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Chapter three of Being Christina Chase should be up. It's the first chapter that has any TG content. I talked it over with Holly, and she seems to think I sold the premise. Which is good, cause I went through a lot of trouble, and if you don't buy it, well, then I guess you just won't like the story too much. I think I've done a decent job of allowing the premise to happen. I buy the execution, though I'm not a crossdresser, nor am I transgendered. People are either going to take the leap with me or not at this point. I hope people like it. But, if they don't, well I dunno. What are you gonna do.
So someone posted a comment about chapter two being short. My rule of thumb is 4,500 words is a chapter. Of course, that's a stupid rule, but it's my starting point. In the end, a chapter needs to be a digestible slice of story that actually accomplishes something. Usually, just one thing or a couple related things. In the end, they end up being as long as they need to be. When I first started writing, I wasn't even thinking in terms of chapters, so I had to go back and reorganize things after the fact. When I separated out chapters one and two, chapter one ended up being 7,078 words long, and chapter two was 3,658. So that just throws my 4,500 words rule of thumb out the window.
I guess the point is the chapter dictates how long the chapter needs to be. Also, you decide your own level of participation in Project Mayhem. I remember getting into an argument with one of my grade school teachers who asserted that a paragraph needs to be more than one sentence. I say it can be one. I say a whole chapter could be one sentence, but it'd better be a damned good one.
That said, chapter three clocked in at 8,893 words, mostly because it demanded to be that long. You put all the characters in a room, and they just start talking. At that point, I'm just a stenographer. I try to weed out the stuff that doesn't matter to the story, but sometimes these people won't shut the hell up.
On another note, I just finished the rough draft of chapter 36 and started on chapter 37. Some chapters are much harder to write than others. What's really fun is writing the payoff to things. Unfortunately, you need to write a lot of setup to make the payoffs worthwhile. Normally, you want to interleave stuff so you have new setup going on while you're resolving something else. At this point, I'm bootstrapping the last leg of the story, right after having payoffpalooza, so there's a good deal of thankless setup to be done. Still, there's always nice character moments and stuff like that, but the functional get-us-from-here-to-there chapters don't spring out of the mind like the flashy chapters do.
That's not to say that there are chapters that aren't good, it's just that in the grand scheme of things, while every chapter needs to push the story forward, they end up having different roles. Sometimes I think writing a story arc over the course of episodes would be easier than writing a novel. With linked episodes, you can have an A story and a B story, and still sprinkle in enough to tie them together into an arc. Also, you get a coherent start-to-finish read per episode.
I dunno I'm babbling now. Anyway, I hope people like chapter three, and thanks a bunch to Holly who continues to edit my tripe.
Comments
Chapter
Your teacher was wrong. A paragraph could well be one sentence.
A one sentence chapter might be a stretch, but I'll bet it has been done.
A chapter should start by placing a question in the reader's mind and end by answering that question.
Many current bestsellers have short chapters. The Da Vinci Code has tiny chapters. Some suggest chapters are meant to be placed at a spot where the reader needs a rest. Perhaps Dan Brown thinks readers lack stamina.
I do use word count to check my chapters, but more to question myself than to follow or establish an arbitrary guideline.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Shortest Book Competition?
I agree with Angela. Chapters can be any length you want them to be. They are a tool for you to use. Not a prison to inhabit.
I agree with Erin also. Partially because I would not dare do otherwise and secondly because .... I happen to agree with her.
I am in an agreeing, although not necessarily agreeable, mood today. Put it down to the Spring. I don't expect it will last.
In one of the *Kai Lung stories an ancestor wrote seven volumes which contained all the wisdom of the world. His son condensed that to seven chapters, his son to seven paragraphs and his son to seven sentences. The last descendant was carrying on the family tradition and trying to reduce it to seven words. He was having a rough time of it.
Which brings me, in a rather contrived way, to the length of books.
The one constraint on a book's length would seem to be solely economic. To entice someone to fork out hard cash there must be sufficient volume of content. Thus short stories have to be bundled together. No such restraints apply here however.
I recall that a musical work has been written, and performed, that consisted of silence and am anxious that literature should not seem to appear fuddy duddy in comparison, without perhaps going to the luxury of a blank page.
I propose therefore a shortest book competition. Certain Rules must of course apply. There should be a discernible beginning and an end. A middle which contains intelligent content, a theme .... all the usual things. Empty pages entitled 'Note Book' will not do.
To start the ball rolling I submit the following -
'In the beginning
are the seeds
of the end.'
I have tried, unsuccessfully, to do it with a TG theme.
'In the beginning a boy,
a girl at the end'
But it just doesn't have the necessary content I think.
Any suggestions?
