#chapter writing

[writerpolls]

Writers: do you give titles to your chapters?

No, I always just number them

Yes, I give single word titles

Yes, I give short phrase chapter titles

Yes, I give full on sentence (or longer) chapter titles

Yes, I always give chapter titles but hire long depends on the piece

Sometimes I give chapter titles and sometimes I just leave numbers

I don’t write anything with a chapter type of structure

Other answer / it’s complicated somehow

See results / I don’t write

Voting ended onFeb 9

[the-dragon-hearted]

Writing fanfic is simultaneously:

This is a 5,000-word chapter with several interwoven vignettes about the character's day-to-day life and spans 7 years of life

This is a 17,000-word chapter on a single traumatic moment that lasts less than ten minutes

[afrofuturiststudent]

27/07/21: last night I somehow forced out a reaaaally rough plan so my chapter is still a mess but will be more organised at some point

[16woodsequ]

I have three questions about writing fanfiction and you’re the best fanfic writer I’ve seen so I’m going to ask them to you if that‘s alright

1. How do you write a lot in chapters, because I never manage to write more than 1k words about the chapter topic

2. How do you stay motivated for writing a long fic?

3. Do you have any tips about how to deal with a large ensemble of characters?

First of all, I'd like to say how happy and honoured I am for this ask! It made me so happy you thought of me. I'll do my best to answer helpfully.

My response ended up being pretty long, to I'll leave it under the cut.

1.

In general, my chapters are between 3k to 6k. I find 4k-5k is a good range for me. Before I talk about writing more in chapters, I think it is important to say that short chapters are not wrong. Short chapters can be wonderful to read!

If you want to work on writing more, I have a few suggestions. First though, the way my writing style works is I go into a story generally knowing the basic plot points, and I write all the chapters first, before I post them. So keep this in mind, since my techniques might need to be adapted for your style.

When starting a chapter, I have what I call the 'bone and meat' method. To write around 5k words, I find each chapter has enough room to explore 3-5 "events". These are the bones of a chapter.

As an example. I will use chapter five of "Alternatively", because I'm guessing you read that one. (If not you can send another ask with some you've read and I can use those).

The bones of this chapter are:

Prelude/set up to Steve learning about Bucky.

Pierce taking Steve to see Bucky

Steve having a breakdown in the elevator

Steve and Tony talking about it

These are the four main things that needed to happen in this chapter. I don't always start a chapter knowing what will happen at the end, but usually by 500 words in, I've figured out what out of my plot points will be happening in the next 5k of words.

When deciding what will be the bones of a chapter, I find I have two systems. Either I give the reader a satisfying cathartic ending, or I leave them in anticipation.

Chapter five is a good example of a mini-arc within a chapter that ends with a satisfying emotional catharsis. If you think of it along a story plotting graph, the prelude is the exposition, Pierce taking Steve to Bucky is the conflict/rising action, Steve's breakdown is the emotional climax of the chapter, and Tony and Steve's conversation is the falling action/resolution.

The ending event of the chapter feels natural, because while the story isn't finished, the emotions and events of the chapter have been tied together and dealt with for the time being.

An anticipatory ending for a chapter would be more like a cliffhanger, and would probably end near the climax of whatever plot points are happening. (Such as chapter 3 of Alternatively, the emotional climax of the chapter hits right at the end.)

So basically, your overall story has rising action and a climax, but if each chapter is roughly outfitted around that too, then it may be easier to write long chapters.

Once you have the bones of a chapter, all you need to do is add in the meat to fill out whatever word count you are aiming for. If you have written the bones of a chapter, but still aren't at a word count you like, then it is simply a case of adding more depth to what is already happening—showing the emotions of the characters, getting into their head, bringing up past events and relating them to what is currently happening, foreshadowing, describing the scene/senses, etc.

