Structure
I’m talking about paragraphs, chapters, and books, not plot structure.
At least paragraphs are straightforward: Nominal English paragraphs. I will cheerfully admit that I am not aware of the exact details and corner-cases of English paragraph structure. I do know that quote-source changes need new paragraphs. I also know that a paragraph should be a complete thought.
Chapters are more difficult. There are two issues:
- How are the chapters numbered?
- What breaks a block of text into two chapters?
The first one has, as far as I know, two choices: Start each book with Chapter One and Start the series with Chapter One and just keep going. I just caught up with an author, again, around Chapter 305, which means Chapter 306 will be the start of the next book.
I may end up doing both. Some stories may span books, in which case continuing the chapter number makes sense. It’s one story broken into volumes, not “books”. Tolkien did that with Lord of the Rings, although why he chose three, not five, volumes is a mystery since internally five is how it splits up. Sarah Hoyt did that with No Man’s Land; it’s three volumes, but one continuous story. I have no idea how either of them numbered their chapters, or if they even did, but continuing the numbering through the entire story makes sense to me and it’s a good clue to returning readers.
Where to break text into chapters is a harder question. In many books, it seems almost arbitrary to me. [question: should this be a paragraph break?]
In Romance, chapter changes are often point-of-view changes. That is, his chapter, her chapter, his chapter, her chapter. That does make POV changes easy to follow, but in tight-3rd mostly focused on two people (at least at the start), there are not many POV changes. We’re seeing both together, not toggling back-and-forth. (btw: I did try that for the first three chapters in first person; it was a disaster.)
I’m going to equate “chapter” and “scene”. In theater, the scenery would change, perhaps even a curtain drop. In film, at least a jump cut if not new framing footage.
Every chapter should end with the end of something. That does not necessarily imply that every chapter is also the start of something. It may be more of a jump cut and less of a curtain falling then rising on a new set.
It should be possible for any chapter to be the end of the book. It may result in an unsatisfying book because nothing resolves, but a surprising number of LitRPG books just stop. There is no ending. The author apparently just decided the word count was good for a book and pressed publish while continuing on with the story. I don’t much care for that, but from a chapter structuring perspective there is enough of a “meta/semantic period” at the end that the reader always turns to the next wondering if we’re going to leave our intrepid heroes for another perspective because…
Chapters are time. If things are happening at the same time, I like short chapters with POV switches as opposed to one thing finishing then the next chapter starting with “three weeks ago…” Time should not go backwards (backstory flashbacks have a limited place). The TV series thing where they open with some dramatic scene, cut to commercial, then return with “three weeks earlier…” is incredibly annoying – especially for a series. I’m here watching season three, episode six; I’m going to watch whether or not the episode opens with a bang.
Chapter length is going to be all over the place. I generally prefer medium length chapters. Too short and the breaks start looking like page count padding. Too long and I start to feel like I’m reading 19th century literature with never-ending sentences; I just want a break to breathe. They are going to change/break where it feels right – hopefully not just to me – even if I need to edit and cut up some longer ones. I don’t think I’ll try to pad shorter ones, but it’s not out of the question.
That obviously leads to the question of: What is a “book”? I think it’s just a “publishable unit”. That definition just moves the problem to “what is publishable?”. For the mainline story – leaving aside side-character novellas or short story collections – I think it’s ideal if “story” and “book” align. Theoretically, this is always possible with ebooks since there are no physical constraints on the number of pages that may be reliably bound. However, having the option to sell print books is nice. As is the “put new shiny in front of customer” motivation. If we waited for Game of Thrones (or Wheel of Time) to be complete, we’d still be waiting. There is something to be said for getting a partial story out there so the series can at least help pay for itself.
I used to be reluctant to start an unfinished series. Two things changed my mind: Cash Flow and the Eternal Series. [paragraph break?] As a consumer, it’s counter-productive for me wait until the series is finished before I start paying the author. If no one is buying the books, what motivation does the author have to keep writing them? [paragraph break? bullet list?] Series never end, these days. While that’s not unique to today and Amazon, it is much more prevalent than it used to be. Even if the author does finish a series, I may be dead before then, so I may as well start now. [this is why I did not paragraph break] Both argue for publishing books before the story/series is complete.
So, with all that said, I think a book should end when a (not necessarily “each”) major plot thread is resolved, which will be at the end of a chapter – with maybe an epilogue-ish addition to tease the next book’s major plot thread. Ideally, this is a nice-sized novel (over 100K words, under 150K words). Going shorter or longer will affect relative prices. Pam Uphoff is really good at this; she injects cheaper novellas in the longer novelized series.
Why does this matter, right now? Because I’m writing chapter four and I’m wondering where to end it. More accurately, I’m wondering how much dialog is required to make a very simple decision seem like something “normal” people would do. The scene of chapter four is “apocalypse happened; we’re going to play in the wild as wolves until it settles out.” All the text in the chapter is making that a rational decision. It’s annoying to write.
I’m also wondering where book one is going to end and whether a particular scene is in book one or book two. I’m thinking perhaps a seasonal ending (apocalypse is in late summer; end the book with the first snowfall), but that may create problems with ending future books. That shtick only works four times and forcing plot lines into seasons for years on end is going to start feeling forced sooner rather than later. Although, it does make rereading easier. If the apocalypse happens in late summer 2026 and I want to know what our intrepid werewolves are up to three years later, three years is 12 seasons, so book 12 will tell me. Just writing that makes it seem like a bad idea. “Time” is going to be its own blog post.
I may still end book one with winter starting because the major plotlines of book one are going to be “start the pack”, “get a group together to survive the winter”, and how those two goals do and don’t overlap. First snowfall seems like a good time to wrap those up.
I need featured images for these posts. Cover ideas seem like a fun choice, but I’m not sure I want to go the effort, yet. On the one hand, it’s a lot of effort wasted if I never actually write the book. On the other hand, I’m incredibly susceptible to the sunk-cost fallacy so it may provide incentive to write the book.
Marked Up 