A Curious Question...

[apollinav]

How do you prefer to organize your chapters?

I ask because my brain is ticking over this.

Chapter 8 of TGC is short. I knew it was short (1,200 words or so) and I didn't care to make it longer, because that would be filling it with fluff. Originally it was merged with the previous 'wedding' chapter, but I separated them. Personally I like my chapters to be organized in 'full and complete thoughts' like one would an essay or dear god, a thesis... (I suck at cliffies for that very reason)

But a keen AFF reviewer challenged my thought process on this. I see her point, it's the same day. And it's good mental chew.

So I pose the eternal question, one that has probably been batted back and forth forevah:

How do you prefer to organize your chapters?

Comments

[ozratbag2.livejournal.com]

*wanders past - friends you if you don't mind?*

(I suck at cliffies for that very reason)

I beg to differ - you're bloody good at cliffies. Kept me going for 17 chs all in a row, and that's good in my book. :)

How do you prefer to organize your chapters?

If it's a short piece, then I actually write the whole thing as one long story and then break it up, move bits around, edit as I go - that sort of thing. For the longer stories...

If narrative/dialogue, then I tend to write it chapter by chapter and end each chapter discretely. It gives me a starting and finishing point, but it also gives me a way of being able to close off and give a transition to the next chapter. Not sure if that makes sense, but there you go. ;p

For the very long epistolary, I write forwards, backwards - in fact all over the shop. I did that to try and keep the continuity with all the different points of view (there are 6 characters writing). Once it changed to dialogue/narrative, I *points up* followed the whole thing sequentially.

To cut it short - write the way that works, no matter if people tell you if it's wrong or right.

Happy Hanukkah. :)