Anyone Have Trouble with Chapter Breaks?

Storyteller5 · Feb 10, 2007

The title pretty much sums it up. I'd love to hear how you know where to put the chapter breaks and how you deal with chapter length? I know my story dictates the breaks but sometimes the chapters aren't the same length. One will be half the length of another. I know I should just worry about writing well and the story but I'm curious to hear some thoughts on this. :Shrug:

C.bronco · Feb 10, 2007

Most of mine fall around ten pages, but I have one that's five and one that's 22. I break before the next big development. I hadn't put much thought into how long each chapter would be, but it just worked that way.

The_Grand_Duchess · Feb 10, 2007

I try not to make chapters too long or too short. I also try to leave them at good stopping points. Imagine I'm the reader and this is a point I can stand to stop and pee.

CheshireCat · Feb 10, 2007

I aim for around twenty pages per chapter, and after so many years pacing out a story has become almost instinct. I usually think just far enough ahead that I realize where a chapter will end two or three pages before I get there.

If you can avoid looking too deliberate and writerly about it, ending a chapter on a question, a realization by a character, or a cliffhanger moment of suspense is good.

The goal, after all, is to keep the reader interested enough to turn the page and begin reading the next chapter.

Judg · Feb 10, 2007

CheshireCat said:
The goal, after all, is to keep the reader interested enough to turn the page and begin reading the next chapter.

Writers like you are why I suffer from sleep deprivation. :rant:

Le Pen · Feb 10, 2007

I'd break the ch in the natural pt, where the story turns into a significant change, enough so that it dictates a... well, new ch. The story should tell you clear and loud what this pt is.
To break it deliberately at a suspense pt, seems to me to be a bit unnatural, forced, and this is to be avoided, definitely.

CheshireCat · Feb 10, 2007

Judg said:
Writers like you are why I suffer from sleep deprivation.

I well remember huddling in my bed, covers pulled up so far they nearly blocked out the light from the lamp on my nightstand as I read The Silence of the Lambs.

All night long. I wanted to grow up to be Thomas Harris.

And there were times while reading that when I wanted my mommy.

I didn't grow up to be Thomas Harris, but I have been told I've caused more than a few sleepless nights, which is good enough for me.

Sorry, Judg.

Willowmound · Feb 10, 2007

Storyteller5 said:
... where to put the chapter breaks and how you deal with chapter length?

You'll get a million answers to that question. Here's mine:

A chapter should be one whole. It should follow a curve somewhat like a short story -- tension building toward a climax, climax approx. four fifths toward the end. The remaining fifth is resolution.

Unlike a short story, the resolution must never be complete. You end on a cliffhanger. This can take a number of forms.

That said, I never follow this pattern consciously. I know, though, that I do it subconsciously. To me, this is the only sensible way to decide chapters. Anything else seems random. If you base chapters just on length, you are basing your breaks on something extraneous to the story.

IrishScribbler · Feb 10, 2007

As I'm writing, I do scene breaks (denoted by a row of * for myself). Once I have the first draft done, I'll go back and put chapter breaks in.

Chumplet · Feb 10, 2007

This is just my opinion - you want the reader to continue reading, so a resolution at the end of a chapter is probably not a good idea. You don't want to give the reader an excuse to put the book down. You can always put your mini-resolution early in the next chapter.

You can always go back into the ms when you're finished and move the chapter breaks around.

scarletpeaches · Feb 11, 2007

I wait until the manuscript's finished and then put in the chapter breaks.

Cassiopeia · Feb 11, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
I wait until the manuscript's finished and then put in the chapter breaks.

I think that just might be a brilliant idea! I actually started out with chapters and now I just put a bullet where I think the chapter might end.

Enzo · Feb 11, 2007

I write thrillers so I end my chapters on cliffhangers. I try to stir up my potential readers' curiosity and try to make them read on.

Read your own chapter endings and see if you would really want to continue reading the story, or if you could just put it down and go do something else.

I wouldn't worry too much about the length of chapters. I tend to start a new chapter when I change location, or jump to another character.

Linda Adams · Feb 11, 2007

For me, each chapter has essentially two goals: The first is something story-related that needs to happen in the chapter. The second is that something needs to happen near the end--a new complication, escalation of the stakes, exciting danger (it's a thriller)--that both offers a small resolution and another thread pulling the reader along to keep them reading. Every now and then, we'll end up with a chapter that just simply stops, and we have to work on other elements in the chapter to make the ending do more than simply end. We always try to give some information to the reader while posing new questions.

