by Pam Zollman
When most readers reach the middle of a chapter, they start
counting the pages to see how many are left.
They do this to find a good stopping point. The problem is that sometimes, if the book is
slow, the reader will not pick up your book again and you’ve lost him. The trick to keeping him turning pages and
keep your story fast-paced is to use scenes and sequels to create hooks at the
beginning and end of chapters.
Your story should start with some sort of hook to make the
reader want to continue. Most often
action is used to sweep the reader along.
After using the scene-sequel pattern, you come to the end of the chapter
and must decide where to stop.
Chapter Endings:
If at all possible, try to end each chapter with a cliff-hanger to force
the reader to turn the page. The
cliff-hangers can vary in intensity, but should make the reader curious enough
to find out what happens next. The best
way to do this is to use one of the following:
1)
Disaster – End the chapter at
the end of the scene with the point-of-view character being hit with the
disaster. The reader will want to turn
the page to see if the character survives it and what happens next.
2)
Dilemma – End the chapter in
the middle of the sequel with the point-of-view character having to decide what
to do. His choices aren’t great, but he
has to do something! What will he
do? The reader must turn the page to
find out.
3)
Decision – End the chapter at
the end of the sequel with the character having made up his mind what he will
do. He’s picked the best of his bad
options, and the reader will turn the page to see if the decision was a good
one or not. Plus, now the point-of-view
character has a new goal, and the reader will want to read on to see if he can
achieve this one.
Ending a chapter with Goal, Conflict, or Reaction are weaker
choices. However, even these can be very
effective with the right plot situation.
Chapter Middles:
End chapter 1 with either Disaster, Dilemma, or Decision, so that
chapter 2 starts out in the middle of the scene-sequel cycle. By the time the
reader reaches the middle of the chapter and starts counting pages, you’ve
started the scene-sequel cycle all over again.
Chapter Beginnings:
Whichever part of the scene-sequel cycle you ended the previous chapter
with, you start the next chapter with the next part of the cycle.
Next time we'll discuss how to use Scene and Sequel to pace your story. Feel free to contact me at pam (at) anauthorworld (dot) com, if you need help with your writing.
I like this, Pam. Thanks for posting it.
ReplyDelete~ John Johnson
thanks I agree with what you said. This is good info for a writer :) glad someone recommended it to me!
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is good food for thought. Thank you.
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