In this post, we explore why chapters and their lengths matter when you write.
Sir Terry Pratchett was famous for his Discworld novels. He was also well known for not using chapters. But then he was brilliant. The rest of us, however, should use them. And if used correctly, they can improve the book and the reading experience. Should chapters be dictated by word count? In short, no. There’s more to why you should have chapters than that.
Why Chapters & Their Lengths Matter
6 Reasons To Have Chapters In Your Novel
- Changing the POV
- Changing the location
- Changing the era or timeline
- The promise of adventure
- The comfort blanket
- Cliffhangers and pacing
Changing The POV
If you have a small cast of characters, it’s best to keep the book in the POV of one person, especially if the book doesn’t have a large word count. Conversely, if you have a book over eighty thousand words, that spans different timelines, and has a large cast, it might be difficult, if not impossible, to stay in one character’s point of view.
Moving from one person’s POV to another is called head hopping. It’s frowned upon if it happens in one chapter, and especially in one conversation because it takes the reader out of the emotion felt by the characters, gives an unnecessary complication for the reader to navigate, and the puts the reader at an arm’s length from the action.
If you do have multiple POVs, a better idea is to have most of the chapters in the main character’s POV, and any other POV in its own chapter – not repeating the action in the previous chapter but rather moving the action forward. A new chapter makes the new POV more acceptable, understandable, and gives the book more depth.
Changing The Location
To jump from Paris to Bangkok in the same chapter is never a good idea. The great thing about reading books is the workout our imaginations enjoy. We build worlds in the interior of our minds that not only the characters inhabit but, as readers, we do as well.
To jump from the European world of Paris to the completely different aesthetic of the bustling Eastern Bangkok where everything is different – landscape, culture, religion, wardrobes, money, language etc., requires our brains to make quite a large imagination shift. But by turning the page is like a mind wipe, and entering a new chapter for the new location makes sense.
Changing The Era
As with changing the location, jumping across eras makes more sense if each era is in a new chapter. If you are changing eras, it’s advisable to put the date under the chapter heading. You don’t want readers to have to do extra mental gymnastics trying to figure out what era they are in. Tell them up front and let your reader slide easily into that new era.
Based on the details that you include in the book, readers form an image of the era in which you write the book, or a chapter. Once they have that image, they can easily recall it when a chapter takes them back to that era.
The Promise Of Adventure
The end of chapters can be used to promise the adventures to come, to foreshadow action, and to build excitement and intrigue. Take the ending of Chapter 3 in The Hobbit by J. R.R. Tolkien
‘The next morning was a midsummer’s morning as fair and fresh as could be dreamed: blue sky and never a cloud, and the sun dancing on the water. Now they rode away amid songs of farewell and good speed, with their hearts ready for more adventure, and with a knowledge of the road they must follow over the Misty Mountains to the land beyond.’
While this passage promises adventure, adventure is never just ‘fair and fresh’, ‘blue sky and never a cloud, and the sun dancing on the water’. Readers know this, and it primes them for the changing fortunes of the heroes. The opposite is also true. Chapter endings can act as comfort blankets.
The Comfort Blanket
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling provides a comforting ending to a chapter.
‘Harry got back into bed and reached up to cross off another day on the chart he’d made for himself, counting down the days left until his return to Hogwarts. Then he took off his glasses and lay down; eyes open, facing his three birthday cards. Extremely unusual though he was, at that moment Harry Potter felt just like everyone else — glad, for the first time in his life, that it was his birthday.’
Having followed Harry’s adventures from book one, we are already on Harry’s side so reading of him enjoying something as simple as the knowledge of friendship and joy gives readers the warm fuzzies.
Cliffhangers And Pacing
One of the best benefits of having chapters is keeping the reader engaged by having them end on cliffhangers, and the ability to ‘mechanically’ drive the pacing of the novel. Ending a chapter on a cliff hanger means the reader will either continue reading immediately to discover what happens next, or desperate to get back to the book. Try not to do this on every chapter though, as it will become predictable.
And by cleverly manipulating the length of chapters you can either slow down or speed up the pace of the book. The longer the chapter, the slower the pace. And, obviously, the shorter the chapter, the faster the pace. This is great if your novel is a thriller, or an adventure story where the plot and characters are racing towards the end. The shorter the chapters, the quicker the reader is turning the page, giving a sense of increased pace in the storyline itself.
You can also use chapter lengths to reflect what’s happening in the story or the book’s theme. In Eleanor Catton’s 2015 Man Booker prize-winning novel, The Luminaries, there are 12 sections. To reflect the waning of the moon, each section also decreases. The chapters in The Fault In Our Stars by John Green grow shorter as the time Hazel has with Augustus also shortens.
The Last Word
What should never shorten is the amount of planning and care you take with your novel. If you’d like an excellent foundation in how to write a book, sign up for a course with Writers Write. It’s the perfect place to learn.
by Elaine Dodge. Author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter, Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, including ghost writing business books, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.
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