Things they never teach you

[swan_tower]

Writing advice books tend to go into great detail on things like how to structure your plot, or develop character, or describe things, or whatever.

They do not — in my limited experience; hence this post — bother to say much about how to decide where to break chapters, scenes, or paragraphs, apart from telling you to start a new paragraph if you’re switching speakers in dialogue. Maybe a vague nod at “cliffhangers are exciting!,” but that’s about it. You’re just supposed to figure that stuff out as you go, apparently. Or else (and this is entirely possible) it never occurred to the writer of the writing advice book that there’s an actual skill buried in there.

But I haven’t read a huge number of writing advice books, so I’m perfectly willing to believe that someone out there has at some point unpacked this stuff for the reader. Any recs? Because it’s one of those things that I do instinctively, without much ability to articulate how the decision-making process goes — and since I enjoy teaching writing, being able to articulate it would be useful.

Comments

[green_knight]

I think Ray Bradbury may have said something about paragraphs (I have a dark recollection it's along the lines of 'if you start a new thought, start a new paragraph'); Bickham probably has, but I just cannot bear to pick that book up again; I'm *very* certain he had things to say about chapters, but I'm just not very interested in his kind of book.

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you can find a way of observing yourself. My feeling is that it's a big part of pacing, and I'd be surprised if people hadn't written about it. Doesn't mean I can articulate what I do, either, but it's a start.

[marycatelli]

Break at moments of drama. Ensure that you do not have slow stuff, and still less dead weight, at the end.

A break is like an extra strength piece of punctuation. It signals that something at least has changed.