How Long Should a Chapter Be

QUESTION: How long should a chapter be?

There is no "official" length for chapters.  Most run around 15-20 manuscript pages in genre.  I’ve seen chapters that are one page long to longer than 20 manuscript pages.  Category romances run a bit shorter.  Harlequin/Silhouette seems to prefer that all the chapters be the same length.  

The best rule of thumb is to end the chapter at your strongest hook/cliffhanger so the reader can't resist reading a few more pages to see what happens next.

The worst place to end a chapter is after solutions have been found, and the next disaster hasn’t started happening.

Formatting Interiors

 QUESTION:  I have a query about the correct way to convey internal thoughts and sounds.

According to the Chicago Manual of Style:  "11.47 Unspoken discourse: Thought, imagined dialogue, and other interior discourse may be enclosed in quotation marks or not, according to the context or the writer’s preference."

I gather whether quotation marks are used and which type varies from publishing house to publishing house. Is that correct?

The only times I’ve ever seen quotation marks used for interior dialogue in popular fiction is along the lines of -- 

“Brilliant move,” I said silently to myself.  

The standard method is to italicize the thought--  

The bell slipped out of my fingers and clanged loudly as it hit the floor.  I winced. Brilliant move, Byerly.

Some publishers, particularly of nonfiction, will state the stylebook they prefer, but most fiction publishers don’t.  In the case of no stylebook mentioned, use grammar correctly and be consistent.

In deep third POV, it’s quite common to have a fair amount of interior dialogue.

I ask myself whether the person is asking themselves a specific question or stating some fact to themselves. If they are asking a specific question, I put the question in italics; otherwise, I don’t.

I tend to avoid italicized internal dialogue because it breaks the reader’s rhythm, particularly if it’s done too much or too little.  Instead, I write so that I remain deep in POV.

For example, to remove the internal dialogue of my earlier example, I’d write: 

The bell slipped out of my fingers and clanged loudly as hit the floor.  I winced at my clumsiness.  

QUESTION CONTINUED:  I also have problems with the verb’s tense in internal discourse.  

She loosened her grip, so the rope slid through her hands and let her feet slide over the knot. Shit – rope burn. Her feet reached another knot. She clung to the rope, her body shaking, her palms sweating so hard they felt cold. This wasn’t working.

Should the last bit be This isn’t working?

ANSWER:  If  “This isn’t/wasn’t working” is deep POV, the sentence would use “wasn’t.”  If it’s internal dialogue, use “isn’t.”  

If you’re confused about the tense, pretend the internal dialogue is regular dialogue and speak it aloud to see if it sounds right. 

If it’s a thought, the tense remains the same as the rest of the narrative.

QUESTION CONTINUED:  If you’re trying to signify there is a sound made, does it go inside single or double quotes or can you use italics? 

ANSWER:  If the sound isn’t dialogue by a human or other living creature, it is italicized.

The cow said, “Moo,” and its bell went clank.  

No One to Talk to

 Last week, I wrote a post on characters having conversations with themselves so I thought I’d talk about similar situations in my own writing.

In my novel, STAR-CROSSED, my hero has no one but the heroine to talk to in the first part of the novel.  To cover topics he wouldn’t discuss with her, I didn't want lots of internal monologue or flashbacks which tend to be boring.  

What I ended up doing was letting him have imaginary conversations with his best friend.  Since he was also stuck in one place, I put these conversations at interesting locations from their shared past that showed more about the hero and his past.

The first conversation, for example, was in a bar on a Wild West style planet after the two friends rescued a sweet young thing during a bar fight.  The two characters shared a beer, talked a bit about the good ol' days, and the hero spilled his guts about what was bothering him.  

At other times, the best friend was the devil's advocate for one side of a choice that the hero was trying to make.  

If you do something like this, it needn't be as elaborate as an entire scene.  It can just be the mental presence of someone whose opinion the character either values or can't escape. Most of us, for example, can hear our mom or dad in our head reminding us to do or not do something.  

I’ve also had a character talk things out aloud to a horse he was grooming or a cat she was stroking.  The animal’s actions, as if commenting with a purr, a snort, or the shake of the head, gave a nice light touch as well as making the scene more interesting than internal dialogue.

If you want the hero himself as the other character, you should choose some aspect of him you want to emphasize. Say Dr. Indiana Jones--the scholar versus Indiana Jones--the adventurer.

Set up the use of the mental dialogue/scene fairly early in the novel or story so that the important scene when the character finally must make the big decision won't make the reader go "huh?" when the other side of his personality or an imaginary character shows up to discuss the matter.

In other words, have the mental character show up a few times so the hero can tell his other side to shut up or whatever.

Internal Dialog

QUESTION:  I am trying to write a dialogue scene in which a character is arguing with himself yet it seems that there are two distinct persons talking, almost as if the good side of him is arguing with the bad side.  What is a good way to show this?

You could do it like regular dialogue between two people.  The "real" character could give his better self some kind of snarky nickname which you could use as a dialogue tag.

Jon sneered as his other self.  "Why don't you shut up, Angel Fart. I stopped believing in virtue and nobility years ago."

"If you stopped believing, why am I here?"

Or you could do it like normal internal monologue but with the good Jon’s comments underlined/italics.

Jon fought to ignore his inner voice.  He knew what he had to do, and he'd do it.  He'd stopped believing in doing the right thing years ago.

If you stopped believing, why can you hear me?

What Others Think

If we worry too much about what others think of us while we are writing our stories, we'll end up with bland stories no one wants to read, or we can't write at all.  

