Advice on Novel Chapters

[Red_Herring4]

For those of you who've written a novel-length work, how did you divide it into chapters? Did you outline the major plot points that you wanted each chapter to cover and work from that? Did you just start writing the thing, breaking it into chapters as you went? Did your chapter divisions change after you'd completed a first draft because you now had a clear picture of the whole?

I had a clear vision for the first two chapters, and they are coming out pretty much how I expected. After that, it's a bit more nebulous. I know the broad plot points I want to cover in the story, but I don't know that I want to try to segment them into chapters this far out. I'm planning to just write and figure out what divisions make the most sense as I go. I should mention that I also have a pretty solid idea of where I want to end up in the final chapter, so that should be helpful.

This is my first attempt at a non-erotic novel (my longest story to date is ~21,000 words), so I'm curious how others have tackled chapters.

 

[Red_Herring4]

Forgot to clarify: this is a non-erotic work.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

When I first started my fantasy series, which is now almost 200k words long and very far from being over, I outlined the main characters and some general directions of my story. I imagined each chapter as an episode in a different place with different things happening and so on. Since at the time I was holding onto this dogma that my chapters should be about 10k words long, some of my episodes were split into two or three parts, which I am not sure was such a great idea. It wasn't terrible, as I managed to find good spots to end each chapter, but I believe splitting the episode like that took away from the readers' experience. After the first part of my series ended, I started getting ideas on how to progress the story, and at this exact moment, I have ideas and a rough plot direction for an additional 300k words at least.
My advice would be to have a rough outline of the whole story at least, although you will likely change your mind and start adding new ideas as your chapters keep rolling. Also, in my opinion, you should make your chapters able to stand on their own, like episodes in a series.

 

[Red_Herring4]

I have ideas and a rough plot direction for an additional 300k words at least.

Wow! I can't imagine writing 300k words. That's an impressive feat!

Also, in my opinion, you should make your chapters able to stand on their own, like episodes in a series.

In my case, I'm not planning to write an open-ended series. This would be a standalone novel, published as a single work. The chapters serve the larger whole, but they are not designed to be read as standalone pieces.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

In my case, I'm not planning to write an open-ended series. This would be a standalone novel, published as a single work. The chapters serve the larger whole, but they are not designed to be read as standalone pieces.

I see. Why not release it as an integral story then? Or maybe split it into no more than two parts? I can't see any advantage to splitting a standalone novel with a definitive ending into separate chapters. I mean, you would get some feedback while you are still writing it, but I do believe the overall experience of readers would suffer for it. As time goes by and your chapters keep rolling, you can bet many readers will forget some finer nuances from previous chapters, which will definitely influence their reading experience. It is a necessary evil for all of us who write open-ended series, but I would say that it is completely unnecessary in your case.

 

[Red_Herring4]

I see. Why not release it as an integral story then? Or maybe split it into no more than two parts? I can't see any advantage to splitting a standalone novel with a definitive ending into separate chapters.

You've helped me to understand just how poorly I explained my original question!

Think of this as a paperback novel that you'd pull off the shelf. I'm interested in dividing it into chapters. I'm curious how folks have done that.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You've helped me to understand just how poorly I explained my original question!

Think of this as a paperback novel that you'd pull off the shelf. I'm interested in dividing it into chapters. I'm curious how folks have done that.

Oh, wow. When you mentioned chapters I was convinced you intended to publish each chapter separately as most of us do
In your case, I think you will find adequate spots to divide chapters as you write. Usually, it is done before some time leap, or maybe before a spatial leap to a distant location, depending on the type of story you are writing. Also, if you are writing a story with multiple POVs, you can make each POV shift as a new chapter or subchapter.

 

[XerXesXu]

Aim for a breakpoint every 5 to 15 thousand words. Some will be apparent as you write. The first and last chapters usually take care of themselves. When you edit, note what appear to be appropriate breakpoints and at what word count, then make final decisions.

 

[PennameWombat]

You've helped me to understand just how poorly I explained my original question!

Think of this as a paperback novel that you'd pull off the shelf. I'm interested in dividing it into chapters. I'm curious how folks have done that.

Yes, most discussion of 'chapters' on this site covers published stories that are integral parts of a longer works, I have a few such, like the in-progress Chronicle: Mel and Chris, ch. 01.

But you mean in the traditional sense.

So, in that case... it's what works for you. A 'chapter' should be a scene or set of related scenes from a single POV. You can revisit that scene with a different POV in another chapter, or overlap a bit, or whatever.

