Oboebyrd's Guide to Writing Formulaic Fanfiction
Chapter 17: Chapter Writing
The 'Create New Chapter' ability here at Fanfiction.net is simply remarkable- and a boon to the properly trained writer, as well. You no longer have to make your entire 800 word story into one long, impossible to read chapter- now you can split it up, with ease, into 2, 3, even 800 chapters, if you so desire! The Guide hopes to help you exploit this function and milk every review out of it that you can.
1.) Remember, no one likes to read a long chapter.
That's right, you've encountered it before- people who post 28, 29, even 30 chapters in their story- and make each chapter 2,000 or 3,000 words long! No one wants to spend their time reading that many words all in a row- it takes too long! Everyone knows the average reader has absolutely no attention span. Give your reader what they want- keep your chapters short, hopefully under 200 words. If you can't fit everything into under 200 words, 300 or 350 is okay, but anymore is pushing it; you don't want to loose the attention of your readers, do you?
2.) Don't you DARE post it all at once!
So you've already completed your story, have you, and want to post it all at once? What are you thinking? No, don't! It's bad enough that your chapter is now reaching 400+ words… now you're going to drive your readership insane by posting three or four of those enormous chapters at once? Your readership is patient- they will happily return to your story to see what happens to Aragorn's new love, the beautiful elfess Aradefelbla, in the dungeons of the evil King Thranduil of Mirkwood. Update every other week or so; as soon as the reviews start petering off, update again. If you're not actually done with a chapter before the reviews start petering off- you're obviously writing this story as you go along and encountered writer's block, and who does that?
3.) Tab, don't double space.
Due to whatever HTMLing process Fanfiction.net uses to post our stories, we all know that the TAB function doesn't carry over from our computer to Fanfiction.net's servers. The process some authors use to differentiate paragraphs in their chapter is to double-space… DO NOT DO THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Though the process 'enter, tab, type' fails to apply in these circumstances, it's still what Mrs. Johnson in 3rd grade taught us to do, and Mrs. Johnson is always right. Even when your 200 word chapter turns into an unintelligible mass of letters, you can rest safely in the fact that, through everything, you remained faithful to Mrs. Johnson.
4.) Use Transition Chapters
Even if you insist on writing a chapter that is 500+ words long (In which case you have already violated rule #1, and I can't help you if people lose interest and skim your story for the short paragraphs) then you'll need to include transition chapters. Between every long chapter, include a chapter that is a mere paragraph or two long. Twenty words tops is the locally accepted limit; just long enough for you to let the audience know that Legolas and his beautiful elemental sorceress are done slaying the Balro…ck…thing in Moria, and are now walking up a mountain. That way, they can be in Lothlorien the next chapter, without ever having to describe what actually happens between Moria and there! Transition chapters are essential for making those longer stories flow naturally.
I hope you have found this guide to writing chapters helpful, and that you will now properly be able to use the 'chapter' function on Fanfiction.net. Next week, I will regale you with something, and since I can't keep my promises about what to update with, I'm not going to tell you what it is!