My mom was always my first reader, and, after that, I didn't care what anyone else thought of me after reading my books.  She didn't like the sex and violence, but she accepted that I was writing to genre, and all my paranormal and science fiction confused her, but she was alway my biggest fan.  

What I've always found really funny is people's reactions in person.  I'm a middle-aged hobbit matron--tiny and plump with the kind of face and vibes that attracts timid children, pets, and confused tourists looking for directions, but I've had readers back away from me when they talk about my villain in STAR-CROSSED.  There's nothing like writing a sociopath who hates men to make both sexes scared of a hobbit.  (evil grin)

SCHEDULE NOTE:  With Christmas coming next Monday, I won’t be posting.  Merry Christmas to all who celebrate the holiday.  

Emergency Planning for Writers

 Are you, as a writer, ready for bad weather or emergencies?

Preparing for bad weather can be as simple as having a storm alert radio that will cut on when dangerous weather approaches so you can shut down your computer before lightning fries it. The storm alert radio also doesn't interfere with writing like a regular radio for those of us who like to work in quiet. 

Are your computer and peripherals plugged into an alternate power source (APS) so it won't be damaged or your current work lost if the power goes out?   (An APS is like a power strip, but it includes a recharging battery that cuts on when the power cuts off so you have a few minutes to save documents and cut off your computer properly.)

Most alternate power source makers claim an APS with a surge protector will protect your computer and peripherals from lightning, but nothing will protect electronics from a close lightning hit. A good friend lost everything when lightning hit a transformer over a block away, and he had high-end surge protectors and an APS system. 

The safest thing to do is unplug everything, including the APS. 

Also remember to unplug your modem from the electricity and your computer. 

If you have a laptop as well as a desktop, you need to keep it charged to use during bad weather so keep it plugged in, but remember to unplug it, as well, when a storm comes. 

If you want to keep working through bad weather, remember to save a copy of your work to a flash disk, CD, or whatever to move your work to your laptop so you can continue to work. Or sync your work with WiFi or your cloud account.  

Weather preparation isn't just for a short summer or winter storm. It's for major disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and wild fires. So always have a back-up copy of all your works in another location, or, better yet, several locations.

In the days before I wrote by computer, I had paper copies of my books at my home, my mom's beach house, and my brother's home near Charlotte. Despite being in different parts of the state, all three homes were damaged by Hurricane Hugo, but the manuscripts stayed safe. That experience has reaffirmed my determination to keep copies of my manuscripts and important papers elsewhere.

These days, I also keep a flash disk copy of my books and other digital documents in my safety deposit box at the bank so I can keep my updates recent.

You can also store your works and your computer contents online at storage sites, but as recent outages and disasters have proven, online or “in the cloud” shouldn’t be your only storage solution.  You might not be in the path of a hurricane, but the servers for your cloud service may be.  

An external hard drive is also a good option.  

Some external drives come with software that will automatically update the drive’s contents with your main computer to keep it as current as you wish.  Macs come with the Time Travel app.  Other OS systems probably have a similar app, or you can find one.  

It's always a good idea to have an emergency bag or briefcase for your writing partially packed and ready to go in case you need to get out fast because of an approaching hurricane or wild fire. 

Things to keep in this bag include a power plug for your laptop and an updated flash drive. Also include copies of current book contracts as well as notes, etc., of what you are working with at the time.  A paper list of all your passwords is another must.

It would also be prudent to have a recent complete copy of your computer drive in case your home computer is destroyed.

If you use an external hard drive as a backup, you can pack this up very carefully.  (Motion can damage desktop innards.)  Some external hard drives are made specifically to move about so they are a safer alternative.

This bag is also a good place to store a copy of your house and car insurance, pictures of your valuables, etc., in case disaster strikes. Also include a CD with copies of your favorite family pictures, etc., in case the worst happens, and there's no home to return to.

If you don’t have links to your bank, insurance, and other important accounts on your phone, set that up.  Have your passwords elsewhere in case of phone hacking or loss.  

Make a list of the last minute things you will need to pack and stick that in the front of the bag. When emergencies happen, we tend to forget the most basic things so that list will be well worth the time.

Remember that the future you save may be your own.  

On Literary Greatness

Until the last sixty years, literary permanence wasn't bestowed, it was earned by an author and a work still being read and admired after many years of being published.  

In the Sixties and beyond, critics and scholars started labeling current books as great and part of the literary canon.  Not surprisingly, the books declared great have mostly disappeared into obscurity and only those of us forced to read these "masterpieces" in graduate school still remember them.  

One major criteria of a work lasting is that one generation passes the book to another.  If the book continues to speak to that next generation, it will continue to survive.

If anything, books moving from print into the digital format will make it much easier to pass a story from generation to generation because it won't be out of print.  

~*~

On a side note, I've collected a few review quotes which have proven to be really wrong.  Here are a few:

"Sentimental rubbish... Show me one page that contains an idea.”-- Odessa Courier on Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1877.

"Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.”-- Lord Byron, 1814.

"His fame is gone out like a candle in a snuff and his memory will always stink.” -- Wm. Winstanley on Milton, 1687.

"Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer.” -- La Figaro, 1857.

"This is a book of the season only.”-- NY Herald Tribune on The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"We do not believe in the permanence of his reputation.  Our children will wonder what their ancestors could have meant by putting Dickens at the head of the novelists of today."-- Saturday Review, 1858.

"Nothing odd will do long.  Tristam Shandy did not last.” -- Samuel Johnson in 1776 on a novel that has never gone out of print.

"The only consolation which we have in reflecting upon it is that it will never be generally read.” --J. Lorimer reviewing Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, 1847.