The Wood Beyond The World Forum To axe or not?

How do you know if you have a chapter you don't need? Right now i'm looking at MI and thinking. chapter three has no reason for being there? do i axe it and jump to chapter four or rewrite chapter three so it works?

Why does it have no reason for being there -- is it because it's just a short transition? 

Bill Wraith got it through my head (after many months of preaching) that you have to know what every chapter is for (in terms of both plot and characterization, usually) when you write it, and construct it accordingly.

I took a glance, and it is short.  You have several characters in it, but they don't do much. One brief reflection by the protagonist about her regret at not being like her friends, and an offer of help from one of them that she rebuffs. There are a few hints about her motivation. There's the encounter with the vampire boy that could be foreshadowing.

You have to decide the importancee of any and all of this to the story, then, if it's significant, where it should be placed -- in short scenes in the surrounding chapters?

I will say I found the protagonist's thoughts not very enlightening.  Very vague.

The interchanges with her friends didn't seem very significant either.

The only thing that stood out as possibly pertinent to the plot was the note summoning her and the brief encounter with the vamp boy.

If you use protag's internal monologue or dialogue with others as characterization, you'll have to be more specific and get something of emotional impact into it.  Right now it's flat, like you're just trying to move from one place to another.

Every word and every sentence has to really do something.

Don't know if that's clear or helpful -- I haven't read any of this before, so maybe I shouldn't try to advise -- but I think I see a general trend here, and can offer at least a little general advice as a result.

Right now the chapter only serves to give her a way to get the message to meet up with her new client other then that it does little else. I do like showing her with her friends, but for the scene it just shows how unlike they are.

hmm

Ah the pain, I know it so well. I would take Leah's sage advice here: Quote:


One thing I find has helped me is when looking at a potentially inert chapter is to see if part of it can be merged with the preceding or upcoming chapter. Another thing I found helped was taking the part of the chapter I needed and used it as a memory or thought. By distilling it down to the salient point can remove an iffy chapter.

But if the chapter, on it's own does nothing to move the story forward, be it character or plot development, then axe it. But keep it around because during the next rewrite, it may have something to go back to.

When planning a scene, you must decide before you write what the characters within the scene want (their goal); and you need to know what barriers (the obstacle) the major character of the scene, generally the one with the most at stake in the scene, will confront.  Without both a clear goal and a clear obstacle to obtaining the goal, there is no conflict.  And without conflict, the scene is almost certain to be useless/boring.

 

Armed with these prime ingredients, the story will move forward, as significant change will occur out of any conflict; that is, failure will cause the goal seeker to find a new approach to his problem, and success will move him one step closer to overall success (regarding the main plot or the subplot to which the action of the scene was pertinent).  Either way a new and logical progression will present itself to author, giving birth to new and often unforeseen/surprising story elements with which to work.

 

One last addition to keep uppermost in mind, which might cause the scene to not merely move the story forward and make it interesting/entertaining: The prime ingredient is ATTITUDE.  This is the key to characterization.  Knowing what characters want is one thing; showing how resolute they are in gaining the goal, whether the character be a protagonist or antagonist (whose goal is partly defined by his own goals, and partly by his interest in stopping the progress of the protagonist), done well, will cause readers to identify with and root for and against characters.

I second Loekie's suggestion to absorb the info into the surrounding chapters. You can easily recount her receiving the info on where to meet the client as a memory just before the next thing happens, including the thoughts on how she wishes she could spend more time with her friends.

 

As Bill says, if there is no conflict the chapter will be tame and hardly worth reading. However, I can understand that you may want to show how she interacts with her friends as a development of her character - the thing is, there isn't much of an interaction. Not much is learnt here about her friends or the history of her relationship with them. She doesn't even seem to be enjoying herself while out with them. There are other ways of exploring conflict if you are looking to keep the chapter but it depends on how your plot is constructed. Some suggestions:-

• Inner conflict within Astra that her friends can sense and force her to confront
• A friend who has different/opposing opinions of her actions so much so that it threatens their relationship
• A more developed/aggressive encounter with the vampire that will tie in to another aspect/plot sequence of the book
• A discovery about something or someone through information from her friends

 Hope this helps.

I think we have all had moments like this.   I am currently in the process of revising my B1, again, and I have deleted chapters that have been with me since the beginning because I like them.    But once the story leaves my hands, it is no longer about what I like, its what the readers like.   To tell the truth, the chapters I have deleted, did not take away from the story, because anything that is important in them, I used elsewhere in a condensed form.  I am also rewriting chapters and have even added a new chapter, all to help further explain the characters emotions or to advance the story from a near stand still.

 

Transitional chapters are needed at times, but there still has to be something for the readers to see, to connect with, to be excited about.   

 

 My first agent had me cut 5 chapters from the book, 2 in the main body and the 3 from the ending, thus ending the book sooner.   I argued against this.   I have to wrap up the story I complained.  No, you have to leave the readers wanting more she said.   My test readers said she was right.   5 chapters, about 15,000 words.  Damn, all that hard work for nothing.   NO....I reused some of the chapters in book 2, or at least the scene's.   Still, I have many chapters cut and the book reads much smoother and the pace is better.  Very few dead zones I think.

 

In the end, its your decision.   If you feel its needed, but  needs work as is, then add to it, present the reader with something that adds to the POV of the scene, the chapter.   If you can live without it and show some of it elsewhere, then by all means axe it and reworkd it into other chapters.  

 

Nick.

