Note Taking

by Reed James

A book is nothing more than a collection of scenes woven together for a narrative purpose. How these scenes are organized, paced, and divided into chapters greatly affects both the tone and the flow of the novel. Figuring out how to choose where your chapter breaks are can be one of the toughest decisions. There is a lot of advice out there, but what’s right for you and your work?

Short chapters can give an sense of urgency, propelling the story. Long chapters can give a story a sense of weight, a slow fire slowly bringing the kettle to a boil. The pacing of your scenes and chapters is so very important. So how do you make that decision? Some people live by the 5k rule. Studies show that most readers have about a half-hour to read before bed and prefer to stop at the end of a chapter. 5K words is what the average person reads in a half-hour. But is that the right way?

A chapter needs to have its own life and purpose. It’s there to accomplish a task. When I write a chapter, I have a mini-theme and story I want this chapter to convey and it will be as long or as short as it needs to be to get the job done. Perhaps its an action chapter, or maybe it’s setup where I’m weaving several characters to the verge of collusion. The most important thing is to be true to the story your telling. If it’s a fast paced thriller, use short chapters, if it’s a long epic, stretch it out a bit. I’ve seen a chapter that’s 190 pages long in the hardback edition. It was a single battle, the chapter seemed to never end, making me feel the exhausting, unending brutality that the characters felt. I have seen other chapters that were but a single sentence of even a single word. A word so important, so profound to the story, the author gives it such weight by having it exist as a single chapter.

What’s really important, once you have your pacing, is how you end the chapter. While most readers may want chapters to let them take a break, you should ended it so they’re wanting more. When people say a book is a page turner, they mean that at the end of every chapter was a cliffhanger that made the itch to find out what happened next. “Just one more chapter,” becomes the mantra. It doesn’t have to a life or death cliffhanger, but maybe it’s a question asked, a sudden twist, an unexpected character showing up, or a character breaking down on the verge of being crushed under the weight of their problems. Keep them reading. That’s really the most important thing.

If you were wondering about the 190 page chapter, ‘A Memory of Light’ by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. I’m blanking on a one word chapter that I’ve read. I feel it was a Steven King novel. Google is failing me in this regard. The only one I can find is ‘Misery’ and I never read that one.

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