Hey everyone,
I've been trying to get another chapter of The Opposing Fates posted, but I seem to be having an internal dilemma with how many scenes would be appropriate for the chapter. So far, I have three scenes which work well together and help develop my plot a little too, but if I leave it at that, my chapter will be painfully short (less than 2000 words...). On the other hand, however, if I start introducing other scenes, I might just make the chapter too confusing and choppy to read and understand fully...
I need help! Please?
Comments
Just a suggestion...
Post the short chapter. Then focus on the next one. We've (probably) all done it. Sometimes the story demands it. Maybe this is one of those times.
Wren
or...
read what you wrote again sometimes adding a few details at certain points makes it alot longer.
Ie.. originally wrote. she looked down at the floor.
becomes she looked longingly down at the marble brocade floor in an attempt to hide her blistering red face from his view.
Numbers Not Important, Continuity Is
The number of scenes in any given chapter is not at all important. What is critical is the tread that holds them together. A character or an action whose presence or discussion of can be that consistent thread of continuity, linking one scene to the next, culminating in either a crisis or a resolution or an 'Oh my God! I didn't see that coming,' moment in the very last scene.
Fiction is an exercise in creative writing, not a formulaic equation. So be creative.
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
This is so very true!
Not to say that you can't use formulaic tools to help you in the creative process (my opinion) but writing (and telling a story) IS a creative process, and your tools should not get in the way of the creativity!
Anne
A couple choices...
You have a couple choices... and your first one probably should be to completely ignore this post!
2,000 words IS short - if you look at trade paperbacks and the like. (I don't know how many words your chapters have averaged....) I did a rough survey count of ten books by three of my favorite authors, and their chapters tended to be in the 5,000 word range, with a low of about 4,500 and a high of about 7,000. Then, to give myself a reality check (I wondered if, perhaps, one of the things I liked about these authors was their chapter length... LOL) I grabbed three more books by other authors (1 I disliked and two I'd never read) and found they fit that ruler fairly well.
I've noticed that chapter length here seems to be shorter than out in the dead tree world.
Another thing I noticed - when I did that survey - there was more variation in absolute chapter lengths - than in average chapter lengths. That is - There was one chapter that was only 3,500 words when the rest of the book was more like 5,500 words / chapter... And, another book had one very long chapter.
So - there is precedent for an anomalous chapter length in a book - that got by dead tree publishers.
But to your story and your question. That's where the choices lay.
1) Post as is
2) Look for "gaps" and fill them in
3) Ask an "editor" (not a proofer).
I'll examine each and provide my thoughts:
1) Post as is. This speaks for itself. Basically you decide it's okay and go on.
2) Look for "gaps". In my experience it's not uncommon, even for experienced authors, to leave out important bits of information. They KNOW what's going to happen, so for them, the info is there. The readers, on the other hand, probably are missing some of this. Look for things that you may have left out. Some things I've found include: Scene to Scene glue - the stuff that lets you move from one scene to the next smoothly. If the PoV doesn't change, sudden "jumps" of scene without a transition can be disconcerting to readers. If the PoV DOES change, the discontinuity is, or can be, expected... But, the change in PoV must be made clear.
3) Editor. By an editor - I mean someone who you trust to tell you whether your story is complete or if you're leaving stuff out. This is NOT (necessarily) the person who proofreads for you. A good editor can ask you questions that point to something you've left out (I can recall a time where an author I was working with ended up needing to write three more chapters! She'd just wanted to get to the "fun stuff" in the story. That said - once they were written and in place she and other readers agreed that the story held together much better than the shorter version would have.)
There's no hard and fast "rule" for how many scenes a chapter should hold. Something I do is I just write, ignoring "chapter" boundaries - until I'm well past where I know a chapter should have ended. I pick an "average" word count I think will work for my story (let's use the above 5,000 average for discussion). I then write about 30% more than that (to about 6,500+ words in this case). I find my target word point - and then I look for a good "logical" break point - sometimes it's a scene ending, sometimes it's the end of a time frame, sometimes it's just before some Major event, whatever. I look back about 5,000 words and forward up to where I've gotten. I identify several potential breaks and choose the one I think fits best. Then, I set it aside and take up writing some more - getting to about half way through the "next chapter" - just in case - to insure I've picked the best point. This works for me.
Good Luck,
Anne