How Great Authors Write Great Chapters

[@theastroguy6710]

VPIA of a new writing club here on my campus, and we've joined you on our Novella November journey!! Thank you so much for such great content 🙏🏻💙

[@Writing-Theory]

Woah that’s awesome!! You should check out the livestreams we do each weekday. We also have all of the livestreams recorded. About 40 minutes to an hour of writing sprints plus times to hangout. Shoot me a message on discord if your writing club wants to do some sort of Q&A sometime

[@ariesmarsexpress]

I write epic, galaxy-spanning romance stories within a hard sci-fi setting. My stories unfold over vast periods, blending the characters' daily lives with major universe-altering events. I often juggle two or even three storylines at once with the goal of weaving them together seamlessly. To keep things organized, I use a unique structure. Each chapter is like a complete episode with its own beginning, middle, and end, told in five scenes. I use chapter titles and scene titles to guide the reader. My outlining process is pretty simple. I start with a high-level outline of the major plot points, using just a word or phrase for each. Then, when I write a chapter, I create a mini-outline for its five scenes. I visualize the story like a movie series with each chapter as an episode and each scene broken into five parts. This helps me immerse the reader in every moment. I try hard not to copy the style of anyone else because I don't want many of the aspects of what other writers may do (positive or negative) to infect my writing or vision. Because of the way I write, my chapter lengths can vary greatly. As a rule I try to keep them 5k words or under, but I have some up to 9k because it was required. As an aside, writing in scene and scene parts allows me to easily rearrange events during developmental editing with minimal transitional changes. It's more like editing a movie than a book. This is useful because I may want to rearrange the scene or the chapter to throw the reader right into the middle of some issue. My goal is to grab them, immerse them, and make them not want to ever come out.

[@emeralddraegon]

I do love stylized chapter breaks. I also grew up reading Goosebumps, so maybe I've been influenced! But I used to get in trouble for staying up late reading because, just like you said, I had to read "just one more chapter."

[@JustClaude13]

Even within one author's work chapter length can vary considerably. While studying romances I read Beach Read by Emily Henry. One chapter marked an abrupt shift in the story and was correspondingly abrupt. One sentence. I also learned that romances can be compelling, even if you fundamentally dislike the characters. But I haven't read a second Emily Henry novel, so likeable characters are still a good thing.

[@creativeotter]

[7:11] Ah. Yes. The Zeigarnik effect. Using the open-loop method.

[@creativeotter]

Really need to be careful with that one. I see a lot of people do it only for a fakeout the next chapter.

[@alexogilvie9668]

I do wish you'd looked at a Brandon Sanderson novel too, for the greater extreme...

[@justguy-4630]

Stephen King. An excellent choice.

[@antonioa.jepkoko4588]

Ive read IT by him. I dont like it personally, and i dont want to diss or disrespectfulhim. I just want to know whats great about him? His IT was boring in the first parts and there was even child po4n in there. And yeah, it was also long, very long, the scenes wete just so long

[@5Gburn]

​@@antonioa.jepkoko4588Depends on how your mind works, I think. If you prefer thrillers, you might find Stephen King's longer works difficult to read. Try Pet Sematery or The Dead Zone, see what you think. I loved IT. Started reading it the night before my labor was induced (to ease my anxiety)--big mistake! I find his writing gripping. As for the scene/s you mention, it was gross and portrayed as such (though it did highlight that these kids trusted each other in the darkest of times), and it was a part of the story. It's horror, remember.

[@Neamio]

​@@antonioa.jepkoko4588Read Dual Transmigration instead

[@V_2077]

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