A client has me thinking about chapters.
Chapters can feel essayistic (coving a topic) or episodic (covering an event). Some writers care most about their length.
I consider their shape & how they make patterns & how the breaks influence a reader's experience.
They're kind of arbitrary like paragraphs--which is fun.
How do you think about chapters?
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I tend to think of them as little vignettes. In my current WIP, I'm doing POV chapters, switching from character to character, so each chapter is one character's perspective on whatever the chapter is about. Sometimes it's something completely new and sometimes it's another perspective on something that's already been covered. It just depends on where I need to get the story across. I also like to use them to pace the story. So if I write something particularly intense, I might follow it up with a different part of the story that's more relaxed to give the reader a breather. Sometimes they're a flashback and sometimes they're just introspection, and sometimes they're full-on exposition and storytelling. It just depends on what I need at that point in the writing.
So maybe a new chapter is occasioned by a shift in storytelling style? I like this way of thinking. It reminds me of how I sometimes think about paragraphs as different angles.
yes, exactly! A chapter featuring Danny will have a different tone and cadence than a chapter featuring Vickie or another character.
I also do something I call "Sally Simpson chapters" which is a reference to the song Sally Simpson on the Who album Tommy, which is a narrative rock opera. In the album, the story perspective suddenly changes from Tommy's story to the story of a teenage girl who is a fan of the main character, and is on her way to one of Tommy's "sermons." It takes you out of the story while also giving you an outsider's perspective on the events of the story. So it moves the story forward but from a different angle.
I do this in my stories by focusing a few one-off chapters here and there focusing on the "victims" that run into the vampires and how they experience the story and characters without the broader context. I think it grounds the story in the world and gives a break from the main narrative while still adding to it.
So a chapter break is an unsettle point--it necessarily is--and sometimes you want that reset so you can do something very different in the next one.
So many people think of how to bridge chapters--to make a reader dive right back in--but sometimes you want them to the a minute to shake the last thing off before doing so.
yep! In this particular book that I'm writing now especially. It's a little chaotic, because my MC is pretty unwell psychologically, and her perception of time and reality is a bit broken.
I also use subchapters, which help me pace and move time along. A chapter typically covers a small segment of time for me, but a subchapter is more like mini-scenes that require a break here and there just to move time along or to create tension. I might end a subchapter on a particularly dramatic thing happening and then the next subchapter could be how the characters react to that dramatic thing.
But the actual full chapters? I definitely use those for pacing and keeping the reader on their toes. Sometimes it's a more relaxed chapter or a particularly exciting chapter, but it's usually designed to keep the story interesting and drive the narrative.
Sorry to unload all of this chapter perspective. I just hadn't really put that much thought into why i write the way I do, and once I got started talking about it, the floodgates opened!
I want people to unload all of this! That's the point! I just want to find new and interesting ways to think about everything writing related.
Also so much of this intuitive--but then you start thinking about what you're doing intuitively--and it can all break open is such productive ways.
One of my favorite things to happen in classes and in these conversations is when we can all sort of externalize the process to find out new things about how different people's brains work.
Allison Wyss
joehumphrey