Thanks for all the information. I think I might be able to add in the character building with her friends at another time, but i think this scene just doesn't push the story forward, when chapter four actually does. thankfully the chapter is short and the novel is sitting at 106K so it won't take that many words away :D

I am not one for word counting. For a little while I got caught up in that some of my chapters were short while others were long. I wanted a balance. Then I started to listen to my characters and realized that some things takes longer to put forth while some things don't. I haven't done a word count or look at the size of my files every since.

Then again, I do have verbal diarrhoea, as many of my posts here can attest to. :-)

I do think it'll be easy to save some of chapter three and add it in later. right now the best thing for the novel is for it to move a long at a good clip for the time being.

For some reason i'm always counting words. I normally always aim for 100K always a good place to head for. :)

Yes, 100,000 words is the standard goal for a first novel.  And no matter what, author must know when the work will end, and aside from knowing the problem of the book and its solution, there is no better measurement than wordcount.  Knowing wordcount goal, you can divide by three to determine length of beginning, middle, and end.  then further divide those by three to determine the approximate length of PART 1, 2, and 3's beginning, middle, and end.  With these in mind, you can know where in each of the three natural dramatic arcs of the novel you are, and know whether you are successfully building to the three climaxes most novels should have.

Oh, Bill, you're so mathematical!

Really those are good guidelines for keeping narrative under control -- especially when keeping it shorter counts, as in the case of a first attempt at publication.

All rules have exceptions, and some of us can't help working more organically.  What's working for me right now is letting myself see scenes from throughout the novel, thinking about them, their significance, how to find the most important and most moving stuff. Next step is sketching them out, then actually writing, with all the dialogue, scene-setting, action, etc. Then I'm going to weave everything together.

It's definitely a plus to know how things will turn out!  Can't say I've always been able to do that.  But not being certain doesn't doom a project to failure.  It just means having more work to do in revision.

From my experience with an agent and publishers the first time around, Bill has a very valid point.   Word count matters for a first time author.  Once you are a proven seller, then word count is overlooked.   Yes, there are and can be exceptions to this rule, but the rule I think is for the average run of the mill fictional story in which there are 100 others out there of similar style and storyline.  I think it also has to do the the readers habits and what the industry has learned over the years on how many words are too many words for the majority of readers for someone the readers have not previously invested time in before.  (Strunk would love that sentence.)

 

This is a very similar rule to why agents and publishers do not like picking a book up that is a series.  If the first one does not sell well enough...now they are stuck with the next ones in line.   Still there are exceptions to the rules every year, but it should be noted, those are the exceptions and not the rules in general.  

 

Cutting the fat is always a good idea no matter how many words we start with.   Stand alone stories for a first time author is always adviseable,  damn....now I tell myself.  lol.

 

Nick. 

The word count thing mostly has to do with booksellers not wanting to get stuck with a big fat chihuahua-choker taking up shelf space.  With a first time book, they can't be sure the darn thing will sell, and they'd rather have the room to stock stuff that will.

It's very hard to create a good stand alone novel. Even creating a serise that has a stand alone first book is hard.

I've tried making sure that i have some stand alones wrote, MI being one of them and a few others. but it seems that all my fantasy ideas have more then one book attached to them.

Cindy, I think that's because when we write fantasy we tend to have to create whole worlds (sometimes universes) or at least rewrite the rules of this one, and we generate so many ideas, it takes more than one book to cover them.  It's hard to slice out one aspect, one culture, one moment of history and stick to that.  We go a bit power-mad, as creators.

Tolkien never meant LotR are to be published in separate volumes.  It's one huge saga, and I'd defy anyone who enjoyed the first book not to go on to the second and third -- you must know what happens, and can only be satisfied with the whole thing.  Funny how that trilogy concept caught on when fantasy became its own genre. For a while everything had to be a damn trilogy. That's why when Douglas Adams came out with the fourth book in the Hitchhikers' series, it was "The Fourth Book in the Trilogy."

Now sagas can go on indefinitely, like Robert Jordan.

My durn ABNA entry sort of ends with stuff hanging -- I started concentrating on the sub-plot, because I could tie that one off, and kind of gave up on the plotty plot, to the detriment of the whole thing.  I've got to go back and tweak up the plotty plot now.  It'll still be unresolved for the characters, but more resolved for the readers.

That's one reason I'm going so slowly and carefully with plotting in the new Valmur thing.  I want to make sure it's tidy and well-contained, but provides a lead in to the other Vaaselian stories, without giving stuff away -- or at least without making all the connections.

 

For my series 'The Quolltellan' I have tried to write stand alone books. At the end of the first one 'Servant of the Phrenet' I have tied up the story lines so there is only one thread hanging which you could dismiss that they went off and lived happily ever after. Hopefully the reader will want to know what happens to this family and read the next book.

The second book, 'Danyon' is concerned with the next generation so I have tried to include enough revision of the main thread to refresh the series reader but also to enable a reader to pick it up and read without needing to know all what happened before. Once again it ends with a possible they lived happily ever after if you don't want to read any more.

In the third book (still only in first draft) it will be more difficult as I am following the same characters, although years later. But I suppose if the publishers had decent sales of the first two they will be willing to give the third and fourth books a go.
I suppose my series is a bit like the Harry Potter series. (It is nothing like HP in context). The first two (or three) you could read out of sequence if you wanted but after that the main story really kicks in and you need to have read the previous ones to understand what is happening.

As to Leah's comment of going a bit power-mad as creators I can completely understand that. I am currently writing a stand alone YA book but the world I have created has so many possiblities that the series could be almost endless. It has the potential of having a TV series like format where every book the two characters have a new adventure. I am trying to keep thoughts like that in the background because that is not the future I had envisioned for this novel.

Besides my heart belongs to the characters of 'The Quolltellan'.

Gayna