How to Identify Great Chapter Break Points in Your Novel

As you write your novel, are you struggling to decide where to put in chapter breaks? You want to end your chapters in the right place. Not only do you want to avoid cutting them off too abruptly, which could leave your readers wondering what on earth is going on, but you want to make sure they don't drag on too long. How do you create the ideal chapter breaks in your novel? Try some of these strategies. 

1. Look for natural breaks in the action.

As you write your novel, there will be natural points where the action shifts from one scene to another. Your characters have just finished a scene or a process, and they're ready to move on to the next big event. That's a great place to create a chapter break: right where the action naturally ends. Of course, you want to create enough of a cliffhanger to keep your readers turning pages, even if that means staying up well past bedtime!

2. Try ending the chapter after a big reveal.

Your characters have been building up to something big for pages--or perhaps even for chapters. You've finally made the big reveal.

Now what?

If you want to have your readers frantically turning to the next chapter to see what comes next, consider ending the chapter on that cliffhanger moment. You've put the big announcement forward. Now, your characters need a chance to react to it--and your reader will be eager to dive in along with them. This technique is a great way to create a natural break in a chapter that you later realize has dragged on too long. 

3. Know your chapter lengths. 

As a general guideline, chapters are between 3,000 and 5,000 words long--though, of course, there are always exceptions. As a general rule of thumb, if your chapter is less than 1,000 words, it's a very short chapter indeed. While some writers can use this to immense effect, you don't want to leave your readers with short chapters too often. Instead, give them enough content to digest in each chapter. 

On the other hand, just as you don't want to cut things too short, you don't want to drag them out indefinitely, either. If you notice your chapter creeping well over 5,000 words, look for a place to naturally break the action--and consider trimming unnecessary information out of the scene.

When determining chapter length, you should also think through the audience for your book. A children's early chapter book, for example, will have much shorter chapters than a novel written for young adults. If you're writing a romance, you may have shorter chapters than if you're writing a mystery. Think through your genre and your audience--and if you do decide to go outside the norm for your industry, at least remain consistent whenever possible. You want your readers to know what to expect from you in terms of chapter length to help keep them more satisfied. 

4. Think through the full length of your manuscript. 

Most novels contain around a dozen chapters. (At an average of 4,000 words per chapter, that's approximately 48,000 words of content, or the average length of a short novel). Longer novels, obviously, will need to have more chapters than shorter ones. If you're struggling with chapter breaks in a novel you've already written, sit down and break your novel down by word count. See if you can find natural breaks--either places where a scene ends or places where you have made a big reveal--close to the 3,000-5,000 word mark. It may surprise you just how close you already are to reasonable chapter breaks!

Getting ready to write your novel? Construct a brief outline of what you intend to put in each chapter. Try to keep those chapters within a reasonable word length. If you're tempted to elaborate excessively, remember that you want each chapter to be a reasonable snippet and see if you can find a reasonable place to divide that content. 

Creating chapters for your manuscript can be incredibly challenging. As the author, you may have trouble stepping back and seeing the flow of action from the reader's point of view. Need more help establishing your chapter breaks as you put together your story? Contact me today to learn how I can help.