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mary rosenblum
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Hello all.
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mary rosenblum
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Welcome to our Friday After
Hours forum
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mary rosenblum
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I figured chapters was a good
topic for tonight, considering how many new novel students we have...
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mary rosenblum
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and a lot of what makes a
chapter work applies to the short story scene, too. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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I hope you're all enjoying
spring sunshine. We're having a very unseasonable amount of sun, here in
the Northwest.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. We're talking about chapters
tonight. I've published seven novels (number eight will be out next year) ,
more than 60 short stories, and will do my best to answer any questions you
have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a
Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the
top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't
reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send
bar if that works better for you..
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mary rosenblum
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Chapters drive everybody
crazy.
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mary rosenblum
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When I finally decided that I
really had to quit writing JUST short stories and tackle a novel...
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mary rosenblum
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they drove ME crazy.
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mary rosenblum
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Nowhere could I find any
instruction manual. How long? How many? What makes a chapter a chapter?
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mary rosenblum
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I was a very new writer and
pretty insecure and I wanted someone to give me some concrete answers.
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mary rosenblum
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Well...if wishes were
horses...
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mary rosenblum
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Chapters are merely convenient
breaks that are named or numbered to make them easy to find...
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mary rosenblum
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when your mom finds your face
down book on the sofa and closes it.
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mary rosenblum
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Instead of having to find your
place in 380 pages of unbroken print, you only have to find chapter three
and hunt through those...
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mary rosenblum
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5 or 10 or 20 pages for your
lost place.
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mary rosenblum
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They give readers potty breaks
and sandwich and cigarette breaks.
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mary rosenblum
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And they make it easy to shift
POV or time or place.
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mary rosenblum
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They're pretty much whatever
you want them to be in terms of length.
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mary rosenblum
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They can be five pages long
and you can have 70 chapters in your book.
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mary rosenblum
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They can be one line long.
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mary rosenblum
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They can be 60 pages long
(although your readers may get restless, especially if they are drinking a
supersize Coke while reading).
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mary rosenblum
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I have never had an editor ask
me to change chapter length, although I have heard editors say on panels...
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mary rosenblum
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that they prefer this or that
length. It does not seem to be a 'sale or no sale' issue.
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mary rosenblum
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But it's not a matter of
simply taking a magic marker, dividing your page count by say, ten, and
marking Chapter One, Chapter Two, and so on at the start of each section.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. We're talking about chapters
tonight. I've published seven novels (number eight will be out next year) ,
more than 60 short stories, and will do my best to answer any questions you
have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a
Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the
top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't
reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send
bar if that works better for you..
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andi
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i read one book they skipped
chapter 13 because one of the characters thought 13 was bad luck
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mary rosenblum
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I could see an author doing that.
:-) You can make chapters do all kinds of odd things...
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mary rosenblum
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just for effect.
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mary rosenblum
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Whatever your editor will let
you get away with.
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mary rosenblum
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But artistic effects aside,
chapters do have a structure, and that structure does help keep readers
engaged with your novel.
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speckledorf
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As new writers, I think we want
those concrete answers though. About scenes, chapters, plots, number of
subplots and even why my story was rejected. But aren't most of these
subjective as to what works for the story?
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mary rosenblum
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Mostly. Chapter length will
have to do more with you and how you write. Each of us has a 'natural scene
length'...
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mary rosenblum
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that will tend to pace our
chapters.
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mary rosenblum
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You'll simply find that most
of the time, your scenes will tend to be of a similar length.
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tory
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I tend to use chap. breaks when
there is a long skip of time (days or weeks). Other than that, can you talk
about the advisability of making each chap. end with a cliff-hanger-type
scene. Feels manipulative to me, but...?
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mary rosenblum
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Yeah, if every chapter ends
with a cliffhanger it feels contrived very quickly. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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But chapters do have a
dramatic arc, just as stories do. Think of them as mini short stories...
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mary rosenblum
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but without a story's closure.
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mary rosenblum
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Generally a chapter starts at
a low point, rises to a small dramatic peak, then transitions to the next
chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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That might be a highly
dramatic transition (a cliffhanger), a shift in time/place/POV, or just a
transition.
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robastor
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I find swtiching between sets of
characters make for good chapters.
