Starting and ending chapters, or where the hell am I supposed to cut it?

By popular request, I shall devulge on this topic. But before I do, let me preface it with an important statement. Everything I'm writing here is NOT the truth, like, I will repeat, it's not, people! I'm a very very green writer, only started writing last year full time, so the things I share here are the things that work for me. They might be completely off the wall and totally immature and very much against the grain of big important writers. There are a gazillion more writers out there better than me, more experienced than me, and such. With this in mind, everything you read (if you read it it all, that is), please take with a grain of salt. I'm sharing my little triumphs, things that worked for me. They might work for you, they might not! The ony thing I know is that I try to simplify my little successes to the point where they seem very easy, to hopefully help you, if you happen to be blocked in that particular spot (that's what I do for myself, simplify things in my head until they are so simple that I'm not scared anymore). If it's not helping, please, throw hot potatoes at me! I don't mind. Just wanted to warn you, that's all. Because I'm about to share with you how I cut up my chapters, and this might not be how it's typically done, but it works for me.

The opening of the chapter is the summary of the chapter. Whereas I have sort of adopted the guideline on the opening of the novel being the summary of the whole novel, going as far as trying my opening sentence to be the summary of the whole novel, in chapters I sort of summarize the whole chapter in the first paragraph. I try to give enough of the space and time and who does what to sketch out what's about to happen, like, setting a stage, then for the rest of the chapter I simply expand on it. For example, right now I'm writing 3rd draft of Rosehead, and the current chapter I'm working on is called The Talking Heads. Oh, wait, I also try to name my chapters in the way that will tell the reader what they're about, like mini stories. Anyway, here is a litle excerpt, where I set the stage but I don't exactly mention what will happen, only hint on it, so that the reader will want to keep reading (hopefully), because in the rest of the chapter I expand on it. So, here is the opening of The Talking Heads: 

"Thud. Lilith heard something heavy fall and something round roll. Again. And again. It took her sleepy brain several minutes to process this information, before her eyelids finally fluttered open. Moon shone into the room, coloring it silver. The sweet stink of the garden acquired an almost metallic tang. Someone breathed laboriously outside, performing what must’ve been a strenuous physical task. Lilith rolled off the bed and crouched by the window, peering from behind the curtain. What she saw froze her to the spot. She didn’t even feel Panther brush her legs and plop his head on the windowsill." 

Start your chapter as close to the end as possible. This is kind of my personal style, though I think I have heard this advice applicable to novels, starting as close to the end as possible. Also, in my screenwriting days, I remember reading about starting in the middle of the action. So, with chapters, I like to dive right into the meat of things. Again, remember, this is what works for me, and not necessarily what would work for you. But at the beginning of the chapter you want to grab your reader. You might have the luxury to slow down a little in the middle, but not much. You have to keep the reader turning the pages, and for that the reader needs to know what the hell is happening. If it's ot clear what's happening, you will lose the reader, and you can't afford that. Every page is precious, every sentence is a hook, at any moment the reader might get interrupted and not get back to your book at all. Treat your chapters like mini stories, with their own beginning, middle, and end, and the hook and the payoff. I found that naming chapters has really helped me define what each chapter is about. In SIREN SUICIDES, my first trilogy, I named chapters according to places where things happened, and it didn't work as well as it's working in ROSEHEAD, where I name chapters according to what happens in them. I stole this idea from Harry Potter.

End your chapter on a cliffhanger. This is my favorite way of ending chapters. Lead that mini story to some sort of a conclusion, then throw in a detail that just begs for a continuation of the story, and stop right there. Bam! You hooked your reader, the reader wants to know what the hell happens next. Well, sometimes I cheat and do a quieter ending of the chapter, when I know I have built enough suspense in the book overall so that I can get away with it, which typically happens closer to the middle. Somebody told me in the past that my approach is a classic one. Whatever they meant, I don't know, classic in what sense? I just like clear beginnings, middles, and ends, maybe that's why I do this, I don't know. But I can't simply cut a story without somehow wrapping it and throwing in a wrench. Here is the ending of chapter 4 of ROSEHEAD, called Through the Arbor, so you can see how I was leading up to chapter 5 (hopefully!):

“Oh, don’t mind her.” As usual, Lilith held her true opinion to herself. “Mothers and daughters historically get on each other’s nerves. She’s just worried about me. Listen, let’s talk about solving the mystery… Let’s talk about… What was it I wanted to talk about… Was it the garden’s mystery… no, it was the mystery’s garden…” She mumbled some more and soon drifted off into dreamless sleep, not knowing that she’ll be rudely awakened in a few hours by wet chopping noises, as if someone was chopping off something with an axe."

