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Aug 9, 2021 · How to Structure the Chapters of Your Novel. Consider these tips when building out each book chapter. Above all, be sure to give each chapter a purpose that ties into the bigger story. 1. Start with action. The action in a typical chapter doesn’t have to come with all the dramatic bells and whistles of the first chapter.
- What Is The Purpose of A Chapter?
- Don’T Divide Into Chapters at First
- To Title Or Not to Title
- How to Start A Chapter
- What to Include in Your Chapters
- Chapter Length
- When to End A Chapter
- How Many Chapters to Include
- Additional Resources
Chapters are one of those structural elements that you probably don’t think about much until you’re tasked with dividing your own book into sections. Then you’ll wonder: What makes for a compelling chapter? How do I decide when to end a chapter? What do chapters doanyway? Let’s start with the last question first. Chapters give your reader a mental ...
Your first draft is no place to think about chapter structure. While I’m a big fan of outlines and planning, I’m also a fan of getting it written and out of your head. It’s possible to spend so much of your time plotting and planning that you never actually end up writing anything. When penning your first draft, don’t worry about sectioning your st...
Titling your chapters is a personal preference and not mandatory. If you wanted, you could simply use numbers to denote different chapters. But you may be wondering, What are the benefits of titling chapters? There are three major benefits to titling your chapters. 1. Titles provide hints of what to expect within the chapter. Your title can motivat...
I’m a big fan of starting with action and not philosophy. Action engages and immediately pulls the reader into what’s happening. Philosophy makes the reader sit back and ponder the deeper meaning, and there’s certainly a place for that, but it’s not at the beginning of your chapter. By action, I don’t mean high adrenaline, heart-pumping action, I m...
One popular way to approach chapters is to consider each as its own short story. While no chapter within a novel is an island, it can work as a short story where you have a decided beginning, middle, and end. Sure this can get pretty complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. This helps you keep the chapters as focused as possible so you don’t ramble
How long should a chapter be? Fortunately, there’s no set rule for chapter length. While many authors keep the chapters around the same length, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have a 20 page chapter right next to a 10 page chapter. Chapter length feeds into pacing. Length can vary and become an intention part of your storytelling. If you’d like to c...
Not sure when to end a chapter? The ending of your chapter does two things: it closes one door and it opens another one. By the end of each chapter, you should resolve at least one thing. Here are few ideas of how to end a chapter: At a Natural Pause Examples: You’ve come to the end of a major event or you’ve reached the end of a flashback. Check o...
Just how many chapters should you include in your novel? Most novels have between 10 to 12 chapters, but that’s not set in stone. You can have two chapters or 200 -- it all depends on how comfortable you are with experimenting. Consider your dear reader. Will the chapter breaks make sense to that reader or will it be a disruption from the story? So...
Before you go, check out these related posts: 1. Tension! What It Is and How to Develop It In Your Novel 2. How to Write a Novel With Multiple Points of View 3. Kill Your Darlings: How to Approach Your Writing Without Sentimentality
Chapters in novels support this experience in two ways: Chapters mark appropriate “ pause points ”. These are moments where the reader can safely put down the book and forget those short-term details we normally hold in our heads as we read, like which characters are present, who just spoke, and so on.
Jul 22, 2020 · So let’s break down how nonfiction books are organized. Chapters and parts: how many, how long? The first question you’ll face is this: how many chapters, and how long is a chapter? There are two basic approaches here: Lots of small chapters. My book Writing Without Bullshit had 24 chapters, each between 1,000 and 4,000 words. The benefit ...
Sep 7, 2020 · Essentially, chapters are something you only want to focus on once you’ve completed a solid round of self-editing. Once your story is in a good place, then you can look through your draft and start organizing your scenes into chapters. Ask yourself—which scenes in your novel naturally fit together?
Aug 14, 2021 · This list could help outline what you want to include when writing the chapter. Organize the elements—conflict, character motivation, physical description of the setting, action of the whole chapter, tone, language—so the story flows through the goal, conflict, win or lose, and aftermath.
May 28, 2019 · If you can’t think of a way to reorder the events, or if there are multiple important moments, consider inserting a chapter break in the middle and making it two chapters. Chapter breaks are one of the most versatile tools in your writing arsenal.
