Chapterness Conclusion

            Studying chapterness in Wintergirls, freed me to see how each of my chapters could grow organically.  To assume there is a formula for chapter structure would be a misinterpretation of this little study.  There are all kinds of chapters: short one-scene chapters, chapters that start with some exposition and build into a scene and then another scene, chapters that frame a flashback in a present scene to forward the character’s journey.  The possibilities are endless.   

            At least now, I have some tools with which to prod my chapters to see if they’re actually functioning as chapters: 

       1) Is my character moving forward inside and out?  

       2) Does my character face choices, and do I take him far enough?  

       3) Does a complication cause a rise in tension that lands the character in a new place?   

       4) Do the smaller arcs clump to form a larger one?   

These questions helped me shift around the note cards on which I'd outlined my novel, as well as, add some cards that were missing.  I’m sure I’ll re-see my chapters as I write through my second draft.  I just feel glad to not be falling back on mere intuition about where the chapters should begin and end.  It helps to have a thoughtful understanding of some actual mechanics of chapters.
            Special thanks to one of my personal YA goddesses, Laurie Halse Anderson, for writing such an artful book.

            What are your thoughts on chapterness?  How do you structure your chapters?  What kind of chapters do you like to read the most?  When you read, do you hold onto each chapter conceptually in your memory or do you sort of get lost in them?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on chapters too.  Thoughtful artistry means exchanging ideas and refining the way we see our art.

Chapters: Arcs Clumping Together

            In the case of Wintergirls Chapter 11, one arc made a complete chapter, but arcs more often than not clump together to form chapters.  In Chapter 35 of Wintergirls, after attending Cassie’s funeral, Lia arrives at her mother, Chloe’s, house to spend the night.   

            Arc 1: Lia pulls into the driveway observing the cars for the wake parked across the street, and she observes her mother pull up next to her seemingly upset.  Lia searches the house for her mother who’s gone in first and finds her crying in the shower.  This arc establishes a rich ambiguity for the chapter: Chloe could be crying over Cassie’s death, over the danger Lia is in, or over a patient who’s died.   

            Arc 2: Lia cooks a meal for Chloe, asks about Cassie’s autopsy, and when Chloe takes a call from the hospital zones out remembering how the negative voices of this house got in her head.   

            Arc 3: Lia takes her mother’s deal –Lia will eat, and Chloe will tell Lia about Cassie’s autopsy.  

            Each arc has its own rise and landing in a new place.  But they also function together to depict how this daughter and mother get what they need out of each other.  The chapter also continues the through-line of the novel –Lia’s battle with Cassie; she has to know what happened to Cassie and whether she will follow her down the same road or defeat her.

Chapters: Arcs and Complications

            So I get that a chapter has to move the character forward, and I get that choices and going far enough are ways to do that.  But when are my chapters supposed to end?  I mean, how far forward do you let the character move before making a break between one chapter and the next?  The answer seems to be explained by arcs.

            I feel like I get arcs.  I drew a bunch of little arcs to help me understand the chapters I studied, but explaining the specific arcs of each chapter in words was harder. These concepts helped:

• An arc is a small beginning-middle-end in a story.

• Tension rises in the middle.

• The character lands in a new place.

• That rise in the middle is caused by a complication. 

Chapter 11 of Wintergirls, a short, two-page chapter demonstrates how an arc can work.   

Beginning: Lia is in bed, unable to sleep, sure Cassie’s ghost is right outside her door; she even spins herself an imaginary cocoon for protection.   

Then middle: the fragrance of ginger, cloves, and burnt sugar which Lia’s come to identify with Cassie infiltrates the room, and Cassie appears addressing Lia in ghost form for the first time.  “Come with me,” she says to Lia.   

Finally end: Lia spends the rest of the night locked in Cassie’s gaze.   

The complication:  Cassie not only appears, but makes her demand propelling things forward.