In general, the longest chapters I've had were 20 pages, about 5K words each. The shortest 7 pages, about 1.4K words each (I calculate it at about 215-250 words per page). I find that writing shorter chapters works better for me, also because I'm not writing as much fluff anymore. Will it be the same in my future books? Don't know. So far its flowing, and I let it flow as it wants to. Was this helpful to you? Yes? No? Also, what would you like me to blog about next? I got an email from a reader, asking me to blog about naming novels. When to do it, how to do it, etc. I've written a post on how to pick a title for your novel, but I haven't written on when I do it. I shall blog about that next, unless there will be any other suggestion. Happy writing!

NAMING your novel

I've had a very exciting discussion with my boyfriend yesterday, because he told me that... *drumroll* ...he might write a fantasy novel too! Turns out, years before we met, he had this idea while playing WoW, to write about hard core gamers, but never had the time or enough belief in himself to even try. Anyway, we were talking about the premise, the idea, and then the topic of the book's name came up. Which made me think back to a lot of indie books I saw, books that fail to attract people's attention simply because they have not been named properly. Their title is not interesting enough, it doesn't grab people, and I thought back to my branding experience, from my marketing days; thought about my own process of naming books, and, once again, from the light hand of my boyfriend who said I should blog about it, here I am blogging about it. How DO you pick out a title for your book? I'm not a publishing expert, but I did do branding for companies in the past, and it looks like the same principles apply in the publishing business.

It has to be a proper English name or a noun. This is a principle that Marty Neumeier talks in his books, ZAG in particular, one of my favorites on branding. Seth Godin says the same thing. After all, all stories are about characters, or things that act as characters, so you need to get the title of your book as close as you can to a real human name. If you look at the list of all-time best-selling books, you will see A Tale of Two Cities, The Lord of the Rings, The Little Prince, The Hobbit, etc.Notice how they are all nouns, and most describing a certain person, a lord, a prince, a hobbit. Think about Lolita, Harry Potter, Anges and Demons, etc. Now, there are also titles like Twilight. This is a proper noun. There are also exceptions like To Kill a Mockingbird and Gone with the Wind. There are always exceptions to every rule, but since I'm a rookie writer, I will stick to the majority, until I develop enough sense about how to step away from it.

If it's two words, they better be opposite. Okay, this is a bit of a hard concept to explain, but in the simplest terms it goes like this: if you must use two words, which I do in the case of Siren Suicides, combine the words that are typically not used together and come off a bit as a shocker. In my case, a siren is an immortal mythological creature, why on Earth and how would she commit suicide? Doesn't make much sense, but that's exactly why it's grabbing you. You want to know more, it's the first hook of the story, it's also easy to spell and easy to say. Here are other examples. The Da Vinci Code. Why would a painter have a code? Fifty Shades of Grey? That's way too many for such a dull color. The Lovely Bones? How can bones be lovely? Life of Pi? Pi is a number, it can't have a life. There are exceptions to this that are perfectly successful, but I'm not bothering about those right now. I'm going with the general rule for the purpose of this exercise.

The title should have contradiction in it. This is the same idea but turned a bit sideways, in the sense that a certain title just doesn't seem appropriate for the content of the book, yet this is precisely why it's grabbing attention. Let's take a look at Hugh Howey's Wool. How come a sci-fi apocalyptic story can be named something that belongs more in your grandma's cupboard or is sheered off sheep for knitting socks? That's exactly why it's interesting, because it makes you wonder what it's about. Or, look at 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. What kind of a year is that? Where did the number 9 go? Doesn't make any sense, and that is precisely why it's interesting to pick it up and leaf through it in a book store. In this sense, if you have a tale about dragons and call it The Dragon's Tale, I might argue that it's a weak title. It might not have been at the time A Tale of Two Cities was published, but it is now, with the flood of indie books choking Amazon and all other online sites where anyone can write anything, call it a book, and upload it for people to buy. You have to be able to stand out from the crowd, and you have to be smart about it.

The title is the first idea of a story for a reader. It has to be about your story. In a word or two, you have to describe your story, describe what happens there. This is the hardest part, because how can you possibly squeeze your whole book into one word? Into two?!? Or three at the most? You can. Listen to yourself when you tell other people about your book, what is the word you repeat a lot? Before Siren Suicides was Siren Suicides, I wanted to call it Ailen's Song, and still before that Fishy, and even before it... I had several ideas, as you can see. I noticed that when I talked about it, I mentioned the word "suicide" a lot, because this is really what the book is about. You surely have the same, that one word you keep mentioning over and over, that one reason why you write it. That might be a good idea to name your novel.

DISCLAIMER: I have yet to confirm that my assumptions here are true in the publishing business after publishing my books, selling them, and learning from that experience. I also didn't discuss specific genres. This is simply what I'm currently applying to my own book naming process, so hopefully it will help you too.