Building a chapter is a crucial component to any story. They are the connective tissue from which your tale is told. From one instance to the next, from sequence to sequence, each chapter holds a mighty weight. Diving in isn’t always easy, and here are four questions to ask yourself when building your next chapter to make it the strongest possible.

Building A Chapter Questions

1. What is my main purpose?

It’s silly to ask, but is there a specific reason for the chapter’s existence? Novels are a wonderful playground because there is no set length. You can have a book run 8 pages or 800 without any qualification. But justifying each scene is essential to making the piece strong enough to support the rest of the narrative.

There are many purposes behind a chapter. Perhaps there is a crucial piece of evidence for your protagonist to locate in the scene, or a conversation with someone in particular to reveal a clue to the next sequence. Anything that advances the plot can be seen as the purpose behind the chapter.

The conflict in the scene might not be centered on an external force, or plot-based item, but on the character’s themselves. Their emotions drive the action–creating tension between players that might make or break them in future chapters.

The best chapters accomplish both aspects, and should be determined before diving into your next chapter.

2. Who is telling this chapter?

For those pushing third-person limited or first-person narratives, you already have this set. (You do have this set, right? Okay. Good. Phew.)

Everyone else? If you’re like me, figuring out the POV character for a chapter can be one of the most excruciating decisions in the process. Who best serves not only the narrative, but also the reader, by providing context to the scene unfolding? Is the protagonist or the antagonist? Is it a side character? If so, why?

What unique perspective does each person bring, and who will help fulfill the main purpose of the chapter?

Sometimes the best choice is the most straightforward–pick the character readers will identify with most. For other chapters, though, choosing an outside POV can help break up the narrative and give new insight into the world being discovered. Finding that perfect balance takes time, as well as trial and error, so don’t be afraid to take a second crack at the chapter through the eyes of someone else.

3. How to open the chapter?

You would be surprised by how difficult it is to answer this question sometimes. When I think about my own narrative structure, I realize I tend to open a scene/chapter heavy on narration before dropping the reader into the conversation. That is my go-to move.

It is also something I am trying to break away from.

Where you open a chapter is crucial to making it as strong as possible. Screenwriters are taught to come in late, and leave early. The same holds true for novelists in certain circumstances. Sure, you can weave an incredible description of a specific building for pages on end before getting to the meat of the scene, but is that what your readers want?

Do you dive right into the conversation, and then pull back to show where your characters are?

Those are just a couple approaches to opening the chapter. There are an infinite number of ways to welcome readers to the chapter, but settling on any one brings its own challenges and strengths to the scene as a whole.

4. How to end a chapter?

Ending a chapter is absolutely key when writing. The only way to get readers to flip the page to the next chapter is to end strong enough to push them ahead.

The debate lines up very much the same as the opening of a chapter. Is dialogue the crucial element that will tie the scene together, and push the character’s ahead? Will it be an action–Oh, no! Jimmy fell off the train!–that carries over to the next chapter?

Much like crafting an essay, the end of a chapter should pull the entire work together, but for a novel’s sake also lead to the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

Bringing it all together

Building a chapter takes time and patience. Don’t be afraid to write it one way, and then completely change the dynamic in further revisions.

Play around with the POV. Remove the narrative opening, and dive into the action. Drive the story forward with some pithy dialogue, or a dramatic twist.

What feels right, and what fits, will help you answer the questions above and make your chapter all the stronger.