All this tends to break the chapters in about the same place each time--we run between 10-12 pages. But we also have a two pager where it did everything we needed to do, and anything more would have simply padded it (though our writer's group looked at the length itself and thought we should simply remove the chapter. Clearly, they haven't read James Patterson or Carol Higgins Clark). We also have a 16-pager, and here, it's a big action chapter; breaking it up to make it shorter is possible, but would actully ruin the momentum of the scenes.

Pagey's_Girl · Feb 11, 2007

I just go by what feels like a natural place to break. I don't like leaving a chapter hanging on an absolute cliffhanger (like the old serials they used to show in theaters) but I try to leave the reader intrigued enough to read on.

Stephanie_Gunn · Feb 11, 2007

My chapters seem to naturally fall into the realm of 4-5000 words. I do have one MS where they're all over the place, but I suspect I'll be going back and working those to the same length.

Penguin Queen · Feb 11, 2007

I'm going to be totally unhelpful & say it depends. Ive just finished a mystery novel that doesnt have chapters -- it's got four main 'sections' of varying lengths, & breaks denoted by three asterisks * * * at the end of each day. Some days are half a page, others run for fifteen.
That seems to work OK. I hadnt planned it like this at all, in fact I started it off with chapters but it didnt work.

On the other hand, with the non-fiction travelogue I'm working on at the moment, I'm trying to have chapters of roughly even length, around 1500 - 2000 words, but that isnt always working.

I think it's best, if you have chapters, to have them of roughlybut not unbendingly similar length; & most importantly, as someone else has already said, make each chapter a kinda organic unit of its own, with a natural finishing point. Or cliffhanger, of course.

Having said that, sometimes if you can't find the natural 'perforation line', it can work suprisingly well,simply to do it numerically: Put in a chapter break every 2000 or 3000 words or so and see how that goes.
´
Play with it & see how it goes, but dont get too hung up about it now.

scarletpeaches · Feb 11, 2007

Or you could do a Terry Pratchett and not have chapter breaks at all!

Hillgate · Feb 11, 2007

My chapter breaks tend to change once I'm editing, which is also the point when I realise that I need to cut, sometimes up to 10,000 words. This leaves me with different (faster) pacing and makes me move things around a little. As many people have commented, every story needs a beginning, a middle and an end, just not necessarily in that order. A long work of fiction needs well-chosen chapter breaks to give the reader the feeling s/he's come to a milestone - and not a millstone.

MadScientistMatt · Feb 11, 2007

IrishScribbler said:
As I'm writing, I do scene breaks (denoted by a row of * for myself). Once I have the first draft done, I'll go back and put chapter breaks in.

Me too. My first draft of my WIP has no chapters - I'm adding those to the second draft.

Cath · Feb 11, 2007

/somewhat off topic

scarletpeaches said:
Or you could do a Terry Pratchett and not have chapter breaks at all!

He's started doing them.

Going Postal, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith and I guess the Wee Free Men (although I don't have that to hand to check) all have chapters.

I'm glad, if I'm going to be honest. I found the non-chaptered books really frustrating to read if I didn't have time to get through them in a oner.

somewhat off topic/

Jamesaritchie · Feb 11, 2007

chapters

There are many ways to format a chapter, but ending them randomly is almost never a good idea. Like a paragraph, a chapter is a specific thing. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It serves pretty much the same function as a paragraph, in fact. It's a part of the whole, and it should lead naturally to the next part, but it is also a specific thing that serves a specific function, and that function is not simply to break halfway down the page.

Length isn't as important as content, and it's rare that all chapters are the same length.

KCathy · Feb 11, 2007

I waited until after my manuscript was finished to add the chapter breaks, counted out 20 pages, and then hunted for the nearest moment of suspense. I know it's mean for a reader who wants to go to bed, but being nice isn't a big priority for me. When was Stephen King ever nice to me? I keep contributing to his royalty checks in spite of his blatant disregard for my sleeping habits because "I couldn't put it down."

Kentuk · Feb 11, 2007

When my chapters break I cut and paste them back together.

Shadow_Ferret · Feb 11, 2007

I've never really thought about it. Chapter breaks come as naturally to me as making a paragraph. It basically comes down to what feels right to me.

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