And, pantsers, plotters and gardeners. The first just start writing, I'm mostly like this, the 'chapter' splits are based on the above. What scene(s) need to be covered now? What do I need to set up? Whose POV and when does that need to change (if using multiple or rotating)? Doesn't mean things won't change in editing, but that's the start.

Hard core plotters will set up the chapters as they expand from their initial outline, and plot the ups and downs and occurrences before they ever write. Gardeners start with an outline but vary from that.

There isn't a single way, but I'd never just write an entire manuscript and then go back and decide split points. I have scenes in mind.

As to length, that's another ever-varying debate. The two authors behind "The Expanse" had a strict rule, every chapter was very close to 3,500 words. They'd write and edit the chapters to hit that target. Other books and authors will vary much more. You'll find books with single word or single sentence chapters or ten thousand word chapters, or be like Terry Pratchett and mostly don't bother using them.

Bottom line, don't get overly worried. Worry about the scenes and flow of the plot, you'll likely want to adjust things later, e.g., split something because you decide the second half would work better in a different character's POV. That's for editing.

 

[Bramblethorn]

For those of you who've written a novel-length work, how did you divide it into chapters? Did you outline the major plot points that you wanted each chapter to cover and work from that? Did you just start writing the thing, breaking it into chapters as you went? Did your chapter divisions change after you'd completed a first draft because you now had a clear picture of the whole?

For "Red Scarf" I outlined it at several levels. The top level is a short idea of the overall story arc and themes. That then gets broken down into chapters, e.g.:


Chapter 1: How they met, leading up to the beginning of their arrangement
Chapter 2: Sarah and Anjali’s first date, first night together.
Chapter 3: More time together, a bit of intimacy
...

Chapter N: Iceland trip: parting of ways. They're fond of one another, but A doesn't want to commit and needs her space - respectful parting.

When I initially did that breakdown, I did the first few chapters and the last, but I hadn't yet filled in all the middle ones; I wanted to give myself some space there to see how things turned out. OTOH, I think it's important to have some idea of how it's meant to end, otherwise it's very easy to lose one's way.

In the course of writing, that "Chapter N" became Chapter 12 and the chapter synopsis morphed from what I had above to "Resolve legal/phone stuff - ramifications for Sarah and Anjali - S offers to go OS with her, A declines. Break-up discussion. They have a final fling together and say goodbye."

Each chapter then breaks down into scenes, e.g.:



with some outline of what's meant to be in each scene, and then I have to write the scenes.

This is not a neatly sequential process. I might be writing Chapter 7 and at the same time adjusting my scene-by-scene plan for Chapter 8, and inserting an extra chapter after that one, and also going back to adjust some details in Chapter 6 to fit in better with ideas I had later. Sometimes a new element appears in the story and I need to adjust my plans - one of the major characters in Red Scarf only turned into a major character in my head about halfway through. Chapter 11 in particular required major surgery because one of my beta readers pointed out big problems with it.

Along with that, once I've written a scene or chapter, I might adjust the plan to be a more accurate synopsis of what I've written, in case I need to remind myself later. I'd also tag scenes according to characters present and significant themes, e.g.:



This means that later on, if I'm writing another scene where they're talking about their relationship, I can easily check what I've written about that previously so I'm not contradicting or repeating myself. I also have some sections tagged "Literotica only", so I can easily remove them when publishing elsewhere.

I also keep a short bio of characters where I can check things like age, full name, and important things I might have established about them.



When I started writing the story, I had all of it in one Word doc. I'd managed to write a previous novel-length story that way. But Red Scarf was more complex and life got distracting, I ended up getting derailed for a year and finding it hard to get back into the groove. At that point I took what I'd already done and migrated it into Scrivener, which is where I get things like the structuring and tagging functionality shown above, and that was very helpful in keeping it organised from there. In particular it was a lifesaver when I got to Chapter 11 and needed to shuffle scenes around and rework them.

 

[ElectricBlue]

For my Arthurian myth novel (seventeen chapters and 104,000 words), I wrote whatever chapter length each particular plot movement needed. I'm a pantser writer and had no plan at all, except to get to a dead king and a woman in a boat on a lake. As a consequence, each chapter ended up between two and four Lit pages - whatever it took to get to the next chapter.

 

[ronde]

For those of you who've written a novel-length work, how did you divide it into chapters? Did you outline the major plot points that you wanted each chapter to cover and work from that? Did you just start writing the thing, breaking it into chapters as you went? Did your chapter divisions change after you'd completed a first draft because you now had a clear picture of the whole?

I had a clear vision for the first two chapters, and they are coming out pretty much how I expected. After that, it's a bit more nebulous. I know the broad plot points I want to cover in the story, but I don't know that I want to try to segment them into chapters this far out. I'm planning to just write and figure out what divisions make the most sense as I go. I should mention that I also have a pretty solid idea of where I want to end up in the final chapter, so that should be helpful.

