Besides sharing my writing with anyone, let alone an editor, one of the big things I struggled with as I approached my second novel was figuring out what made a chapter. When should I cut the scene off? What dialogue needs to be here? Do I need a full scene of just chatting for you to know the characters’ relationship or can I just allude to it in internal narrative?
My first round of writing was alright. As we got to Act 2, however, my editor made statements like, “this part here feels like the beginning of the next chapter, rather than the middle of this one,” or “what’s actually happening here besides a visual description of the house?” (Yes. I had a chapter of my MC walking through the house, looking in all the rooms and reacquainting herself with it (she’s been away for 12 years) while also providing clues on what the family was like. It’s the first draft, mistakes happen.)
She then went on to say that what a chapter needs is a goal and you need to decide if that goal is accomplished or not, which resonated with me. After the call, I did a little bit of research and what I found out and how I implemented it made my life SO MUCH EASIER (I’m shouting because it was the holy grail of book structure for me. Well, the second holy grail. The first was POV, which I’ll cover in a separate post).
I’m a plantser. I plot out my story to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B. And sometimes I stick to that plan. Mostly, I tweak it as I write it, since great ideas normally come to me when I am actively writing, rather than just thinking about my writing. Before that call and my research, I wasn’t really plotting my chapters out and that’s where I went wrong (in my own process). My chapters were just scenes I thought I needed for context and plot, instead of scenes that were crafted and constructed to move the story along.
So here it is. My version of how to plot a chapter so that your reader doesn’t stop and ask themselves what the point of it all is (there are lots of different ways and images online for this, but this is my version):
1. Goal: Set up the goal your character has for this chapter. This is a mini-goal within the larger plot. It could be connecting with family, or getting information, or defeating the big bad in an unexpected way. Whatever it is, it does need to be connected with either setting up the plot, moving the plot forward, or addressing one of your themes (you should have a main theme and subthemes). But it doesn’t need to be big. It can be small or personal to your character.
2. Path to that goal: How is your character achieving that goal (or at least how do they think they are)? Are they calling up their family member, setting up a game of cards and manipulating the conversation around to the topic, or storming the castle? Whatever the path is to the goal, it has to be something that the MC thinks is achievable.
3. Obstacle to that goal: There needs to be an encounter, something that happens to challenge your MC in achieving their goal. Maybe the phone line is down. Maybe the person refuses to discuss what you want to hear. Maybe the castle is locked down tighter than Alcatraz and you can’t find a way in. Make the obstacle relevant not only to the goal but also to the realm of possibilities your character could stumble upon.
4. Crisis or Climax: Is the goal achieved or does the MC walk away defeated? If connection is the goal and the phone lines are down, it’s most likely a Crisis. If the person sits with you, plays a game with you, doesn’t want to talk about it, but you persuade them otherwise, it’s a Climax. If the big bad’s fortress is impenetrable and you have to come back another day, it’s a Crisis. Whatever you decide, you want to give the reader a conclusive decision at the end as to whether the goal was achieved or not.
These are the four main ways to look at plotting out a chapter. Because I love spreadsheets – I know I’ve mentioned it before – I created one and used it to plot out my chapters to make sure each one had the four levels of chapter arc contained within them. I did add another column to help keep me on track – Additional Themes. This column captures the themes discussed, the facts I needed to show up, the other layers of plot, conflict, theme or subtheme that I planned to have in that chapter to make the book that much deeper. But you don’t need to add these details if it is not helpful.
So here is my spreadsheet for my current WIP:
While spreadsheets may not be everyone’s thing (use whatever tools work for you), just figuring out the goal of each chapter made writing my book better, cleaner, and easier. For example, when I looked at the earlier chapters with that lens, I realized so much of it needed to go. If the chapter goal was to get her settled into the house, why does she need to go into each room and describe what she sees? She doesn’t. Can’t she achieve that goal by unpacking her stuff and encountering the rooms as she comes to them? Yes, she can. When I get to revisions, I’ll be cutting that chapter down to the bare bones. I will gleefully kill my darlings because there is absolutely no reason to include them in my book.
What tools do you use when plotting out your book? Do you use chapter arcs or story grids? Sound off in the comments below.