Writing and Publishing Tips |
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WRITING THE PERFECT CHAPTER |
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You've done the worldbuilding. You've outlined your story. You've tucked into writing. You know a story unfolds little by little, chapter by chapter, but what actually goes into a chapter? How do you know if your chapter is “complete” or even “good?” I get asked a lot about this topic. Even questions that aren't explicitly about chapters – like how to make a good outline – will have answers that come back to a fundamental understanding of chapters, their structure, and how they progress the overall narrative. When you understand the parts of your story, and how they make the plot go, then you'll have an easier time converting an idea into an actual novel. My usual disclaimer upfront… The followings are tips, tricks, and components that I've found to be helpful. Things that I believe make a good chapter. There are a lot of ways to tell a story and, as I always say, read on, find what you find helpful, take it, and leave the rest. Despite my click bait subject of this email… I really don't think there's one, single, way to make a perfect chapter. I think that the best chapter depends on the story being told. It's one that makes the plot move in a compelling way for the reader. So, now that I've told you upfront all the reasons why you should disregard everything I'm about to say… let me share my tips, tricks, and personal beliefs on what makes a great chapter. |
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The best way I've found to think about chapters is that they are miniature versions of your novel. All the best practices and principles you applied to thinking about your story, and planning it out, apply to thinking about a chapter. In a well written chapter, you're going to have: - An opening that sets the stakes and goals.
- A primary conflict that challenges those stakes and goals.
- A resolution to that conflict that changes the character's circumstances for better or worse.
Unlike your novel, where these stakes, goals, conflict, and resolution are major events that need to take a great amount of time to work through, chapter stakes, goals, conflict, and resolution are smaller. They're digestible in a few hundred to a few thousand words. So lets dig into each of these components to better understand them and why understanding and utilizing their principles will make your chapters stronger. |
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Opening / SETTING THE STAKES & Goals |
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I've said it before: Without stakes, there can be no tension. Without tension there is no momentum or drive to your story and no reason for the reader to stay engaged. Some tips while thinking about stakes for your main character (or the character whose POV a particular chapter is from) is: - Stakes should have a tangible negative cost or positive gain (or ideally both) to accomplishing or not accomplishing something. If a character will be fine by doing, or not doing, the thing… then it's not really something they need to, or even should, do. There's no tension there.
- There should be some kind of time limit or constraint on them. This can be as literal and extreme as the timer on a bomb ticking down. Or it can be something more tame, like wanting to confess to their crush before the semester is over.
When applying these general principles of stakes to a chapter, it's important to scale them down. The goal and stakes of a chapter should be something that can be resolved within that chapter. Which brings me to my final, general tip of developing goals and stakes for a chapter: They should relate to the overall conflict of the character for the novel. What your character does in an individual chapter should get them closer to, or farther from their overall goal as outlined in the plot. By tying the stakes of the chapter to the overall conflict of the plot, you're going to naturally push your character toward their goal. As always, I find it helpful to take general concepts and apply them to a more literal example. So let's make a simple story example that we can come back to as needed throughout this email. Example: You're writing an epic fantasy. You've established that your overall plot, conflict, and character goals are going to center around your character learning how to ride a dragon. By the end of the book, to accomplish this goal, the character needs to be able to ride their dragon. So every chapter's goal should relate back to that. Some examples of chapters that you might find in this book: - Sneaking out of the house to sign up for dragon riding school (Chapter Goal: Successfully sneaking out without parents waking. Stakes: Getting caught and not being able to sign up)
- Passing Entrance Exams (Chapter Goal: Getting accepted into the school. Stakes: Not having access to dragons to ride because character couldn't pass the first test.)
- Choosing to Stay up Late with new Friends (Chapter Goal: Relieving stress from dragon school, or making new allies. Stakes: Being too tired to perform well on an exam the next day due to poor choices.)
