Chapters and Conflict

     As readers, we've all said "oh, I'll just finish reading this chapter," and then gone on to finish the entire book. Usually, it's not just a collective lack of self discipline. Some books are just that good. How do you write a book that people can't put down? There are many, many elements that keep a reader's attention from chapter to chapter, so here's just one method for keeping suspense.

     It's about conflict. Fiction books are often made up of hurdles for the hero to overcome, which together, make up the giant conflict for the overall story. I'm not sure that I've ever read a fiction novel that was not split into chapters. I hear a lot of writers asking how to split up chapters. Most do it by length, which is a good way to go, but it's even better to couple it with the plot.

     Many readers see the chapter breaks as convenient stopping places (I do, at least). So it's a writer's job to make it difficult to stop at the chapter breaks, lest the reader put the book down at the end of the chapter and never pick it up again. In my first novel, I wasn't really sure how to do chapters. I would end it right before a problem was resolved, and then at the beginning of the next chapter I'd tie up the conflict real quick and move on. I broke my second and third novels into chapters purely based on word count. Neither of these methods are hugely effective in getting people to read on.

     If you really want to hook your readers, open a new conflict right at the end of the chapter. It sort of gives a sneak peek for the next chapter, and you can drop some big bombs that way. Each chapter should focus on one conflict, escalating the story a little bit more. The new one introduced at the end can be as little as a sentence long, it doesn't have to be a huge chunk.

       Using this method, your conflict and chapter cycles should look something like this:
-Hero works to combat the issue at hand.
-Issue is either conquered and the hero pays in some way, or the hero fails but gains something important.
-New issue arises as a result of the previous one!
-[End of chapter] [New chapter]
-Continue above pattern.

     Hopefully this will be useful to you! Improve your skills at keeping suspense through chapters and conflict by practicing it and reading lots of books. Try to identify the conflict and chapter patterns in the books you read. I was actually reading Nadine Brandes' A Time to Die (which I reviewed two weeks ago) when I finally understood this concept.

     Comment: What are some things that keep you hooked when you read?

Stay foten,
Alexandra