Chapters: Choices and Going Far Enough

            Wintergirls Chapter 9 is an excellent example of how Anderson gives Lia choices and takes things far enough emotionally.  Lia arrives home having made it through the day in which she learned her friend, Cassie, died alone in a motel room after leaving Lia thirty-three unanswered messages.   
            Anderson gives Lia choices: she eats a rice cake instead of Thanksgiving leftovers; she turns down sister Emma’s invite to kick the soccer ball around in favor of retreating to her room and digging out a pill to help her cope; and when her dad comes in at the end of the night to suggest they talk, Lia pretends she’s asleep.  With each choice we see her retreat further from her family.  
           Perhaps more importantly, Lia would also like to avoid the thought of Cassie and any responsibility for Cassie’s death, but the idea dogs her until her father finally gets up and leaves her for the night.  At this point, Lia is not just sad she’s lost her friend, or frightened she may be on the same path.  Lia is, in fact, plagued by the idea that Cassie’s death is her fault.  This is Anderson going all the way emotionally.

Chapters: Moving Character Forward

A really good example of how a chapter moves a character forward in her inner and outer life is Chapter 46 of Laurie Halse Anderon's Wintergirls.  In this chapter Lia’s dad finds her dozing on the couch and decides she needs to eat.  A phone call from Lia’s friend, Cassie, now dead of her own eating disorder, prompts Lia’s dad to wonder how Lia really feels inside before announcing she will be reevaluated for inpatient care.  Then the two spar hurling issues at eat other, the fight ending when Lia stuffs a sandwich in her mouth asking him if that’s what he wants.  The chapter makes it really clear that the external struggle for Lia is food –will she eat?  However, internally, family issues like divorce, infidelity, and attention to relationships are boiling.  By the end of this chapter, Lia makes the decision to confront her father –is this all you want?  me stuffing a sandwich in my mouth?  Subtext: there is more to this eating disorder and we both know it.

So there is the external struggle: food, and their is the internal struggle underlying it: the unaddressed family issues.  The characters challenge each other to take the next step forward in both of these conflicts.

Four Things that Make a Chapter

            I went back and raided my notes from Patti Lee Gauch’s Highlights Founders Workshop called Starting Your Novel, and I pulled out four statements about chapterness.  At the time these statements had seemed obvious enough, but now with my novel spread out in note cards, they were real food for thought.  Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls had was also out on the table, and I decided to study her book using these four statements:

1)    A chapter moves the character forward in his/her inner and outer life.

2)    Going far enough (emotionally) and giving the characters choices moves the story forward.

3)    Arcs in the story rise in the middle because of a complication.

4)    Arcs clump to form chapters.

Wintergirls is not one of those books with short, pearl-like chapters, nor are the chapters consistent in length or structure.   I was going to have to really analyze what Anderson was doing with her chapters.  So I read Wintergirls a couple of times, took a lot of notes, and made a lot of little drawing to describe the chapters.  These were chapters that developed organically, each with its own needs, and many providing great examples of the principles above. 
            Watch for my next post in which I tear apart some of Laurie Halse Anderson's expertly crafted chapters to see how they work.

Chapterness

            I was sitting in Cynthea Liu’s Revision 911 workshop avidly scrawling notes when she pointed out that the end of a chapter does not occur just because you’ve reached the end of a scene.  Of course not, I thought joining the writers around me in their nodding, but uh, so, what exactly is a chapter then?  I put chapterness  on my list of writing stuff to investigate, but didn’t face it directly until this summer when the first draft of my novel  was spread across the dining room table on one hundred note cards.

            So what makes a chapter a chapter then?  I’d always like books with those short two or three page chapters strung like pearls on the string to make a story.  A spotlight flashing on each vignette and then fading quickly out, leaving the audience to consider what the collage of short chapters said as a whole.  But I rarely wrote that way.  The note cards on my dining room table were arranged into ten chapter groups.  I’d just kind of intuited what held together.  Some of my chapters even had a titles that held their scenes together thematically.  But there were a lot of scenes in each chapter.  Did I really have ten books in my story (Book I, Book II, etc) that should each be divided into smaller chapters?  I just kept coming back to what makes a chapter?  And how do chapters build one upon the other?
            I'll be following up on these questions in a short study of Lauris Halse Anderson's Wintergirls over the course of my next several post.  In the meantime I'd love to hear your ideas on what makes a chapter?