I’m going through my story with a round of edits and I run into a structural problem. That is, you should delete a “breather” chapter. To explain it, I wanted the story to start working in the first two chapters. There is a lot of action and rapid developments, but just a little bit of context. So to balance things out, I slowed down with a bit of a respite in chapter 3, where the protagonist takes stock of things. The plot does not advance (except at the end). Instead, most of the time is spent with the character trying to figure out why they are where they are and where they are going from there. Similarly, the goal of the chapter is not to provide character development, but rather to give a snapshot of where they are mentally after the events of chapters 1-2. The conventional wisdom is that you want to keep things moving. From that perspective, the chapter looks like a lot of fat that can be trimmed. And you could certainly distribute the different items elsewhere. But “may” does not mean “should”, and I am wary of deleting the chapter that way. First, because having a respite chapter would give the reader a chance to refocus. And second, because it would allow a reflection for which there is no space in the few agitated chapters. It just doesn’t feel appropriate to relegate that to references elsewhere. And while it’s generally better to drip, drip, drip details to the reader through more naturalistic means, sometimes it is better to present a situation coherently all at once. Now, instead of asking if I should delete this chapter, which would probably require more information, I would like to open a discussion on the convenience of using respite chapters in general. Traffic jam / bottleneck episodes are common on TV, of course, but there the consideration is often more about time / budget than timing. With books, where you want to be inexpensive with word counts, they are much less common. But they are certainly not absent either. I’ve seen a lot of “respite” chapters elsewhere, where you’ll either follow a character through their day or see them stuck in a stalemate. They usually don’t have much in terms of new developments, but I often enjoy them for the introspection and creative ideas they allow. I don’t know, does anyone have any ideas on this?
I’m going through my story with a round of edits and I run into a structural problem. That is, you should delete a “breather” chapter. To explain it, I wanted the story to start working in the first two chapters. There is a lot of action and rapid developments, but just a little bit of context. So to balance things out, I slowed down with a bit of a respite in chapter 3, where the protagonist takes stock of things. The plot does not advance (except at the end). Instead, most of the time is spent with the character trying to figure out why they are where they are and where they are going from there. Similarly, the goal of the chapter is not to provide character development, but rather to give a snapshot of where they are mentally after the events of chapters 1-2. The conventional wisdom is that you want to keep things moving. From that perspective, the chapter looks like a lot of fat that can be trimmed. And you could certainly distribute the different items elsewhere. But “may” does not mean “should”, and I am wary of deleting the chapter that way. First, because having a respite chapter would give the reader a chance to refocus. And second, because it would allow a reflection for which there is no space in the few agitated chapters. It just doesn’t feel appropriate to relegate that to references elsewhere. And while it’s generally better to drip, drip, drip details to the reader through more naturalistic means, sometimes it is better to present a situation coherently all at once. Now, instead of asking if I should delete this chapter, which would probably require more information, I would like to open a discussion on the convenience of using respite chapters in general. Traffic jam / bottleneck episodes are common on TV, of course, but there the consideration is often more about time / budget than timing. With books, where you want to be inexpensive with word counts, they are much less common. But they are certainly not absent either. I’ve seen a lot of “respite” chapters elsewhere, where you’ll either follow a character through their day or see them stuck in a stalemate. They usually don’t have much in terms of new developments, but I often enjoy them for the introspection and creative ideas they allow. I don’t know, does anyone have any ideas on this?
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