This is my first attempt at a non-erotic novel (my longest story to date is ~21,000 words), so I'm curious how others have tackled chapters.

I have two that I've not yet decided how to post. They are about 55k and 59k words respectively and they are broken into chapters so I can go either way as soon as I make up my mind. I'm not certain if 55k words is a novel, but I read somewhere that most paperbacks are between 40ok and 60k.

There are probably benefits to both methods - posting the entire novel as one entity and breaking it up into chapters. I've had comments on my longer stories (<20k words where the commenter said they usually only read 3-4 Lit pages of any story), so posting it in chapters will probably be good for those readers. If it's well written enough written though, I think readers will get involved and read it all the way through, maybe not in one sitting, but they will finish it.

I've never written an open-ended story because I think it's too easy to lose the "feel" of the story and the characters if much time elapses between the writing of each chapter. I also find that when I'm writing long stories, I'll get to some point in the middle chapters and realize I didn't set it up in a previous chapter. If I'd already published the previous chapter, there's not much I can do. If I write the entire novel before publishing anything, that isn't a problem. Instead, I plan the basic plot of the story and then insert characters and situations to make that plot happen.

I tend to follow a somewhat standard format. Chapter one is the introduction of at least one of the main characters and is intended to give the reader an insight into that character's personality and to set the tone of the novel.

Subsequent chapters involve who the main character meets and what he does. Each chapter has a definite beginning and a definite end, so each could read like one story of a series. The end of each chapter also contains a hint of what is going to happen in the next.

The final chapter is just that, a wrap-up of the characters situation.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I'm very much a planner writer. As I work through a story in my head, things go in roughly this order

1) What happens in the story
2) Whose and how many points of view do we need to see the story through.
3) Which events of the story do we actually need to see.

For 3, if your MCs are going on a date, does the reader need to see the whole date, is it enough to give them the conversation upto them ordering their food? Do we need to see the MC preparing for the date? Do we need to see what happens in the car on the way back to her place? I try to avoid having lots of little piddly scenes or conversations which go on endlessly. (Not all writers follow this, I've seen more than one story where the couple have had a romantic weekend and the writer is determined that we know what happened at every moment of that weekend - and those stories have scored fine). For me though I want to build a tight, memorable scene in nearly every chapter (some chapter inevitably end up as bitty build-up in a longer work however hard you try.) So the setting, tension and revelations (and sex if its that kind of chapter) are kind of build in and I have a very clear idea of what I want to get out the chapter before I start writing.

Inevitably things change and I get inspiration and my beta-readers tell me stuff I didn't realize in the first draft and things change and things get split and added to. I still like things to be tight though.

The issue with Lit, I think is that an average chapter in a novel is said to be between 1500-5000 words (with 1500 being on the low side but acceptable every now and then). A lot of people call a story submission from a longer work a chapter and just number their submissions as chapter 1, chapter 2 etc. I guess this works for a lot of people, but for me, not every chapter has sex and not every chapter has an amazing cliff-hanger and it makes more sense to me to group chapters together into longer 'parts' where, say, four to six chapters make up a submission 'part' and significantly move the plot forward - hopefully by the end of each part the status quo has been moved along nicely and the reader will be salivating for what comes next - but also sated enough that they can wait for the next submission to be posted.

 

[Jmanchu]

I'm doing a similar project you're doing. Writing my first novel length story(I've published a few of the first chapters in this site). Been rewriting that sucker in several drafts, and some scenes are completely rewritten to the point where I have to rewrite the story from the new direction I'm taking it. It's a slow process because aside from busy schedule, I'm a master procrastinator but I'm getting there.

I've rewritten several of my drafts for the few stories I've published here where the first draft and final draft have a lot more differences in the plot than similarities. Some almost completely different stories with the characters in the story being the only constant between the first draft and final draft. And even then, sometimes I've had adjustments or changes to the characters just to better fit my vision or feel I have of them in subsequent drafts.

Did you just start writing the thing, breaking it into chapters as you went?

That's what I do.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

You've helped me to understand just how poorly I explained my original question!

Think of this as a paperback novel that you'd pull off the shelf. I'm interested in dividing it into chapters. I'm curious how folks have done that.

I understand since I write predominantly non-erotic novel-length stories myself.

How I arrive at chapters or breaks in the story varies, but always come at a purposeful break in the particular theme. I sometimes go back and readjust the breaks if something I researched or came up with later in the writing of the story justifies it.

