chapter and verse
Do you write your longer stories in chapters? Why? Why not?
I read a post on metafandom a while back* that got me to thinking -- the post was about the different skills needed to write longer vs shorter stories, but this was expressed in terms of "chaptered" vs "one-shot" stories. That's not a natural division to me, but I know it is to a lot of people. And that made me think about this whole writing-in-chapters thing.
Writing a long story in chapters is a bit different from writing a long story without chapters, obviously. And to me, primarily non-chapter-writer that I am, chapters seem to require more planning and more attention to structure and pacing, but maybe to a natural chapter-writer, it's the other way around.
So -- chapters or no chapters? Which do you like best? Is it different for different stories, or in different fandoms? Some fandoms seem to be more into chapters than others. In book fandoms, I guess chapters seem like a natural choice because of the way the source material uses them. And the way ff.net is set up, everyone's a chapter-writer if they want to go over a certain wordcount, right?
Pretend there's a poll here and write a comment instead: do you write in chapters? Does it come naturally to you or did you pick up the habit in one of your fandoms? Do you switch between chapters and no chapters in different fandoms? How much planning do you put into the narrative structure if/when you write in chapters, as opposed to not writing in chapters? Do you make a difference between working with chapters and dividing a story up in parts or segments in some other way that you're going to explain to me in comments? How long does a story have to be for you to conceptualize it in chapters? Do you like to work with cliff-hanger chapter endings?
...okay, now I've typed "chapters" so many times that it's starting to look like a nonsense word. oops.
And those of you who don't write in chapters, what's your story? (Oh, I kill myself.) Is it a conscious choice, habit, preference? How do you structure your stories?
Me, I don't write in chapters, much. I've done it, back in my First Fandom (which was a book fandom, so possibly, not a coincidence, there), but after that I mostly ended up structuring my stories in different ways: in POV-separated segments of various length, in large chunks of text, in lots of very short scenes, and most often, in a giant mass of words that just go rolling along.
The thing is, writing in chapters seems like such a commitment, like telling myself: this is going to be a Long Story! And then I feel faint and play solitaire instead. I have to coax myself along bit by bit, and I suppose that's why I end up with 40,000-word stories that don't even have section breaks. Chapter-writers seem like such brave souls!
I construct my stories in my head in a way I can't quite articulate, but the thing is, I conceptualize them as a whole, not in parts. Because of that, I shy away from chapters, because it seems to me that chapters impose their own specific structural limitations on a story that would add another layer of Things I Have to Think About While Writing. But I'm guessing for someone who enjoys working with chaptered narratives, that structure is useful and inspiring, not limiting. Yes? (No? Maybe?)
* At least, I thought I did, but now I can't find it. Of course, "a while back" with me could be anything between last week and last year. Anyway, now I don't know if I'm misrepresenting the contents of the post or not, but the chapters vs one-shot distinction seems to turn up quite often, in places.
I read a post on metafandom a while back* that got me to thinking -- the post was about the different skills needed to write longer vs shorter stories, but this was expressed in terms of "chaptered" vs "one-shot" stories. That's not a natural division to me, but I know it is to a lot of people. And that made me think about this whole writing-in-chapters thing.
Writing a long story in chapters is a bit different from writing a long story without chapters, obviously. And to me, primarily non-chapter-writer that I am, chapters seem to require more planning and more attention to structure and pacing, but maybe to a natural chapter-writer, it's the other way around.
So -- chapters or no chapters? Which do you like best? Is it different for different stories, or in different fandoms? Some fandoms seem to be more into chapters than others. In book fandoms, I guess chapters seem like a natural choice because of the way the source material uses them. And the way ff.net is set up, everyone's a chapter-writer if they want to go over a certain wordcount, right?
Pretend there's a poll here and write a comment instead: do you write in chapters? Does it come naturally to you or did you pick up the habit in one of your fandoms? Do you switch between chapters and no chapters in different fandoms? How much planning do you put into the narrative structure if/when you write in chapters, as opposed to not writing in chapters? Do you make a difference between working with chapters and dividing a story up in parts or segments in some other way that you're going to explain to me in comments? How long does a story have to be for you to conceptualize it in chapters? Do you like to work with cliff-hanger chapter endings?
...okay, now I've typed "chapters" so many times that it's starting to look like a nonsense word. oops.
And those of you who don't write in chapters, what's your story? (Oh, I kill myself.) Is it a conscious choice, habit, preference? How do you structure your stories?
Me, I don't write in chapters, much. I've done it, back in my First Fandom (which was a book fandom, so possibly, not a coincidence, there), but after that I mostly ended up structuring my stories in different ways: in POV-separated segments of various length, in large chunks of text, in lots of very short scenes, and most often, in a giant mass of words that just go rolling along.
The thing is, writing in chapters seems like such a commitment, like telling myself: this is going to be a Long Story! And then I feel faint and play solitaire instead. I have to coax myself along bit by bit, and I suppose that's why I end up with 40,000-word stories that don't even have section breaks. Chapter-writers seem like such brave souls!
I construct my stories in my head in a way I can't quite articulate, but the thing is, I conceptualize them as a whole, not in parts. Because of that, I shy away from chapters, because it seems to me that chapters impose their own specific structural limitations on a story that would add another layer of Things I Have to Think About While Writing. But I'm guessing for someone who enjoys working with chaptered narratives, that structure is useful and inspiring, not limiting. Yes? (No? Maybe?)
* At least, I thought I did, but now I can't find it. Of course, "a while back" with me could be anything between last week and last year. Anyway, now I don't know if I'm misrepresenting the contents of the post or not, but the chapters vs one-shot distinction seems to turn up quite often, in places.