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mary rosenblum
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Yes, but beware of switching
POV with EVERY chapter, rob. You need to give your readers time to bond
with your POV characters. If...
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mary rosenblum
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we only get so many pages in
this POV and then jump out of it, you may prevent your readers...
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mary rosenblum
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from caring about any of your
characters at all.
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mary rosenblum
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Often you need to let your
reader hang with this character for two or three chapters before you bounce
out of his/ her pov again.
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geezer
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Would that hold for very long
chapters too? 23 pages
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mary rosenblum
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You're probably going to want
to stick with that POV for more than one chapter at times, geeze.e
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mary rosenblum
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I got a question from someone
who couldn't be here tonight.
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mary rosenblum
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Yes, just what does make up a
chapter? We've been writing 3k for our BIP assignments, is a chapter more
or less the same thing...a scene/short story within a single chapter
following the same building blocks which will escalate towards a chapter by
chapter climax? And can the climax be something as minimal as, say, a
verbal fight?
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mary rosenblum
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Yes, that's pretty much it.
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mary rosenblum
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It's a single scene or maybe
two very short scenes with a dramatic arc. Each...
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mary rosenblum
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chapter takes you one step
closer to the climax somehow.
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mary rosenblum
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It is a good idea, even if you
are in a subplot, to make some connection to your main plot in every
chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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I have read books where the
author had several very strong subplots and forgot to touch base..
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mary rosenblum
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with the main plot. After
awhile, the main plot faded into the subplots and it became hard to recall
what the main story was about.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. We're talking about chapters
tonight. I've published seven novels (number eight will be out next year) ,
more than 60 short stories, and will do my best to answer any questions you
have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a
Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the
top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't
reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send
bar if that works better for you
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mary rosenblum
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It's a good idea to make sure
that at least one character does or says something to remind your
readers...
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mary rosenblum
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of what the main thrust of
this story is, in ever chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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And you don't need a huge
dramatic peak...save that for your climax.
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mary rosenblum
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It might be nothing more than
two characters having a short, sharp argument.
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mary rosenblum
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A piece of information
critical to the main plot is revealed during that argument...
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mary rosenblum
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thus connecting that scene to
the main plot and reminding the reader of it.
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mary rosenblum
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What you do want to avoid is a
chapter that simply goes on.
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mary rosenblum
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By that I mean it starts with
action begun in the last chapter and ends with the same action continuing
on.
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mary rosenblum
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Nothing interferes with it, no
conflict heightens the tension...
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mary rosenblum
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we simply have a flat line of
action.
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mary rosenblum
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Not particularly good.
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mary rosenblum
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It's also a good idea...
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mary rosenblum
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to change POV at the chapter
break if possible.
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foxx
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I am reading a book with 1-2
page chapters and very long chapters broken into subshapters with spaces.
No apperent reason and I find it hard to follow.
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mary rosenblum
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NOt everything works. Is there
a lack of continuity between chapters, foxx?
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mary rosenblum
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It is a bump to the readers
when they hit a chapter break.
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mary rosenblum
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One thing you can do is to use
a very short chapter...
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mary rosenblum
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to add emphasis to a brief
scene.
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mary rosenblum
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Say your chapters are normally
15 - 20 pages long.
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mary rosenblum
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The main character is about to
do one act that is going to have profound effects on the plot.
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mary rosenblum
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You can write that paragraph
or so and set it off as a chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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That is the equivalent of
turning a spotlight on that action.
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mary rosenblum
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THIS IS IMPORTANT you
proclaim.
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foxx
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It is all the same- the chapters
and subs. No continuity. I don't know enoughto explain what I mean well.
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mary rosenblum
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I"m not quite sure what
you mean...unless there's no dramatic arc (hard to do with that short a
chapter) .
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mary rosenblum
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One of the thriller
writers...darn, his name escapes me...is using very short chapters...
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mary rosenblum
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but he's doing it to increase
the sense of tension and pace -- presenting the story in brief glimpses
that flash past.
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mary rosenblum
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flash...flash...flash...flash...
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mary rosenblum
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giving a sense of speed.
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mary rosenblum
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In general, shorter chapters
will make the pace seem faster, longer chapters will make the pace seem
slower, but that's a very large generalization.
