CHAPTERS THAT KEEP YOU TURNING THE PAGE

Part EIGHT of my series of WRITING FROM THE BONES UP: How I Write.

In my first few drafts, my chapters consist of things happening within one location or a specific event, this means that I have giant chapters of uneven length. In much later drafts I chop these ‘chapters’ up so that each chapter end now falls on a small cliff-hanger to make the reader want to turn the page. I stole this technique from thriller writers, masters at crafting unputdownable page turners. This leaves me with very short chapters that I hope will be like moreish tasty morsels, my aim is to make the reader tell themselves; “Just one more chapter, after all, they’re so short!”

I might have overachieved in this area however as my editor said the pace of the book was at top speed throughout and maybe we needed spaces for the characters to breathe a little.