CHARACTER-BASED CHAPTER STRUCTURE AND PLOT DEVELOPMENT

[George]

I thought it might be interesting to have members share their thoughts on the concept of dividing novels into chapters based specifically on individual characters…a classic case in point of this story development mechanic would be George RR Martin’s Fire and Ice series. How does this structure affect the mechanics of story flow and plot development? Are there any inherent advantages/disadvantages to taking this story development approach as opposed to allowing a story to unfold based on method of plot progression? From a personal perspective, I noticed that I labored through sections of Dances with Dragons because I found that, near the end of the novel, there were chapters strung together, developed around characters who held little or no interest for me as a reader…I’ve yet to finish the novel.
At any rate, what are members’ thoughts on this approach to story and plot structure?

[Joe]

I had two novels that I needed to do this with. One was a quest fantasy where different characters went on different quests with different goals. At first, I alternated, going back and forth. But I realized this was not working. I divided the novel into sections, one for each quest and put the chapters for each quest in each section, stopping each section with a cliff-hanger. At some point, they all meet which was the concluding section.

In the second, there were two main characters, a woman and a man, lovers. I wrote the novel from the
first person POV of the woman. In alternate chapters she is reading what she thinks is fiction, but is really the story of the man's life. The alternate chapters are in third person from the man's POV.

[Niall]

My chapters are a little weird, i.e. I refer to them as "parts" and they tend to cover logical or temporal breaks in the story flow. If nothing is going to happen for two weeks, it's likely that's a section break. If the story shifts gear suddenly, or there's a drastic location shift, new section. The stories are told largely from one character's point of view, so there's no one character per chapter idea.

However, I'm plotting out the ninth book in the series and that one seems likely to be split along the lines you mention. Given the previous structure of my books, if the perspective changes from one character to another, it will happen in the form of a section break because that will seem more natural and logical.

I'm currently reading something which not only shifts character perspective within a chapter, but shifts from first person for the protagonist to third person for the secondary characetrs. Now that is enormously annoying! I wouldn't recommend that to anyone.

[Y.I.]

I'm still working on how to separate my chapters. Mostly, though, it's based on scene change. The separate sections in each chapter are based on POV. I find it keeps me (and my beta readers) from going insane trying to remember who thought what.

I've not yet read any of Martin's books; though, I've heard a few people complain about the same thing that you bring up. I would think that could be a tad confusing, not to mention annoying.

[K.A.]

My third book (in a trilogy) is arranged this way, but I have to admit, I did not enjoy Game of Thrones, which was arranged this way, and I barely made it through. I had the issue mentioned above - some of the chapters seemed to have been created simply because it was "time" to revisit that character, whether of not that character actually had anything important to say at the time. It was also really confusing since I didn't know any of the characters yet, and didn't spend enough time with any of them to catch their story and really get a feel for them. I ended up not caring about any of them.

I tried to avoid this in my own work by waiting until the third book, so all the characters are well known, and making sure I didn't create a chapter just because it was "time" to revisit that character - I created chapters based on the need to tell the story from that point of view at the time. That means that
some of my characters get more "air time" than others, but I don't necessarily think that all the characters have to be evenly balanced as far as how many wordsd are devoted to each one.

So - I think it can work, and I've read books where it did work (I like the idea of dividing it into sections, which is basically what JRR Tolkien did in LoTR). But there are some pitfalls to avoid as well...

[Keiji]

A lot of people are talking about how they use this structure when their characters are separated so I thought I'd throw in my own book. My five characters are often doing their own things but are as a general rule usually together. Plot events are encouraging them to stick to the buddy system, however at the very same time they're all keeping secrets from each other while trying to reach their own goals.

I've found that focusing on only a single character in each chapter helps me control just how much the reader knows. There are certain things, actions, and events I only want revealed in later parts of the story so moving between different people, all with different sets of limited knowledge, helps keep up a certain amount of mystery.

[Daniel]

Malorie Blackman does this throughout most of the Noughts and Crosses series, and i'm doing it for a book i'm writing now...

[Paul]

I'd never really thought about this before, but it's an approach I usually use. My books tend to have two or three related (although not always obviously so at first) threads following different characters of groups. I use chapters to mark changes in viewpoint.

Again it's not a conscious plan, but it's been pointed out to me that I tend to use minor cliff-hangers at the end of each chapter. This helps keep the reader hooked as they not only have to read the next chapter but usually the one after that to find out what happened, by then, of course, they've experienced the cliff hanger from the chapter in between.

Due to very few reviews/ratings it's hard to say how well that is received, but the few readers I've spoken too see to like it and if a number of copies of the first book in my series sell one week then I'm almost guaranteed to see the same number of copies of the second book sell the next week, and again with the third book the week after.

I think it's a good technique, and easy for the reader to follow.

[Ardy]

I sometimes separate my chapters this way, especially in the book I am working on now where there are four distinct sets of characters. However, as the book progresses all four groups come together and this became impossible. Usually, my chapters end either when a certain plot point is coming to an end or when I feel like leaving a cliffhanger. In my current work, there are many times when I set up something and then leave it there for a while, catch up with other characters, and then come back and resolve it. Since it is a horror novel, this works well. It builds the suspense and I hope it keeps the reader interested and invested in the characters.