In my first novel, "His Daddy's Car", I thought that a chapter for each day of the week in which the main story unfolds served my purpose best and readers seemed to have agreed. In others, events or themes related to the relationships of characters provided the best breaks in the stories.

My suggestion would be, if you don't already have a defined chapter strategy, to finish the story without worrying about breaks. Then, while editing it, look for those places that you as a reader feel comfortable leaving the story for a period of time before continuing to read it. If you're comfortable with a break at that point, other readers will likely be as well.

I might add...

Don't hesitate to post the novel as a single large submission here rather than posting the chapters individually. This is the only site where I post that I split some of my stories into chapter posts and now I regret it. Readers have stated overwhelmingly to me that they prefer one long story over smaller chapters and I am considering deleting the individual chapters and replacing them with the whole story for each of those novels.

 

[PennameWombat]

I have two that I've not yet decided how to post. They are about 55k and 59k words respectively and they are broken into chapters so I can go either way as soon as I make up my mind. I'm not certain if 55k words is a novel, but I read somewhere that most paperbacks are between 40ok and 60k.

Ignoring Lit, which has no such ‘standards,’ in mainstream publishing a modern ‘novel’ is more like 80,000 words and up, although technically a ‘novel’ is anything over 50,000 words. Mainstream fantasy and science fiction are in the 100,000 to 120,000 range. That doesn’t say every such novel hits those, but if you’re interested in aiming for that world, those are the averages. And it varies by genre, Romance and YA tend closer toward 50,000 or just over (but, of course, ’Harry Potter’ blew those numbers out, with later books in the series edging toward 200,000 words. So… YMMV. But the first book was about 75,000 words.)

More mainstream publishers are putting out novella-length works (20,000-50,000, although definitions vary), which has been more common in self-publishing circles for some time.

Here on Lit, I’ve published a couple of stories that are over 70,000 words, so all but novels (but neither published in the N&N category here). I published them as single stories because they were indeed single, cohesive plots. I also have chaptered and serial works, that come in instalments (each 15,000 to 25,000 words), and single stories in the 30,000-40,000 word range (one of them is in N&N, as it had no dominant erotic theme, but also wasn’t non-erotic so couldn’t go into that category.)

 

[Trionyx]

When I initially did that breakdown, I did the first few chapters and the last, but I hadn't yet filled in all the middle ones; I wanted to give myself some space there to see how things turned out. OTOH, I think it's important to have some idea of how it's meant to end, otherwise it's very easy to lose one's way.

And this, kind people, is why Bramblethorn is such a respected author. That story clearly wasn’t seat-of-the-pants writing and we now have a glimpse of how it can be done right.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Short answer: I just break it up naturally as I go.

I am the complete opposite of a pantser. Once I get a couple of scenes I start a plot outline and fill it in with notes. As the outline gets longer and longer as I add scenes and flesh some of them out, it starts to split into chapters. I can always change where the breaks are but usually once the chapters start to shape I only add notes to expand or add scenes to each chapter as I see them fit. Sometimes I can even cut and paste scenes/ideas from one chapter to another.

Please do understand than I rarely if ever write chronologically. If you are writing a full novel there is absolutely no need to write anything chronologically. You can jump around from beginning to end to middle as it suits you, going back to add details earlier in the story as needed and such. Most of the writers giving advice here write serially (which is inherently chronological) as they write and submit each chapter for the gratification of feedback and scores. This does not make it bad advice but do keep this in mind when taking it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And this, kind people, is why Bramblethorn is such a respected author. That story clearly wasn’t seat-of-the-pants writing and we now have a glimpse of how it can be done right.

Are you implying pantser writers can't get it right? I hope not.

 

[alohadave]

I'm not certain if 55k words is a novel, but I read somewhere that most paperbacks are between 40ok and 60k.

It depends on the genre, but 55k would be an average length book. That would be about 180-220 pages (250-300 words per page).

 

[Bramblethorn]

And this, kind people, is why Bramblethorn is such a respected author. That story clearly wasn’t seat-of-the-pants writing and we now have a glimpse of how it can be done right.

Well, thank you!

I'd describe my approach pn that story as a mix of plotting and pantsing rather than purely one or the other; the plan gives me something to aim for, but sometimes I have to get to a scene before I can gauge the mood and figure out what's right for that scene, and sometimes I'll change the plan to make space for a new idea.

 

[Trionyx]

Are you implying pantser writers can't get it right? I hope not.

Not at all. I’m a pantser most of the time and I believe I get it right now and then. But I wouldn’t consider myself in the same league as BT. Just saying…

 

[Bramblethorn]

Not at all. I’m a pantser most of the time and I believe I get it right now and then. But I wouldn’t consider myself in the same league as BT. Just saying…