{"id":2905,"date":"2015-04-06T04:06:54","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T04:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Jack-M-Bickham-Scene-and-Structure-Chapter-13-The-structure-of-chapters"},"modified":"2015-04-06T04:06:54","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T04:06:54","slug":"jack-m-bickham-scene-and-structure-chapter-13-the-structure-of-chapters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/2015\/04\/06\/jack-m-bickham-scene-and-structure-chapter-13-the-structure-of-chapters\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack M. Bickham, Scene &amp; Structure, Chapter 13: The structure of chapters."},"content":{"rendered":"\n        \n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jack M. Bickham, <em>Scene &amp; Structure<\/em>, Chapter 13: The structure of chapters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chapters are arbitary, a convention descending from the days of serial publication. There is no set length, though keeping the length fairly consistent within a book is good practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, if you don&#8217;t want the reader to put the book down, make sure they can&#8217;t do so at the end of a chapter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best place to end a chapter is at the end of a scene, i.e. with the disaster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second-best is in the middle of the conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can also use the middle of the thought process of the sequel, where there seems no way out; at the decision point; at the beginning of new action, before a conflict starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There&#8217;s usually more than one scene in a chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The place to not end a chapter is at a transition, like going to sleep or skipping some time when nothing exciting happens. Chapters should &#8220;link forward&#8221; to prevent the reader putting the book down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you feel it&#8217;s about time to end a chapter, ignore this feeling until you reach a point where the reader won&#8217;t be able to bear to stop. <em>Then<\/em> break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">#sceneandstructure<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(Again, bear in mind that Bickham is giving advice for writing a particular kind of book, basically a thriller or other action-oriented story.)<\/p>\n\n      ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>        Jack M. Bickham, Scene &amp; Structure, Chapter 13: The structure of chapters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[94,90],"class_list":["post-2905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-resources-and-craft","tag-mike-reeves-mcmillan","tag-sceneandstructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}