Chaptering and episoding

I'm getting interested in the evolutionary purpose of chapters, and so this article about the reasons not to "binge-watch" TV shows struck me as relevant.

A chapter or an episode is a unit itself, and there is meaning resulting from the very existence of a beginning and end. The pause for the reader or viewer before the next one starts creates a different experience than we'd have if we had no break at all. There's a moment (or a week, for TV) of contemplation, of recovery, of return to reality. And there's also the choice to plunge back into the fictive world. 

I am guilty myself of exactly what the article author mentioned. I watched all of S4 of Breaking Bad the other night when I couldn't sleep. And I remember very little of it. It was like eating a meal in twenty minutes. It all tasted good when I was stuffing it in my mouth, but the appetizer and the entree and the dessert are all jumbled up in my memory (and stomach).

I'm thinking about this because I was noticing how common it's become in books for a chapter to start on the same page the last chapter ended (I mean, no page break between chapters). This is especially weird in ebooks, where paper costs are not relevant.  I realize I like that little break, and am not sure why it's been determined to be expendable.

I remember a friend told me that she never put in chapters in the first draft. I do-- I just "know" when it's time for a new chapter.
Kerouac's On the Road manuscript is on display, btw, at my local art museum. It was typed on one long roll of paper. (Pay no attention to the donor of this interesting exhibit, who will always be known in our town as The &^$% Who Released Peyton Manning.)

Anyway,  I'm wondering how you know when you're writing that it's time to start a new chapter. Scenes are organically determined-- one time, one place, more or less, and they end when they end. But chapter divisions are somewhat arbitrary. A chapter might be three scenes or two or one, depending. Depending on what? What decides for you where to start a new chapter?

Alicia

Question about scene and sequel

Shauna asks--

A lot of my scenes don't have sequels or incorporate that material into the last couple of paragraphs. Perhaps I don't understand the power of the scene-sequel combo; to me it seems to interrupt and slow the action to have a chunk of introspection, discussion, and decisionmaking after every scene. What's your take on structuring a book as a series of scenes and sequels?

--

I agree with you, actually! Often a sequel does slow the action, and I don't think all scenes, or all characters, or all books, need sequels. They seem best suited with a more contemplative character who faces a problem that he/she thinks thinking or deciding will help resolve (whether he/she is right or not). Sequels probably don't work as well (at least in the first half of the book) with a character who always defaults to action instead of contemplation. Some writers say a sequel CAN be action, but to me, that just means more, uh, action, thus scene, not sequel.

As for putting the sequel at the end of the scene-- I prefer important scenes especially to end on conflict, and the trouble with sequel is it tends to be more resolution of conflict (she figures out what she's going to do, for example). Conflict is what causes anxiety in the reader, and thus, page turning.

But there's a way to fix that rather easily while adding a sequel-- put the sequel not at the end of Scene A, but at the beginning of the next scene (even better if the next scene starts a new chapter). That way Scene A can end with conflict (a dilemma without a solution yet), and the reader is impelled to turn the page to see what happens-- and then is treated to a bit of the POV character's contemplation in Scene B.

As with all "rules," sequel only works when it works, and when it doesn't, try something else. :)

Alicia