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mary rosenblum
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Depends, too, on what you put
into the chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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A chapter's length alone isn't
going to make your novel read fast or slow.
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mary rosenblum
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And you can have more than one
scene in a chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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I tend to prefer to keep
chapters to one scene...
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mary rosenblum
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so that I don't have to add a
scene break within a chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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But you can have more than one
scene in a chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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I've found that it's a good
idea to end a chapter with something that will clearly continue.
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mary rosenblum
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Not only will it make it
easier for you when you're writing it...you'll be motivated to keep
going...
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mary rosenblum
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but it does the same thing for
the reader...motivates them to keep reading.
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wolf122
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Would you suggest using scene
breaks within a chapter to switch viewpoints back and forth, as a good way
to create 'speed' in a chapter?
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mary rosenblum
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I wouldn't wolf. It's less
likely to create speed than to create a choppy and fragmented chapter
that's hard to follow.
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mary rosenblum
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YOu have a big break between
chapters. Adding scene breaks is often not the best choice.
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tory
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Mary, scene changes within a
chapter--is that when we leave extra lines, or should we put asterisk(s) in
a blank line? Not sure if one signals POV shift or not.
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mary rosenblum
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Any time you do a scene
change: time/place/or POV, you leave a blank line. The asterisk * tells the
editor that you MEANT to leave the blank line.
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mary rosenblum
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You'd be amazed how often that
blank line falls at the bottom of the page.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. We're talking about chapters
tonight. I've published seven novels (number eight will be out next year) ,
more than 60 short stories, and will do my best to answer any questions you
have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a
Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the
top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't
reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send
bar if that works better for you
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charie'
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How many scene breaks in a
chapter are too many?
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mary rosenblum
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Well, Charie, I really try not
to use any scene breaks in a chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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If my character is going to
shift to another place or even another time, I'll do a verbal transition
rather than an abrupt break.
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mary rosenblum
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I feel that you get a
smoother, tighter flow if you keep abrupt scene breaks out of your
chapters.
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mary rosenblum
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Break AT the chapter end.
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tory
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Mary, when you say end a chapter
with something that will clearly ocntinue...you mean a conversation, a
battle, a lunch, etc? Break chapter mid-action?
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mary rosenblum
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Not necessarily something like
that, tory, but perhaps start a chain of actions that will end in the next
chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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Marianne decides to go to the
store. She grabs her car keys and calls the kids.
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mary rosenblum
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In the next chapter, we might
open with Marianne parking in front of the Stop N Shop.
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mary rosenblum
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One temptation is to end the
chapter with everybody going to bed.
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mary rosenblum
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That sort of stops things
solidly.
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mary rosenblum
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I pay a lot of attention to
the pace of the novel and the flow of the story...
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mary rosenblum
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and you have a much smoother
flow if actions begin before the chapter end and end in the next chapter.
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andi
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what about a chapter ending when
a car driver is pushed off the road and blacks out the next chapter starts
when she wakes up
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mary rosenblum
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That's a perfectly good one.
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mary rosenblum
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We want to know if she came
out okay!
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mary rosenblum
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That's a very dramatic end
that propells the reader into the next chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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And...here's a trick...if you
want to leave one character stuck in a particular situation...
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mary rosenblum
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and pick him up later...
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mary rosenblum
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you can end the chapter with
that character in the static situation...sitting in jail or locked up in
her bedroom or what have you...
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mary rosenblum
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and readers will mentally
'see' that character in that situation until you bring readers back to
him/her.
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mary rosenblum
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So it creates a sense of time
passing for that character.
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tory
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I get it about breaking during a
sequence, and have done that. (Whew. Somehing right1) If you are skipping a
long period of time--say summer to Thanksgiving is the "bad"
chapter break wrapping up some activity okay, or better to have chap. end
with MC thinking about or making plans for TG, then break and go to TG?
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mary rosenblum
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You'd probably be better off
letting the MC notice the Thanksgiving stuff as she gets the Halloween
decorations out of the cupboard and ...
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mary rosenblum
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think about that trip she's
going to make as she gets ready to carve the pumpkin.
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mary rosenblum
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If you then start the next
chapter with her arriving in a sleet storm with the...