Please know that when I'm writing my chapters, I'm not obsessively planning out the steps of a chapter and thinking of all these things constantly. These are just patterns I've noticed after the fact, so they are not hard and fast rules.

2.

As for how I stay motivated for long stories, the thing that works best for me is writing all the chapters before I post the story. I know this system doesn't work for every author (and believe me, sometimes I really want to post), but I find doing so relieves pressure on me, and I don't feel guilty if I don't write a story for weeks or months because I am working on something else.

That being said, for my large Alternate Timeline series, I didn't have time to write all the chapters ahead of time. By the time I was writing The Alternate Handler, I had about a 10 chapter lead.

Things that helped me stay motivated is finding parts of the story that I really wanted to write. I usually write chronologically, so having moments that I knew where coming and I was excited for helped motivate me to continue.

Also, recognising that I sometimes made things harder for myself. Sometimes I'd be stuck on how to finish a scene, or expressing something, and my writing would slow, until I would realise that sometimes things don't need to be written in exact detail. If you don't know how to get a character to walk out of a room, sometimes you can just end the scene there. Unless something is plot relevant, you can write around it, if it is an issue.

Sometimes, if I'm stuck on a story or a chapter, it helps to take a step back and figure out what the actual blockage is. Often it won't be what I think it is. Sometimes it isn't because I don't know how to write it, or I don't know what to write—sometimes I can't write a scene because I haven't seen the movie in a while, and all I need to do is find the battle on youtube and rewatch it. Sometimes it is because I don't know how an engine works, and I need to either look up the information, or make a note of it and move on to another scene.

And sometimes you just gotta clunk out a scene word after word, because once you do, it will be done, and you can always make it better later. You can't edit what isn't written.

3.

Writing Marvel gives me plenty of opportunity to deal with large casts. Generally what happens is I end up focusing on the relationship between a few main characters, while the other characters have less focus.

In my Alternative Timeline series, the relationships between Steve, Bucky, and Tony are the focus.

Of course, this doesn't mean I want to forget about the other members. You'll notice especially in Bucky and Tony's stories that they have secondary relationships with other people like Natasha, Bruce, Clint, Pepper, Peter, and Nebula. These secondary characters get scenes with the main characters too, kind of on a rotational basis.

So first tip is to trim down how many characters you are focusing on, and how many characters are interacting with each other in each scene.

In fics I will often have Thor be away on Asgard, or Clint and Natasha doing missions, etc, so they don't get underfoot.

That being said, there are times like during group meetings, when you can't avoid having everyone in the same room.

In those times, it is important not to forget who is in the room. I will literally count on my fingers, or write down lists of who is supposed to be at the table, so I can remember.

A good example of this on a small scale is Steve's birthday party in chapter 14 of The Alternate Handler. That one has almost every Avenger but Thor sitting in a circle, playing a game. I had specific moments in mind, so I needed to remember who was sitting by who. I wrote down the names in order so I wouldn't forget, and could properly situate people in my head.

An example on a bigger scale is chapter 26 of The Alternate End. In this chapter, the Avengers have a meeting with practically every other character who was there at the final battle.

Yet again, I pare down the cast a little. T'Challa and Shuri aren't there because they are in Wakanda.

To help keep control of the larger group, I start with a vague idea of where everyone is sitting, and then don't go into deeper detail than I have to.

In the scene, we know the Guardians, Peter, and Thor and Loki are all sitting kind of near each other, but I don't specify who is sitting next to who unless I need to.

I also have Tony looking around the table for a few hundred words, seeing each group, and slowly but surely introducing them to the reader. Tony hasn't seen the whole group for a while, so he has a reason to catch the reader up to speed on what has been happening. While he thinks about the life developments of the people around him, the reader starts to get an idea of who is in the room, and their general mood.

A final tip I often use is staggered entrances. If you have a large group, and something Plot Worthy needs to happen when Character A and B talk, then don't have the meeting ready to start right away.

