Writing is fun. Or at least it should be! ... Most of the time! But you know what else is fun? The parts of writing that we don't usually think of as writing.
But wait, you say! There's more to writing than just WRITING? How can it be!? Well my friend my buddy my palhoncho amigo freundmeister general, I'll tell you! There's lots of writing to be done outside of your writing--namely, within the structure that's used to categorize the different parts of your novel. In other words, look to your chapter titles!
1. Numerology (just not the mystical kind)
The way that you structure your novel can happen organically, one thing folding out from another, or you could plan it all out from the start. Personally, I usually just let my novels unfold on their own, then fiddle with them later. When it comes to chaptering, you can play with a couple different things--the number of chapters you have could carry great significance for the plot or characters, for instance.
Maybe 19 is a recurring number within your fantasy book, full of great power and mystique, so you structure your book into nineteen chapters, to strengthen the theme, or your book is all about duality, so you make sure that your number of chapters is always a multiple of two. In one of my shelved WIPs, I ended up with fourteen chapters--one for each level of the twelve-story building the main character lived in (counting the roof and basement, naturally).
The same thing can be done with Acts/Books/Parts/Whatever You Want To Call Them. Andrew Hussie split his webcomic Homestuck into seven acts to reflect the creation myth at the center of the story, because as the saying goes, God made the world in seven days.
2. Structural Integrity
No, I'm not talking about if we can ride a U-Haul across your chapter title without pitching fifty feet into the candiru-infested waters below, nor am I referring to the structural integrity of your story; just the numbers. The numbering system, to be exact.
There are a number of different ways to structure your story; sometimes a simple "Chapter One," "Chapter 2," "Chapter III," etc., (ideally keeping the number system consistent, of course). But sometimes you need to split things into Books, Parts, Acts; sometimes even that isn't enough, and you need subchapter headings within your chapters.
You could approach this by having simple headers Placed like you'd see in a textbook or other nonfiction work, or by using what I refer to as the Stephen King method, where you denote chapter numbers using either Arabic numerals or written numbers, then use Roman numerals to denote sub-chapters.
Or you could switch it up, combine methods--go crazy, as long as it makes sense and it's internally consistent. Begin each chapter with a letter of the alphabet instead of a number, or with a symbol, upload your own font and use the numbers from your alien conlang if you think it would work. Just make sure that it's consistent and doesn't detract from the story being told.
3. To Name Or Not To Name
Then comes the REAL fun; naming the chapter!
The first question you'll want to ask yourself is whether or not you want to name the chapters at all. Does your narrative call for naming, or would it distract from the flow of the actual story? Sometimes an old-fashioned, "Chapter One" is more than sufficient. It's like the word "said;" the audience will acknowledge that it's there, but only barely. It may serve as a place to put a bookmark, but otherwise they'll just pass over it without remark or pause.
Chapter titles can slow down the narrative, depending on how goofy or drawn-out they are, or they can speed up the heart if it's something short that makes your adrenaline pump, like "Oil Slick" or "Blood Volcano" or "A Bitter Finale."
If chapter naming isn't for you, then you're pretty much done here; congratulations! But if you'd like to learn a little bit more about naming chapters, stay tuned for the next piece of the series, where I'll talk about the actual naming conventions you could use to your advantage.
No comments:
Post a Comment