Hugs,
Fleurie
* The Wallet of Kai Lung', 'Kai Lung Unrolls his Mat' etc. by Ernest Bramah. Quite the funniest and most beautifully written books ever.
The kindest cut of all
Born chained in thorns, he was cut free.
She died content.
Xi
[The Old English character 'Y' (actually with a dot resting in the 'cup') as in 'Ye Old Tea Shoppe', is actually pronouned "th"; and is often voiced as "thorn" similar to "zee" or "zed" for "Z"]
I cede the palm.
Dear X1,
I like it!
However, being me, I cannot resist trying to gild the lily.
'Content she died' perhaps? The content would then be more central and the death be at the end thus conforming to the eternal verities etc.
:)
Fleurie
How long is it?
My rule of thumb is a chapter or a short story should be about 3500 words, give or take a few thousand. :)
For me, a chapter is a conceptual unit -- I actually think of longer works in chapters. Well, there's the book or work itself, next smaller is the arc which may be one or several chapters but is usually 3 or 4, and chapters themselves are divided into scenes or vignettes.
An arc often has the structure of a story itself, but not always. Arcs take the action to major turning points in the stories, usually where the characters make some important decision or discovery.
A chapter holds the amount of information I want to group together in the reader's mind and usually ends with a pageturner and begins with a hook, it's analogous to a paragraph. A pageturner is a question or impetus that needs resolution. A hook is a very vivid scene that pulls the reader's consiousness into the story. A pageturner grabs the emotions of the reader, a hook grabs the senses.
A vignette is a mini-story within the story except a vignette is usually just a beginning or just a middle of a story. A scene is a sequence of story built around a particular locale or action.
Another unit is the view, which is used almost entirely in multi-viewpoint or omniscient viewpoint stories to mark changes in the viewpoint character (who the viewpoint character is). This can be used in first person narratives but it's tricky to do that and should not be attempted without a net; ask your editor if she has one. :) A view may be a part of a scene or vignette or may be as long as an arc; it's a contextual unit, not a structural unit.
Since I don't usually outline stories except in my head, these divisions are very fluid until I've got them down in black and white.
After I've written the story, I go back and see if any of the changes in direction the story takes are too abrupt or too slow and I adjust the pace by lengthening or shortening scenes or vignettes, usually by inserting or taking out description. I check for story logic and consistency and I make sure that my hooks and pageturners have the proper amount of grab.
These actions may make the chapters come out very different lengths than my "ideal" 3500 words which they actually usually are while I'm writing. I constantly highlight various sections of the story and check the word count of that section. I don't like an arc to be longer than about one third of the whole work or shorter than 10000 words, and scenes shorter than 300 words or so are going to feel like slamcuts in a movie. Sometimes I want a slamcut or even a series of them, short choppy scenes change the reader's perception of story time.
Changes of view are even more like slamcuts, so I check those to see if they are actually needed for story flow, dramatic intensity or plotting and if they aren't, I rewrite them. This can mean rewriting an entire arc which is a pain and I've usually fixed the problem before I get to rewrite. Either that or abandoned the story.
The things that cause me to abandon stories are usually plotting mistakes. I don't plot much ahead of time, it's my weak point. The three plotting mistakes I generally make I call, "plotting myself over a cliff," "plotting my way to China," and "plotting myself into a tuna can." I'll leave it to you to imagine what I mean by those. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Krunch, You Are Doing Exceptionally Well
...with your story and chapter lengths. If it was up me I would want them longer (In the length range of Queen Rider). What you have written is very very very well done and I say keep going and ignore the one person for the shorter length. I love the pull you are exerting on us as readers drawing us into the tale, accepting the situations. Its gentle, visual and enticing. I love it. Please do not change!!!!
Hugs
Sephrena Lynn Miller
selling the premise
I think you did reasonably well with the evice to get Chris into a dress - I beleive someone else commented that they found it hard to swallow, but all in all, I think its fine. Plus, for me, my guess is that it isn't really the most important detail in this tale. After all, you've got 47 chapters or so still to go.
The way I tend to look at it is that if you're writing a tg sory that doesn't involve magic or sci-fi, and you have a character that wouldn't do this on his own, then your options are limited as far as having something that stands up to a straight faced test. But if your main concern in telling your story is what happens afterword, then it ain't really that important how your character gets into the situation. Sure, losing your wallet, and your luggage, being lost in a remote spot with people who mistake you for a girl, and who, really, really want to help you a bunch doesn't happen all the time, but it could happen....or maybe it could happen....or it might conceivably happen sometime, somewhere... once.
And with that point of the story passed, now you can focus in on the more important parts, like what does chris do now? Somehow, I doubt he'll be able to stick to his intial plan of playing it out for a day or so until he can leave, but whether this is by choice or circumstance, we'll have to see.