Have some people already sitting, so that your POV character can process them, then have some more people come in, and then some more. (I do this in chapter 19 of The Alternate End, before the time travel jump.)

With a big group, you need time to show what needs to be shown, so give yourself the space to breathe and give the characters the right amount of attention.

I hope these tips and notes were helpful. Feel free to come back with more questions, or details about your own writing style if what I said doesn't work nicely for you!

And remember, these are just tips, not the golden rule.

Have a great day!

[writingmessynaruto]

A Quick Writing Tip

As I’m working on my current WIP, I’ve noticed something that I thought I would share.

Perhaps not everyone struggles with this, but I know I do:

SUMMARY CHAPTERS

They’re the bane of my existence, your existence, and every reader ever. Writers love summary because it’s the easiest way to tell the reader what to think, what conclusion to draw. But they also reveal an underlying problem: those events lack proper development.

For example, if I was writing a story that concerned Sam and Tom’s rough relationship, and I wrote the following:

Over the course of the next year, Tom finally wore down Sam’s patience, and they broke up.

You’d be wondering, “But how did Tom wear down Sam’s patience?” If you were invested in their story, as you should be if I was doing my job as a writer, you would probably want to know more about these two major characters’ breakup. It seems like an important milestone in a story about their relationship.

What does that line really represent in terms of planning? Well, if I wrote that in my draft instead of showing you the process scene-by-scene, that probably means I don’t yet have a solid idea of what exactly led to their breakup. I can’t break down of every interaction between the two that led to the relationship’s end. I can’t point to each moment that further doomed them. And yet, that’s a journey you want to go on as a reader. You don’t want to be told how to feel about these important events. You want to see them happen, experience them for yourself. That’s the whole point of the story: to show you what happened.

Now, that’s not to say all summary is bad. Summary is useful for other things. For example, if at one point I were to reference Tom’s fraught relationship with his mother, who moved away after his parents’ divorce when he was a child, I probably wouldn’t show an in-scene “clip” of Tom the day she moved out. Why? Because it’s likely not vitally important information to a plot taking place in Tom’s adulthood. I might instead allude to it through prose, having Tom recall the painful moment to parallel the similar emotion he feels on the day Sam moves out.

Summary itself is not bad. It is important because you cannot show every moment of each character’s life in-scene. A story is focused and succinct, a snapshot of a particular moment in time. It is manicured and crafted to showcase the most important things in-scene, and the less vital, but still necessary things in summary. You need to allude to a past, you need to worldbuild, you need to set a scene. But don’t forget to actually have a scene, too. Your chapters need action in each one. Just as each paragraph must lead smoothly into the next, so must each chapter keep momentum and transition to the next.

That is why my new rule is this: each chapter I write must have action, and each action must lead into the next chapter. If I am summarizing two weeks worth of vital action in one chapter instead of showing these things happen over the course of multiple chapters, I’m doing something wrong, and I need to revisit my outline. Perhaps one of my characters is suffering from underdevelopment or lacking in concrete motivation. Maybe I’ve encountered a plothole and am trying to cover it up with a generalization. My story’s conflict could be too weak. Whatever it is, when I notice I’ve written only summary, I must stop, investigate, and reevaluate.

[insomniac-arrest]

Creating Tension in Scenes: the Horror Music of Fiction

How to build tension in your writing scenes and keep readers glued to the book and excited for each twist.

Here is my Medium article on building tension in scenes for your writing!

Please leave claps– they help me pay the bills!

[stephwhoawow]

Outlining the chapter: OK so in this chapter A,B, and C will occur in that order. The characters will learn something valuable, develop as a group, and by the end of the chapter the plot will be ready to progress to the next part. I could probably get this done within 10 pages.  Writing the chapter: 40 pages later. T,W,Z, and k happened instead. 12 new characters were introduced. The main characters are still arguing idiots and the plot is at the same exact spot as before. My laptop has caught on fire.