Writing help

Strengthening the Underwritten Chapter

The Opening:
This may be longer or shorter depending on how much time has passed since the last chapter, whether there's an atmospheric change, and whether the characters are someplace which has been described before, but it's always worth touching on at least one of these points:
• Where are the characters? Describe something about the place, including at least one sensory detail like smell, temperature, sound, taste. Keep in mind the general feeling you want to give off.
• What are the characters doing? Describe positions throughout the space, general actions. Show emotional states through this, using body language, expressions, relative positioning.
• How does the pov character feel? Set up their internal state through emotions, thoughts, and related actions.

The Initiating Point:
In which some goal is introduced or brought up. This can be anything from an object, to information, to convincing another character of something, to relationship development, etc.

But the protagonist must want something. All other prominent characters should want something as well, though sometimes the things they want are the same as the protagonist, sometimes they're less important to the plot, and sometimes only the writer is aware of them.

The characters set about achieving this goal, through actions and dialogue.

The Rising Tension:
The thing the characters want becomes harder for them to reach. The protagonist is forced to make choices they think will best lead them to this goal, and face consequences for these choices.

If your chapters aren't long enough, the most likely problem is that you're not giving your protagonist enough of a challenge during the rising tension phase. Think about include at least one of these things to heighten the challenge:

• Who or what is physically stopping your protagonist from reaching their goal?
• Which of your protagonist's flaws or conflicting goals are making it hard for them to do what they much to reach the goal?
• What new obstacles can you throw at your protagonist to keep them from it and what bad things can happen to disrupt the progress the protagonist has made?
• What hard choices must your protagonist in order to reach their goal?
• What must the protagonist give up in the process?

Don't forget to include emotions during this segment, not just dialogue and action! Characters react and feel and that's what governs their actions. Leaving the emotional aspects out will produce a scene with feels flat and is too short.

The Climax:
This is the highest point of tension, with the most to gain and the most to loose. The protagonist makes a choice and either gets what they want, or fails so thoroughly they know they will no longer achieve their goal at the present time.

The Falling Tension:
The protagonist either relishes in their spoils for a moment, possibly before a new goal is introduced (either long or short term), or they wallow in their loss, and possibly begin a path towards planning their next move to achieve the old goal or something better.

In this segment you can return to the slower, more contemplative pace of the opening, giving the reader a moment to dwell on what happened and what it means to and for the characters.

More things to consider:
• Most chapters should be between 2k and 5k words, but this will vary drastically between genres and individual chapters.

• Unless you're writing a children's book or using chapter length for experimental purposes, you should not have more than one or two chapters under 1k words, and hopefully not many below 2k words. (Short chapters help the reader move quickly through the book but you must provide enough time to ground them in a scene.)

• When cutting a scene into two separate chapters, the best place to end the first chapter is generally during the second half of the rising tension.

• Sometimes it works fine to cut off the wrapping up segment and apply the 'wrapping up' basic concepts to the next chapter's opening section. This is especially the case when you've had a few extremely tense scenes/chapters in a row and are now preparing to have a less tense chapter to give the reader a break.

• Not all chapters/scenes must follow the above pattern!!!! It's a guideline that's extremely helpful for giving you chapters which flow well and have just the right amount of meat in them, but it's still just a guideline.