Chapter Breaks

I'm feeling a little more positive today. I don't know if it's the anticipation of partly sunny weather or getting back to a scheduled work day, but at the moment, I feel good, dana-nana-nana-nah.

Anyhoo, one of Marcher Lord Press's tips is to keep chapter length between 15-17 pages. Jeff the editor uses some kind of mathematical formula to do this. It appears to work for him. He's not only a publisher of his own press, he's also a multi-published author.

I prefer a slightly more organic method. I'm reading through the chapter, finding the tensest moment and putting a chapter break there.

Bwahahahahaha! That's an evil laugh. It's important to have a good evil laugh. Check out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog for proof.

This means my chapters don't always fall in the 15-17 page range, but even the tip says it's a median not a standard.

I resisted this idea at first, but after realizing some of my chapters were 40 pages long double-spaced, I decided Jeff might have a point. Even I would get tired of reading that.

As a consequence, my chapter numbers are now all screwy-wumpus (or ferdoodled, Susie). So, for those of you who planned on jumping ahead to read chapter thirteen, you can't. Chapter Thirteen has moved, and I'm not telling you where it is.

Bwahahahahaha!

See? Evil laughs come in handy.

Boy, the spellcheck had a field-day with this post.