonder, or break them up into separate chapters,

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It's a matter of style.

I'd like to put pov changes at chapter boundaries, but it's not necessary. If a scene is short, I have no problem bundling it together with another scene in a chapter. Likewise, I've take very long scenes and split them among as many as three chapters, each around 4000-5000 words.

Really it isn't something to stress about. Most books I read with POV breaks do them between scenes, and not necessarily at the chapter point. The only problem there is if the author starts doing so many POV breaks that the reader feels like he's following a ping-pong match instead of a story.

I would go more by the subject of the scenes and where the best cliffhangers are. It's okay to have a shorter or longer chapter if it fits the material. If, for instance, you reach half your normal chapter length but have a scene that ends on a nail-biting cliffhanger, then do the chapter break there. If you have a scene that just doesn't go with the other scenes - a major change in tone, or action, or a huge flashback - then go ahead and start a new chapter. If you feel some scenes really belong together, keep them together.

More action-packed genres tend to favor shorter chapters, but not always.

This won't make or break your book, I promise

Each chapter should feel like a building block of the story. It may contain one scene or several, one POV or more than one, grouped together thematically.

It's completely up to you - do whatever feels right.

A moment of high tension may suggest the next part of the scene open a fresh Chapter but it doesn't really matter.

A fresh location may suggest the next scene open a fresh Chapter but again it doesn't really matter.

Mackenzie said:

I know there are no hard and fast rules, but I often get hung up when I have a series of short scenes within a chapter. Should I keep them together in one chapter, I wonder, or break them up into separate chapters, especially when there's a POV change. I've seen other writers do all sorts of things. I'm interested in thoughts and observations from others who may wrestle with the same issue. I know chapters can be short, long, or in between. Just interested in other perspectives on this.

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I like to keep closely related scenes in the same chapter. For example, a scene with one character moving toward an event, a scene with another character moving independently toward that same event, and a third scene with the event.

If the 3 short scenes have no obvious relationship to one another, I'm more likely to separate them into different chapters.

Kenra

FWIW, M.C. Beaton seems (to me, anyway) to break a lot of the rules in that area (latest Agatha Raisin mystery is a good example), but still sells a lot of books. Lots of scene changes within chapters, popping from one character's view to another.

--Ken