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Once you have your goal for the chapter, and see how it relates to the overall goal of your story, it's time for your character to take action. Reminder: Action doesn't (necessarily) mean physical action. It is not simply punching or kicking. Riding across a desert. Walking away from giant explosions in the background. Action, simply, is any choice and subsequent activities that progresses the protagonist closer to or farther from their goal. So you need to make a situation in this chapter that the opening leads into where the character has to do something that will help or hurt them. In the analogy of a chapter having the same parts as the overall outline of the story, this would be Act 2. The action(s) your character takes in the chapter should be clearly defined by the goal of the chapter. If you're struggling to think of what action your character might, or should, take then you might need to revisit your goal and make sure it's clearly defined. It is also important to show, along the way, how your character's choices directly impacts their overall success or failure of the action. In our dragon rider example, if the goal of the chapter is to sneak out of the house (so they can go sign up at dragon rider school) then the action of the chapter will be them doing just that. The a choice they make along the way could be to sneak out of their window, rather than the front door. Because they chose this, they end up falling and the noise wakes their parents. Maybe their parents end up catching them at the end of the chapter. Now, speaking of the end of the chapter… |
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Resolution / PAYOFF & CHANGE |
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The end of your chapter is what's going to highlight the overall narrative success of the chapter. Did you set a goal that had actions which resulted in a satisfying payoff? Just like how your character's overall goal for the story should be resolved by the end, so too should their chapter goal be resolved by the end. How they arrive at that end state should be a result of their choices and actions. In our dragon rider example… they set to sneaking out at the beginning of the chapter, but failed at the end (because their parents caught them). There is a clear resolution to the goal. But, you might be wondering, what if I set up a bigger goal at the beginning of the chapter that can't be resolved in just one chapter? I would counter that you might establish a bigger goal for that overall arc of your story, but each chapter has its own individual goal that should pay off by the end. Let's say, in chapter 4, you establish that your character is going to try to sneak into the castle to steal the king's crown. Sneaking through a castle will understandably take many chapters… but for chapter 4, the first goal is finding a way through the castle wall (which they should find by the end of the chapter). Chapter 5 would then be a new goal that aligned with the next step of their plan – perhaps sneaking past the guards to get to the treasure room. Etc… The “goal” of chapter 4 wasn't to steal the crown. That was more of a story arc/plot goal. The goal for chapter 4 was simply to get into the castle. The most important thing to think, when wrapping up a chapter, is: did my character's circumstances significantly change for better or worse? Changes don't always have to be positive. Sometimes, characters are set back. But something must change in a meaningful way. If it doesn't, what was the point of the chapter? Which brings me to my number one question to ask yourself while editing: If I removed this, would the story be the same? That question is how you'll discern if the chapter has meaningful stakes. We've all read those chapters that leave us scratching our head as to why they made it into the published book. Usually when this happens it's because the character's circumstances didn't change in a significant way. The last note I'll make on all of this, is that your character's change in circumstances should set up the stakes for the next chapter. Every subsequent goal will be impacted and defined by the previous chapter's outcome. If you're having a difficult time relating the new goal to your previous change in stakes, then there's likely some kind of weakness somewhere in your previous chapter. |
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YET MORE TIPS AND CONSIDERATIONS |
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Before I wrap up this email, I wanted to tackle a few of the most common questions I get asked from other authors about writing strong chapters that might not have been completely answered above. What is the best length for a chapter? There really isn't one. But keep in mind the average length of your chapters will impact what the pacing feels like for the reader. If you have an average chapter length of 1,200 words and suddenly you have a 5,000 word chapter in the middle of the novel, the reader will notice. This can be a good thing, if you use it to highlight a turning point. Or a bad thing, if used on a mundane event and could make the story suddenly feel like it's dragging. I have heard some authors saying about 2,000-2,500 words is the sweet spot. Personally, my average chapter length is a bit higher than that, around 3,000 words. However, I've had chapters as short as 700 words and as long as 6,000. Can a chapter be too short, or too long? Again, like above, my blanket answer would be no. That being said… if you make a very short or very long chapter, I think you should have a compelling narrative or stylistic reason for it. Is okay if the chapter ends on a cliffhanger? In my opinion, yes. So long as the main goal established in the beginning of the chapter was resolved. But that resolution could make for a great cliffhanger that will make someone have to keep reading. Cliffhangers get a bad rap at the end of the book (which is debatable if that's fair or not). But the reader has the next chapter waiting immediately and a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter can help make the overall pacing of the book feel snappy. Are chapter considerations different for different genres? I think yes and no. Like most things… I think there are best practices and elements of “good writing” that work across all genres. But there also can be some genre specific considerations. I come from the fantasy genre where I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the average chapter length is longer than say, mystery where the pacing is very fast. Does all of this advice apply to the first chapter? Absolutely. Again, I think good writing technique is applicable to any facet of the craft. But there's even more heavy lifting the first chapter has to do. Honestly, what makes a good first chapter might be a whole future email, as I could talk for a while on all the considerations that I put into my first chapters. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, hit reply and let me know :) |
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Writing an excellent chapter ,time and again, doesn't need to be difficult. In fact, I would say the best thing to do is: don't overthink it. Have some key guidelines that you follow and make sure that every chapter you write is in service to the story. When you make every chapter count and you're going to end up with a book that readers can't put down. |
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