McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
The Accountable Writing Bar for bragging rights or sympathy hugs...
Kali:
For me, it's about the rhythm. There's a certain... moment when I know I want that pause. I can tell in the re-read. I say this with the caveat that I do NOT put in chapter breaks until it's fully written. I put in a double-space to indicate I know there's a pause or a passage of time, like overnight, but I don't make it an official chapter break. After it's done, I read, figure out what scenes need adding or trimming, do that rewrite, and then I look for places where the chapter breaks seem natural.
Sometimes they're where I knew they would be, but after putting in scenes and taking out others, I can end up with very awkward chapters. Then I end up having to re-sort out where all the breaks are. It's annoying, so now I don't do it until I'm done with the major edit.
Starbeam:
--- Quote from: Kali on June 19, 2011, 02:55:05 PM ---For me, it's about the rhythm. There's a certain... moment when I know I want that pause. I can tell in the re-read. I say this with the caveat that I do NOT put in chapter breaks until it's fully written. I put in a double-space to indicate I know there's a pause or a passage of time, like overnight, but I don't make it an official chapter break. After it's done, I read, figure out what scenes need adding or trimming, do that rewrite, and then I look for places where the chapter breaks seem natural.
Sometimes they're where I knew they would be, but after putting in scenes and taking out others, I can end up with very awkward chapters. Then I end up having to re-sort out where all the breaks are. It's annoying, so now I don't do it until I'm done with the major edit.
--- End quote ---
^ This. I do almost the exact same thing. There are some places where I *know* I'll put a chapter break, and others where I'm not certain.
Easiest way to figure out chapters is to read other books and see how they're done there. The main thing to remember is that you want to end the chapter and make the reader want to turn the page.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
I do one chapter == one consistent scene almost always. That seems to work OK.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
I can tell I've let posting here slide when the author timecard thread times out.
Not that I've had much done recently. Two out of the past four weeks I got nothing done at all, from a combination of massive work overload, helping family move house, and an unpleasant infestation in the apartment; last weekend I got nothing done because it was Fringe and I needed a break for sheer sanity maintenance. (It got me oysters, and commedia del'arte, and Aeschylus. This helped.)
Two holiday weekends coming up, though, which means lots of writing time. And at the moment I am working on line edits on an older project, which have reached the difficult stage that the interested party wants to fix things that I knew were wrong with it when I put it down and would have fixed then if I could, while I am on fire with a newer project I am pretty sure is better but that's not a priority to anyone not me, so.
edit status: seven chapters have had initial pass, out of a total of thirty plus five plus epilogues. Some small things and one big thing fixed. task looks really daunting from here.
jeno:
Hey! It's Neuro!
Welcome back~ :D
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