When should a chapter end?

The only real rule is a chapter ends when it ends. Each section and chapter should be serving a purpose - reveal character information, plot advancement, build suspense, unveil mysteries, etc.

Once done, that chapter should end. The action or dialogue can continue on, the characters will do something else, but if it's not relevant to the story, then it should not be included. Chapter breaks are how you get characters from one intersting bit to the next, without giving an full recounting of what they did and said.

I have no idea how useful that information can be, but that's how I see it. HTH even a little.

And it's always a good idea to go out on a high note.

Pretty much agree with Matt.

I tend to think of a chapter as a short story. Just like the entire novel has a beginning, a middle, and an end, so do chapters.

I may end a chapter with the characters caught in a problimatic situation, or resolve an issue from a previous chapter, or that current chapter.

Let the beginning of your chapter guide you. Chapter one.

John and Sally went to the store--- beginning.

They walked in and looked at the candy, chose want they wanted, and went to the cashier to pay.---- Middle.

John reached in his pocket and found that he had forgotten his money, and that Sally had eaten half of the candy bar he had promised to pay for. The cashier glared at him. ----- End of chapter.

New chapter.

Then resolve this the issue with John and Sally later.

MHO FWIW.

Ken

A logical place for the readers to take a breather and go to the bathroom or get a sip of drink -- with a hook so that they can't wait to come back and flip the page.

Hi dante.

I had the same problem when I started my novel. In fact, I even wondered when a paragraph should end. There's not much advice out there about these things. I suspect it might simply be an arbitrary decision based on the writer's artistic sense.

Good luck.

There is no real rule of thumb, except maybe that a chapter usually shouldn't end in the middle of a scene that continues uninterrupted in the next chapter.

I tend to let my chapter breaks coincide with:
- A jump in time, it is now three days later than in the last chapter and our heroes have reached another inn.
- A change in place, we just saw group of characters A reach an inn, now we see group B struggling to get across the high pass.
- A change of POV. We're no longer experiencing things through X's eyes, we're now looking through Y's, even though there is no change in time or place.

I'm not saying you should go to a new chapter with every change of this type, but they are natural breaks in the story. That makes it easier to put a chapter break there, and maybe even easier for the reader to pick up on the change.

Actually, I understand what underlying question you're asking dante-x. Having come from a very technical, academic style of writing myself, you're encountering a method of idea presentation that's fundamentally different from what you've learned and applied for years. Let me give you a few tips to help smooth over the barrier:

1. In writing academic non-fiction, chapters are divided into logical groupings of similar material. So, all of the information about, for example, the sinking of the Ironclad in the Civil War would appear in Chapter 1. All of the information about the sinking of the Titanic would appear in Chapter 2, and so on. If cross-references need to be made about similar elements like construction or weather patterns, etc., it's through a footnote or an index in the back.

Now, in FICTION writing, the chapters are also divided logically, but you have to see the logic to understand it. Rather than grouping all of the information about one event into one section that could be easily removed and photocopied for a report, your goal to to force the reader to turn the next page because they don't have enough information to write the report. The GOAL is for the reader to NEVER be able to put down the book until its conclusion. So, using the same formula as above, you have to thread hints and bits of information about the sinking of the Titanic and make the reader WONDER how it relates to the ironclad mentioned earlier.

2. The ending of each chapter should be similar to a "lights down" in a stage play. Whether you need to change the scenery without the audience noticing (moving to a different location), switch costumes (moving to a different time) or to grab the emotions of the audience with a lingering, terrified look or a longing glance (dramatic effect). I don't agree that stopping in the middle a scene is bad. I do it all the time for the sole purpose of (once again) forcing the reader to turn the page. It's a dramatic effect.

3. A good work of fiction is just like WRITING a non-fiction book. But it isn't LIKE a non-fiction book. When you're writing an academic piece, you're gathering information from multiple sources. A book here---an interview there. It comes in bits and pieces, and once the information is gathered, you write the book. But fiction is all about the GATHERING, and not about the book. The reader wants to watch you find the book, eavesdrop on your interview, etc. Finding the book and reading it is a chapter, and the interview is a chapter. The information gathered from these sources is NOT a chapter.

Does this make sense at all?

maestrowork said:

A logical place for the readers to take a breather and go to the bathroom or get a sip of drink -- with a hook so that they can't wait to come back and flip the page.

Click to expand...

My books will be read on toilets all around the country, Mr Fancy Man 'my readers are fully dressed and sitting in their front rooms' Wong!

Actually, someone just told me that they would be reading my book only in the "throne room" (and it's a compliment, believe it!). So I should be flattered!

Cathy... very insightful post!


I just want to elaborate on the difference between audiences with fiction and non fiction, if I might. Dante, with non-fiction, you are always writing to a captive audience. For instance, I will never ever read a book about the mating habits of ducks, until the day that I get a duck and want to mate it. Then, suddenly, I am dying to know everything there is to know about that subject.

You, as the expert on duck husbandry, know this going into the project, and focus your effort on presenting your theories accordingly. All you have to do to keep me reading is show that your logic is sound, and perhaps have a good talent for translating things into laymans terms with a bit of charm.

In non-fiction, it's the opposite. The audience is not captive. It's your job to captivate them and get them to care about this story that they never asked to be told, or imagined they'd read. So every chapter has to answer certain questions even as it raises more... and there is a whole toolbox of dramatic and suspenseful devices to hold the reader's interest.

Cathy is very right, it is more like the journey you take to arrive at your final conclusions than it is the careful presentation of those conclusions. Each chapter represents another peice of a puzzle that is being put together, so the breaks happen along those lines.