About How to Write a Chapter
Build up tension
11 Lessons
The answer to this popular question is simple: one to two unicorns.
To write chapters that flow well: orient your writing around your protagonist's attempts to get what they want or avoid what they detest.
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Ideally, a chapter end is all about the reader.
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Start each scene by re-connecting the reader to the protagonist.
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Look at your novel's best scene: did you forget to include… THIS?
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Great scenes rely on two opposites: forward motion that keeps the protagonist working against the clock (plot) and sparks / pulses of character motivation that show the reader how the events are affecting their protagonist (narration). Here's how to blend them.
Novels aren't only about the plot. Some of the most memorable passages in a novel come from its lyrical moments.
A paradox: in order to keep raising the tension in a scene, you have to take breaks.
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What about novels where you simply MUST share a lot of information about the fictional world: historical fiction, fantasy, sci fi etc? Here's a more advanced technique for mingling drama and exposition.
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Why people like your protagonist
3 Lessons
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Here are two theories about human psychology: they are almost everything you need to create a great protagonist.
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If you notice you've let the reader drift away from the protagonist — use the next scene to deliver emergency first aid.
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How to make a bad character likeable?
I loved this course and am considering taking more. Do you have any suggestions as to where to start my first chapter? This is my biggest hurdle in finishing my novel. I can’t decide where it should start?
I’m so happy to hear that.
I do have advice about first chapters, actually!
See this from the “sister course” to Writing Great Chapters, called Plotting and Planning Your Novel: https://danieldavidwallace.com/course/a-simple-job-lightness-project-part-one/
I also have a recorded class here on the subject:
https://danieldavidwallace.com/the-character-first-novel-writing-masterclass/
The margarine container got thrown away. — as a result, they ended up feeling defiant. So they reacted to the experience like this: “The margarine container got thrown away. Why did she throw it away after I specifically asked her to save it? If only that margarine tub had been saved, she could have stored the opened cream cheese in it. Instead, the half-eaten cream cheese sat in it’s half-open foil wrapper, looking like a forgotten science experiment. Now, her only dinner would be a plain and very dry bagel.”