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chapters
Other people dislike really long paragraphs full of description and internal monologue. This kind of thing doesn't bother me as much, but I do sometimes have the urge to speed read through such a paragraph if the author hasn't really won me over by the time I hit one.
Now, chapters are quite a different animal.
Once upon a time I had a collection of short rules-of-thumb about writing fiction. It's long gone, lost in one move or another, or in some long ago computer migration. I remember a few of them, although I don't remember who said them. Here's one that has always stuck in my mind: Strongest word at the end of the sentence. Strongest sentence at the end of the paragraph. Strong paragraph at the end of the chapter. Sounds good, but it's like all generalizations: true, except when it isn't. The first problem is defining and identifying strong, something I'm not going to try to do here.
You could look at a wide range of authors and try to get a feel for how chapters work, and you would find similarities. A natural break in the rhythm of the story is the most common place to end one chapter and start another. Some authors do the exact opposite, and break a chapter at the high point in the action. This is a matter of personal taste, I think. The right rule of thumb here might be: you can do anything, if you do it well enough to take the reader along for the ride. Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant takes the huge step of not using chapter breaks at all. The reason I know this works (for me, at least) is that I didn't even notice. I was so caught up in the story that I had read the novel twice before somebody pointed it out to me: no chapter breaks. Can everybody pull this off? I would guess the answer is, no. I don't think I could.
The hardest part might not be deciding where to break the chapter, but what the last note of the movement should be. There's a particular kind of ringing tone that I reach for at the end of a chapter, whether it's dialogue or narration. An awkwardly ended paragraph can work just like that heavy foot on the brake, and jar you out of the story. I'm going to go looking for sentences that end chapters well, and I'll try to get back here with some samples tomorrow.
October 9, 2004 02:04 PM
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Comments
Oh my goodness! I hadn't noticed the lack of chapter divisions in The Magician's Assistant either. That was an amazing book. Did you ever read/review Bel Canto by the same author?
I've always thought you've done a fine job dividing your chapters in your books -- a skill which I don't generally notice as I'm going along, unless it's absent. There are authors who don't do as well, and again, it's one of those things that throws me out of the story. I'm not a writer so I can't tell anyone how to do it right; I can just recognize when it's done wrong.
Posted by: Rachel at October 9, 2004 07:38 PM
After reading this entry I can recall two books that I started but didn't finish. One was "Mrs. Dalloway". I was a bad girl and put it down. I don't think that had any chapters. I know V. Woolf was trying to do something with that. The writing was good. A kind of stream of consciousness writing. I liked it. I will get back to it. Another one that I put down recently and won't finish was one called "The Exile" by Alan Folsom. His first book called "The Day After Tomorrow" was a really great spy novel about the rise of the new 3rd Reich. Great. So it has been five years since the last book and I was excited for this new one. My God. Every chapter had a time on it. I mean 1:55 pm London. It was one sentence chapters run wild. You were so busy reading the stop watch timers on everything. Different for each one sentence chapter. You didn't know where you ended and began. Why what time it was was important. Then there would be a long chapter and then the time and then jump to another scene. I think authors might do this to raise the level of awareness and make the readers nervous and tense with the story. I got dizzy.
Your chapters Sara are just right. You interruped the action at just the right times and transferred us to someone and somewhere else. Your writing kept me reading late into the night. Sigh. I was so happy.
Cynthia in Florida
Posted by: Cynthia at October 10, 2004 04:52 PM
yes, I read Bel Canto. I liked it, but not as much as Magician's Assistant. I have been meaning to read it again to see if I feel any differently the second time.
Cynthia -- wow. I'll have to have a look at that book, see what I can make of it.
Posted by: sara at October 10, 2004 08:41 PM
As a reader, I don't pay that much attention to chapter endings, but I know most people do. My husband, for example, always wants to finish the chapter he is reading.
As a writer, I've been trying to end on a note that makes the reader want to continue, but I don't think of it that much during the first draft.
(Total aside: my posts insist on being one big paragraph no matter that I've broken this one into three.)
Posted by: Marjorie at October 11, 2004 05:39 AM