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mary rosenblum
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required pumpkin pie on the
back seat...we know right where/when we are.
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mary rosenblum
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Hmmm..I did not mean to put
pumpkins in both those scenes, LOL.
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mary rosenblum
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I probably wouldn't do
that...you might confuse a few sloppy readers.
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tory
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Clever the way the pumpkin made
the transition, too. You're good, Mary1
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mary rosenblum
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More like not paying
attention, Tory. LOL
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. We're talking about chapters
tonight. I've published seven novels (number eight will be out next year) ,
more than 60 short stories, and will do my best to answer any questions you
have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a
Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the
top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't
reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send
bar if that works better for you
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mary rosenblum
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The key always, is keep the
reader and the story moving forward.
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mary rosenblum
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Now if you shift dramatically
at your chapter break...
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mary rosenblum
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you go to another time,
another place, another POV...
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mary rosenblum
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remember that you need to
answer those key questions in the first paragraph: what/where/when?
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mary rosenblum
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Find some way to show the
readers where we are, whose POV we're in, and how this time relates to the
time of the previous scene.
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mary rosenblum
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Is it later, much later, a
flashback?
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mary rosenblum
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Let's use our Halloween to
Thanskgiving transition.
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mary rosenblum
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Our POV has gone from city
apartment to suburban home in nearby Ohio.
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mary rosenblum
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Kerry pulled up in front of
the old white farmhouse just as the sleet started falling in earnest. Ohio
was ugly in November. Frozen stalks of...
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mary rosenblum
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brussels sprouts rattled in
Mom's garden out back and the bare trees seemed to claw the sky. Shielding
the required pumpkin pie...
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mary rosenblum
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she bolted for the front
porch.
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mary rosenblum
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Kerry/Ohio/Thanksgiving
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mary rosenblum
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Last we saw her she was in
Pennsylvania and it was October.
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beryl
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RE: What if the action is
building and some mundane actions (getting dressed etc) must take place...would
that justify * break?
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mary rosenblum
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You're better off
transitioning through 'em, beryl.
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mary rosenblum
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Let's say you have to get your
character showered, dressed, and off to the office and the next plot event.
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mary rosenblum
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Darin showered and dressed in
record time, grabbed a coffee from the corner kiosk and caught the 7:45
bus, praying he'd get there before Jenna.
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mary rosenblum
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Or... The afternoon crawled by
and Darin tried desperately not to keep glancing at the clock. He was out
the door as the clock struck six and made it home in record time.
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mary rosenblum
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That takes care of your entire
afternoon and gets him home in one sentence.
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mary rosenblum
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Using that skipped line is
always a bump to the reader.
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mary rosenblum
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Think about those speed bumps
you drive over.
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mary rosenblum
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Like that
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. We're talking about chapters
tonight. I've published seven novels (number eight will be out next year) ,
more than 60 short stories, and will do my best to answer any questions you
have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a
Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the
top of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't
reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send
bar if that works better for you
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mary rosenblum
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One thing I see a lot in novel
chapters written by novice writers...
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mary rosenblum
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are chapters with no dramatic
arc.
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mary rosenblum
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The characters simply go from
here to there.
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beryl
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Perfect, thanks Mary I just
looked at my novel and could see how well it would work
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mary rosenblum
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Good, beryl. You can get rid
of a lot of unnecessary and boring actions with a few transitions like
that.
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mary rosenblum
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I really work on pace and I
snip out any action that doesn't advance the plot
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charie'
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Flashbacks can reveal important
info, how do you keep them from taking focus from your main plotline?
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mary rosenblum
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Keep them small, charie.
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mary rosenblum
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When I get lost is when I've
maybe had a chapter or two to get to know the POV and suddenly we drop into
three chapters of vivid flashback. By the end of the three chapters...
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mary rosenblum
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I've forgotten the original
world, I'm totally invested in this world, and when I get yanked back to
the...
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mary rosenblum
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'here and now' of the novel, I
feel cheated.
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charie'
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Can it make the chapter choppy
with too many changes of POV?
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mary rosenblum
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Yes. I really would not change
POV within the chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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You're much better off
changing POV at the chapter breaks.
