Novellas are longer than short stories, but still only clock in at around 20k words at their longest. With these, the line gets a little blurrier. You could choose to forego official chapters in favor of breaks as you would for a short story or break it into defined chapters.
This decision will largely depend on the overall length of the novella and the number and lengths of scenes. For example, a cookbook could even be divided into chapters that focus on a certain type of dish like dessert, or a certain type of cuisine like French.
Now you know why you need chapters, but when is a good time to divide your book into chapters? Should you decide during the outlining phase? Should you wait until the second draft? What works for you will depend largely on your personal writing style, but these are some methods to consider:. One way to chop your book into chapters is to just write the whole thing as a draft and then go back through later and divide it into chapters where it makes the most sense.
With this method, you would write an entire first draft without worrying about specific chapter break placement.
You can then read it back, making note of where breaks would make sense. This could be after major scenes Look for places where some questions have been resolved, but there is enough tension to keep the reader craving more. Another way to determine where your chapter breaks should go is by looking for natural pauses in the story. Perhaps your protagonist has just learned something that will change the course of their storyline. Anywhere that it would make sense for the reader to ruminate about what they just read is a great place for a chapter break.
If you are a staunch outliner and organizational savant, you might consider breaking your story into chapters before you even begin the first draft. This method will probably work best for people who like to have very specific and thorough outlines. Using this method, you can plan which scenes you want to include in each chapter and have them work intentionally with the overall structure of your story.
This should also make the process of writing and editing your first draft easier. For instance, an average YA novel is between 55, and 80, words long. Most experts agree that 3,, words per chapter is a good guideline to follow. Show Show. Skip to content. Share this: Twitter Facebook Email. Like this: Like Loading Novels have chapters for the exact same reason that potato chips were invented.
Catastrophe will rain down upon you with the intensity of a jackhammer game of whack-a-mole. It happened something like this. It was an intensive experience. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.
Email required Address never made public. Name required. Home About Support Clarion. Follow Following. Your title can motivate the reader to continue pushing through the novel to see what will happen next. Titles provide easy reference points for the reader. Some readers like to refer back to an incident that happened earlier in the novel.
Titles can serve as useful reference points. Titles define and differentiate one chapter from the next. Sometimes, chapters blend together. Titles can help to distinguish and provide a small glimpse into the purchase of each chapter.
Why start with action? What to Include in Your Chapters One popular way to approach chapters is to consider each as its own short story. When to End a Chapter Not sure when to end a chapter? When Switching Points of View Examples: You have multiple points of view and each chapter is dedicated to a different character.
How Many Chapters to Include Just how many chapters should you include in your novel? Additional Resources Before you go, check out these related posts: Tension! Subscribe Hold tight You might also like How to Overcome Creative Burnout. Check out these must-know tips The structure of a novel is important because it contributes to the clarity and flow of your story. Chapter structure is satisfying when the beginning, development and end contribute equally to the whole.
Read 7 tips to write well-structured chapters, including examples from great fiction:. It might take place in a single house in a single small town. Maybe it shows a character planning a party or hiding a body.
In a longer work of fiction, chapter breaks serve important purposes:. Dividing your story into related sections that make sequential sense gives readers a more structured, digestible experience.
Just as you should structure individual scenes well , you should apply this focus to your broader chapters. Titles give cohesion to novels and short stories. Consider this example: E. Several chapters are named after knots traditionally used by sailors. The chapter title is excellent because it conveys what the chapter will be about difficult, i. If the knot was sent back as it came the relationship was static.
If the knot returned home snugly drawn up the passion was reciprocated. But if the knot was capsized — tacit advice to ship out. Attracting the attention of readers 2. Orienting your fictional world and creating signposts that guide readers through your story. This immediately anchors the story to a particular place. In novels where point of view or POV alternates between characters, you can start each chapter with the name of the character who is telling the story.
This device immediately indicates who is narrating. It leaves you free to use the first person without having to identify the narrator continuously. Each chapter within the section is then numbered starting from 1. Besides using titles, you can also structure your chapters by paying careful attention to how they start, develop and end. Each of these chapter openings echoes each other, referring to the street number of the house that is the setting for much of the story. This recurring opening structure creates a sense of something cyclical and menacing.
This mirrored opening structure mimics something cyclical about the nature of ghosts a fundamental symbol of the story and trauma specifically, in Beloved , the trauma of slavery.
The structure draws our attention to the cyclical effects of major personal and historical trauma, as it returns to take its toll. Think of echoes you can create backwards and forwards through your story by structuring chapter openings around recurring ideas, symbols or themes e.
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