How To Write A Chapter

Reading this title, you might think I am not being serious. Everyone knows what a chapter is, and how it works, and what it’s for...don’t they?

If you live in an apartment, you don’t need to know why the architect chose brick or wood or steel and glass for your building. You just live in the apartment and hopefully enjoy doing so. But the architect and the construction contractors know why they used those materials, and in what order, and to what effect. So too a novelist should know why they chose the chapters they included in their books (and indeed, scenes, and we will come back to those), and in what order, and to what effect.

Chapters are just one of those things that everyone sort of thinks they know what they are. But chapters have a purpose and a structure, and connect to other chapters, and understanding this is of enormous value to all writers, not just those starting out. Chapters are the bricks with which you will build your novel. Getting them right, and in the right order, and in the exact right number, is something you fundamentally need to create an effective novel.

So What Is A Chapter?

Let’s start with what a chapter is not. A chapter is not just a collection of scenes put together, with some dialogue and some action, that covers a bit of narrative in your novel. Of course, most of the time, that is precisely what a chapter is, and that’s actually fine. But what I mean is that chapters have another, deeper purpose, and a skillful novelist knows and masters this.

In short, a chapter should be a complete unit of narrative information, advancing the plot, developing characters, and deepening the reader's investment. Every chapter should have its own narrative point, its own purpose in the structure of the novel. The book should not be able to exist without that point or purpose. If it can, you should consider cutting the chapter or merging its contents into another chapter.

Every chapter you include in your novel should advance the plot. Every one. In the structure of the novel you are writing, we, the reader, must always be a step closer to the outcome of the Quest.

This does not mean that every chapter needs a big, bold piece of action, or something dramatic or sensational; far from it. A quiet chapter in the middle of a sequence of action chapters is a perfect piece of pacing. A quiet chapter’s purpose, between two dense, action–packed chapters, might solely be to provide some light relief during a heavy–going phase of the novel. That is its point: to keep the novel’s pace going well.

You can have a dramatic chapter, or a quiet chapter, a long one or a short one, but it must advance the plot. The chapter can be about a subplot, but at its end, the reader must feel that this has been worthwhile in getting a bit further through the journey of the book. A chapter should always, on some level, be a step forward (even if it is a disastrous setback) on the arc of the Quest.

Structuring A Chapter

A well–structured chapter typically includes some or all of the following:

1. Opening hook (mysterious atmosphere, or the after–effect of the previous chapter’s cliffhanger, etc.) or scene–setting that grabs the reader’s attention immediately. It should establish the scene, whether it is a dramatic or a quiet one.
2. Exposition to provide necessary background or context.
3. Development of the plot and characters through dialogue or action across one or a number of scenes.
4. Climax and a point: build to a moment of tension or revelation, which becomes the purpose of the chapter. Often, a chapter may have a few tense moments but usually it will have one principal moment which is its core point.
5. A conclusion that either has a sense of closure or asks a new question, setting up the next chapter. This might be a cliffhanger of some kind, whether a sudden declaration of love, an act of violence, the uncovering of a clue, or a sense of resonance and new understanding on the part of the protagonist/narrator. However, many chapters will just conclude naturally. It depends on what effect you want the chapter to have, and what position it has in the novel’s overall structure.

Let’s quickly sketch a possible basic chapter structure now.

– Opening Hook: the protagonist has in the last chapter found a mysterious letter (cliffhanger). Now they are able to read its contents.
– Exposition: Background on the situation, or the Quest that has led here, or some aspect of what has brought the protagonist here, seen through the lens of them having the letter.
– Development: The protagonist reads the letter and finds out something shocking or revealing. The information involved puts them or someone else at risk.
– Climax: Someone walks in and sees the character reading the letter. They issue a cryptic warning and tell the protagonist to burn the letter.
– Conclusion: The protagonist pretends to do so, but instead in a short second scene, we see them with the letter going to take it and show it to their friend or lover, who gives a surprising response to what has been revealed (possible cliffhanger or natural resolution). This moment sparks the next chapter, or certainly one further ahead.

Now, this may or may not be a great chapter, but let’s look at the structure of it. The opening leads on naturally from an event in the last chapter. Chapters should generally develop organically and narratively from previous events (though not necessarily the previous chapter). It is certainly possible to have sudden changes, but this is not generally the case.

There is some development and exposition – their positions could easily be reversed – but some action happens and there is some explanation of what is going on. New information is revealed, and so the plot is advanced.

There is some kind of climax, a dramatic event which further develops the narrative, but the protagonist disobeys the instruction to burn the letter (drama), and we change scene, where they show it to their lover (twist) who has a surprising response to the information (possible cliffhanger).

There are two scenes, but chapters can consist of one scene, or three, or five. What is important is that the chapter has served its central purpose: to move the plot forwards, for concrete things to happen (information being revealed and characters acting unpredictably and so dramatically), and the reader’s commitment to the Quest is pushed a step further.

Here, the existence of the letter is revealed, and its contents read, and the instruction to burn it is disobeyed, and its existence revealed to someone else, who has a surprising response, all of which can move the plot forwards.

How To Think Of Chapters When Planning A Novel

Chapters are part of the fundamental structure of your novel, serving as vertebrae in your story’s spine. They usually have a beginning, middle, and end, and there should be some way in which every chapter gets your characters a little further through their quest. Their action and outcome often sets the stage for the next chapter, or certainly one further ahead.

One way to look at them is links in a single chain, each connecting to the next, so that the whole chain is formed, and if one is missing, broken. A novelist friend of mine, also a very wise editor, describes them as pegs on a clothes line, which can be put in order and moved around, but each existing in their own right but as part of the line of the novel.

Note how chapters are so importantly distinct in a story that we give them a title, or a number, or just a page break. We are communicating their individual importance.

If you use a chapter plan, you should look at each chapter and think, how is the story developed here and how has it moved further along? If you can’t answer that, maybe you shouldn’t be writing this chapter or you should be writing it differently.

This is an excerpt from How To Write A Novel Chapter By Chapter available here: https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Novel-Chapter-Outlining-ebook/dp/B0DJ8TMVWL?ref_=ast_author_mpb

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