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forest elf
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One way I learned to tell if it
has too much unnecessary stuff is try to write a synopsis on it. If you
have nothing interesting in the synopsis, then you probably have too much
boring or unnecessary stuff.
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mary rosenblum
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That's a good point, elf.
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mary rosenblum
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It's a very useful execise, by
the way, to write a synopsis for each chapter of your novel.
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mary rosenblum
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It will sure show you which
ones belong.
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mary rosenblum
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Remember...chapters really
need to conform to the Rule of Three:
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mary rosenblum
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Each one should: Advance the
plot.
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mary rosenblum
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Deepen the characterization
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mary rosenblum
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Enrich the setting.
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mary rosenblum
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(Remember this from Clarion,
Charie?)
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charie'
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Does a flashback constitute
change of POV?
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mary rosenblum
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Not unless it IS a change of
POV :-0
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mary rosenblum
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If you're in Carolyn's POV and
she falls into a flashback about a dog attack when she was a kid...
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mary rosenblum
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you're in Carolyn's POV in
both scenes.
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mary rosenblum
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It's a small change in that
one Carolyn is an adult and one is a child from the past.
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mary rosenblum
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But it's essentially the same
POV
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info
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I have a question regarding the
end of chapter accident/next chapter mc is waking up. If you have a scene
that takes place at the begining of novel or chapter that starts with an
accident and the next scene is where that person is waking up, you wouldn't
start the next chapter after a three page scene, would you? Seems to me
that I would want to transition the two and continue on with the chapter.
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mary rosenblum
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Yeah, you'd have to see where
it fit, info.
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mary rosenblum
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If she has an accident and
wakes up fifteen minutes later and you're on page three of the chapter...
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mary rosenblum
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you'd just do a scene break.
Skip a line.
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mary rosenblum
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Nothing is always or never.
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mary rosenblum
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While scene breaks within a
chapter can make them bumpy, sometimes...as with this example...you need to
use them.
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mary rosenblum
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If she hits that tree at the
end of the chapter...then you can start the next chapter with her waking
up.
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geezer
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I'm depressed. I worked so hard
to streamline may "chase" scene. Give it punch. The critique
group says it is too fast. Slow it down. Agh!
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mary rosenblum
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Well, everybody see saws from
one side of that fence rail to the other...or your group might not be
giving you good advice. YOu have to decide
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lavinia
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would you define a scene please,
lavinia
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mary rosenblum
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Sure lavinia...good question,
too!
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mary rosenblum
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A scene is a sequence of
unbroken action with a single POV character.
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mary rosenblum
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It can cover an hour, a
minute, a day...as long as we follow this character through his or her
actions, it's a scene.
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mary rosenblum
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IF we suddenly shift to the
next day...that's a new scene.
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mary rosenblum
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If we suddenly shift to a new
POV...that's a scene
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mary rosenblum
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If we suddenly shift to a
different place...that's a scene.
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mary rosenblum
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A chapter can be one scene
(most of mine are)...
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mary rosenblum
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or you can use more than one
scene.
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mary rosenblum
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Any last questions before we
run through out Oregon hour?
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info
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would it still be a different
scene if the mc is in transit to another place detailing thoughts/actions
or would it be the same scene
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mary rosenblum
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Yeah it tends to become a new
scene if your MC say, goes to the office from home, even if we listen to
him...
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mary rosenblum
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mutter to himself the whole
way there.
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mary rosenblum
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Usually new people and new
events make this seem different than the previous time at home.
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geezer
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How many lambs did you end up
with?
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mary rosenblum
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Nine so far, geeze. :-)
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tory
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What happens to your lambs,
Mary? Wool?
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mary rosenblum
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They're suffolk, Tory. I'm
afraid the boys end up on dinner tables. The ewes will go for breeding.
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mary rosenblum
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Well, this been a fun Oregon
hour and my dogs have their legs crossed. I need to go take them out.
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mary rosenblum
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Do join us Sunday evening for
our regular get together.
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mary rosenblum
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No topic, just fun chat about
writing.
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mary rosenblum
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Have a good weekend all.
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mary rosenblum
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I'll post the transcripts in
the usual place
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mary rosenblum
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Writing Craft: Forum
Transcripts
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mary rosenblum
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Good night!
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