Chapter Length...

How long should a chapter be?

I ask myself this question, since I haven't actually parsed my story into chapters in a while, and I'm not even that confident of the chapters I have done. It's been months since I've written the words "Chapter XX" that I actually started to believe that I had 40 pages worth of text that hadn't been broken up. Turns out that was a bit of an exaggeration in my mind...it's more like 12 pages. I suppose the length of time it's taken me to get that 12 pages written has extended into eons in my brain. Sheesh.

I'll definitely need to look back over that.

But, I found an article in my search that gives some beautiful advice. Look for your commercial breaks. In a TV show, typically when "something significant is revealed or an important question is raised" the show will go to commercial break. So look for those similar elements in your book. See it in your mind like a TV show, and when you feel like there should be a commercial for something other than a desire to run to the bathroom, end the chapter.

Ding ding. Sounds like a winning bit. Far better than simply, "long enough." I hated that advice in school.

"Excuse me professor, how long does my paper need to be?"
"Long enough to get your point across."
*cue grinding of teeth*

Another article I found said to write your chapter lengths to your audience (ie. younger audience = shorter attention span = shorter chapters). And essentially, it should be between 3k - 5k words long. Anything over or below that range is too long/short. Fair enough.

I recall my first book (The Leaves of Autumn) had rather short chapters. It was with a primarily YA audience in mind, so they might have been a tad too short. But, this is what I like to call "growth" as an author. 😉

That's also the reason for this blog. First, to gain an audience (who can then critique and help steer me in the right direction *hint hint*). And second, to LEARN.

So if this book is another YA, then that would show that my chapters need to be on the shorter side, and therefore on average 3k+, give or take a scene of importance. Ah, fiddle faddle. Better find a computer to check those on...my tablet can only do so much.

An Encounter - EXCERPT!!! --- Comments mandatory**

**Okay, maybe not quite mandatory, but much appreciated...

Here is your excerpt! Let me know what you think pretty please! 😊

Cyrus was proud of himself. He’d managed to find her with hardly any problems. Okay, so maybe he got lucky and happened to glance out his window at just the right time and see her walking into the science building. But the fact that she didn’t notice him following after her, at a stealthy run, was pretty skillful he thought. 

And there she was, messy locks held up by a hair tie that was surely not up for the task, curls escaping to brush against her skin. Head tilted just so as she read something interesting. How would she react if he gave that hair tie one little tug and let all of her hair fall down? She had one leg curled up, propping her book, the smooth line of her leg catching his eye.  

But he wasn’t dwelling or anything. Just reveling in the fact that she hadn’t noticed him even still. Not at all mesmerized by the sight she presented. 

What was he doing again? 

 

Cassie brushed a hair from her eyes, slightly frustrated that it wasn’t staying up, when she heard a sound by the door. Freezing, she slowly looked up, and saw Cyrus Foster standing by the door, a gleam in his eyes. 

Straightening up, she turned to face him. “What are you doing here?” 

He jumped. Had he not been paying attention? He was looking straight at her. Boys, she thought to herself. 

When he still didn’t answer, she prompted him. “Well?” 

“Nothing,” he finally replied, tucking his hands into his pockets and strolling casually into the room, eyes wandering everywhere but her. 

Cassie watched him warily, feeling her confusion slowly turn to frustration as he stood by the window to her left, just feet away from her, in complete silence. 

“Is there a reason you followed me here?”  

“Hm? Oh, sorry, I forgot you were here,” Cyrus said casually. 

Cassie snorted. “I’m not an idiot, Foster.” 

“Obviously.” 

Cassie started to ask him what the hell he was doing here when Cyrus turned around and squatted next to her, putting a finger up to quiet her mid-question. 

Feeling her hair begin to crackle, she swiped his hand away and backed away from him, rising to her knees angrily. “I’m not one of your admirers, Foster, you can’t just invade my personal space and think I’ll swoon. So I would appreciate it if you backed the fuck off.” 

Cyrus raised an eyebrow cheekily, and stood up. 

Her search for solitude and peace thoroughly ruined, Cassie grabbed the cushion and took it back to where she found it. Brushing past Cyrus, she bent over and grabbed her book. But when she turned around to leave, she stopped short. Cyrus had closed in on her while her back was to him. And he wasn’t stopping. 

Cassie’s feet carried her away from him, until she hit the wall. There was nowhere for her to go, and Cyrus knew it.

 

 

Add, Rewrite & Repeat

One thing about writing something that you hope** to be a cohesive work is that you have to continually go back to the beginning.

Now that I've fleshed out some characters who were previously rather flat, and eliminated another altogether, I need to go back to the beginning of my story and start adding and rewriting scenes.

Unfortunately, I didn't just start writing this book knowing everything about my little world. Any author who tells you they did, well, they're definitely bragging and possibly lying. As I've progressed, I've altered some facts and added new ones, changed motivations, tweaked personalities, and so on. So this will be just one of MANY cycles in the editing process.

But the beautiful thing about Felicity and Joey? I get to write some more awesome scenes for them instead of just referring to them every now and then. 😊

I'm actually kind of excited about where this could head. It might change the line of the entire book, or maybe it'll just change a couple of scenes... But let's not get ahead of ourselves...

And hey - who knows? Maybe it means another potential couple. 😉

Stay tuned! I'm hoping to post another excerpt!! (Comment on the type of scene you'd like to see (and I may just oblige)! (steamy, funny, certain interactions, the 'knocking out' of a specific # on the list, etc.))

-AU
**(and by hope, I mean pray, agonize, and obsess over)

Updated Characters

With my newfound knowledge of characters, I actually ended up combining two and fleshing out my secondary folks a little more. They actually resemble real people now, instead of cardboard cutouts.

With that in mind, this is my new character lineup. I've also provided a small "caption" to describe in my words who they are. :)

We still have our main people:
1. Raven (the overriding heroine of the story): think "artist with a demon"
2. Cassie: "overlooked brains"
3. Paige: "damaged do-gooder"
4. Mike: "good guy - bad luck"
5. Cyrus: "ladies man with a secret"
6. Ryder: "voice of reason"

Secondary Characters:
1. Felicity (combo of Phoebe and Felicity): "beauty and brains - but..?"
2. Joey (he has a personality now!): "overlooked 'heir'"

AND FINALLY:

3. Zoe - (the bridge between the girls and the guys) - this is my last remaining character to flesh out... and let me tell you, I'm having a hard time with this one.

Since I cannot seem to puzzle her out, I'm stuck between "eliminate" and "really really feel like she's vital." I honestly feel like I need her, but I don't really know what her motivations are... I can't see her history or her story.

I know she's a bit of a tomboy...she bonded with the group of guys when they were younger. And though she now has great friends in the gals, I feel like there's something missing. Is she hiding a secret? Does she too feel like something is missing??

The question, of course, is what?? Is she hiding that secret, or is it something else? I feel like it's almost too obvious, and a sort of easy out to just make her LGBTQ. I can kind of see it, but I don't know for sure. It does and also doesn't feel right for her.

Let me shout to the rooftops: "Zee Mackenzie - who the heck are you?!?"

Well, if you have advice, let me know! Until then, I'm going to continue to try and get in touch with Zee and see if she'll tell me herself. ;)

Write like an English Paper

Wait, what?

You're in the real world now, why should you be writing a story like it's an English paper?

Turns out, they taught us these things for more than just the heck of it.

A well structured, well written book will have three main elements:

1. Beginning (Hook)
2. Middle (Development)
3. End (Climax)

Sound familiar?

Every book, every chapter, every scene - all must be structured this way.

It almost sounds like too much thinking. "I just want to write whatever I want, it's my book." Well, unfortunately, it's still dependent upon these things. You want people to read it, right?

I certainly do, so I did some more research. Here's what I found:

Every chapter should be made up of 2 parts: Action (scene) and Reaction (sequel).

Those can be broken into 3 parts each as well.

Action (scene):
   1. Goal (only those which drive the plot of the book)
   2. Conflict
   3. Disaster (typically the answer to the question someone would ask of "What's going to happen?")

Reaction (sequel):
   1. Reaction
   2. Dilemma
   3. Decision

The biggest thing with a book is that you need to have one main goal for the entire book. And throughout the story, there's going to be a cycle of Goal - conflict - modify goal - another conflict - modify goal again, and so on, until you finally reach the satisfaction of the goal and the end of the book.

In other words, you need to know, going into your story, what you want to eventually happen. This will help drive and shape what you write. It will keep your book from being too cluttered and unfocused, preventing you from adding in scenes with no value or purpose.

Add this to not creating too many characters for the sake of creating a character, and you'll have a book that won't confuse or irritate your readers. There won't be tangents, or unnecessary names and people, to remember.

Want your creative writing to have less rules? Write poetry. I did that for many years, and it was satisfying. But I know that, beyond a small subset of people, no one will read any of my poems. I want people to read my books.

And maybe, with all of these things I've learned, more than that small subset of people (friends and family) actually will.

Secondary Characters

It's easy to get caught up in creating characters for the purpose of advancing a story.

The problem comes when you create too many characters.

I had this issue myself. Secondary characters, mainly. So I did my research: how much development does a secondary character need?

This is what I discovered...

The most important thing is that they need to have a purpose in the story, a reason for being.

Beyond that, a secondary character needs to have:

1. A history
2. Story Arc
3. Personality
4. Description
5. 3 Virtues/ 3 Vices

It gives your story a little more depth, and helps you write more scenes, if you have an understanding of all of your characters. You don't have to share everything about your smaller folks, but you do need to know these things about them. Otherwise, you're very likely to end up with some one-dimensional stereotypes. They need to be human, and if you give them those things I listed above, they will be.

This is a big thing for me, because I believe these are things I lacked in my first book. And until I did this research, things I lacked even more glaringly in this current book.

And really, in doing this, I actually was able to combine two characters, and develop another one quite a bit. That was something I found during my research. Don't be afraid to combine or completely eliminate characters. Your story will be worse off if it has a character with no personality, no motivations, and no depth. If they lack these things, then the odds are you can give their "important" scenes to someone else.