Thread: Format Dilemma

Well, I've avoided dealing with this dilemma for as long as possible, but now that I've almost finished Part 1 of my book, I don't think I can go any further without resolving a problem I've created within my story.

So my plan was for the span of this story to go from early fall and then reach the climax in the dead of winter. It is important that it be in the dead of winter, so I have to find a way to bring that about one way or another.

The problem is that because of the pace of the story, the only breaks I've had to end the chapters have been at the end of the day. So in other words, each chapter represents the events that happen in a single day. I didn't do this on purpose, it just sort of evolved on its own, like so much else in my story. The issue with this is that if I continue on this format, I will have to have a 90 chapter book, which is obviously way too long.

So I've come up with three possible solutions to this problem, and I wanted the opinion of the forum on them.

1. Divide the book into three parts with each part taking place several weeks after the events of the preceding part, then continue the chapter per day format like before. This will keep things more neat than the other options, but it sort of conflicts with some of the things I wanted to do with parts 2 and 3. Part 1 is about the events leading up to a war. Part 2 is about the war itself. Part 3 happens in the dead of winter because the winter is so harsh that it stalls the war completely as both sides are just fighting to survive the elements. If I chose this option, then part 2, which should have many events happening spread out over several weeks would have to be compressed into only about one week. Also, the MC has something happen to him that really feels better as happening in part 2 that doesn't get resolved until part 3, but it does have to get resolved quickly, so I would not be able to put several weeks between part 2 and part 3. I could put all that in part 3 but I worry that part 2 may seem uneventful.

2. I could pretend that I didn't create this problem and starting with part 2 switch to a format where a single chapter may span several days or weeks. This solves all the problems with the story I mentioned above, but I think that it might be seen as a sign of laziness to potential publishers and/or readers.

3. What I may be forced to do is edit what I've written so far so that it doesn't follow the chapter per day format it's following now. If I really, really have to, I'll probably do it, but it means that I'll have to make some major changes to the story in order to make it work. I've already invested more time and energy (not to mention the emotional toll it's put on me) on this project than anything else I've ever tried to do, and I really don't want to have to redo the whole thing if I can help it. Maybe I'm just being lazy and I should just bite the bullet and do it.

Perhaps what you need is a diary/journal format. If at the start of your story the reader was subtlely told that this is a "Journal", rather in the manner that Watson introduced himself to the reader at the beginning of A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle: Chapter 1 the reason for the format would be clear; you then only have to decide whether you use ordinal days, 1st/2nd/3rd etc., or actual dates. Using the Journal format would more easily allow you to jump to a later time by the excuse "I have finally managed to get back to my journal......" this would take care of episodic nature of the narrative.

Unfortunately, that won't work for my story. It's written in the third person already.

Originally Posted by themooresho

Unfortunately, that won't work for my story. It's written in the third person already.

The journal is written by an omniscient observer/reporter, so all those observed would be in the 3rd person; the observer doesn't have to be part of the action.

"This is my record of the events which took place....."

Is it absolutely necessary for the story to be told on a day by day basis? If it is then do you have to write about every single day? If yes then just do it. But there would have to be something vital happening every day for you to write about it, and you would need to show the reader that these vital events could not have happened on the same day. Because the reader may end up wondering why it has been written like this instead of paying attention to the story.

There's was no particular reason why I did this other than there was something happening constantly for the first several days, and the only breaks I could find to end a chapter at were at the end of the day when the action stops momentarily. But I've reached a point where the action is much less immediate, at least as far as I've planned the story.

Maybe I should post what I have so far in the Fantasy Forum for critique so you can see what I mean. I didn't want to do that until I had resolved this issue, but considering I can't really move forward until I decide how to solve this, I think it's about time. There are a couple of edits I want to make first so it will probably be up later this evening.

When my story began, I wrote about nearly every day. After all, the protagonist had been put in an unfamiliar situation, and each day brought new challenges. However, as the story went on, things because more routine for him. Important events were fewer and further between, so I simply let more time pass in the background. Now, a chapter might begin with, "Several weeks had gone by since..." (Not that blatant, obviously, but you get the idea.)

Do plot events still happen daily in your story? If so, by all means keep writing on a day-to-day basis. But if they don't, there's nothing wrong with spacing things out a little more, and you don't need to explicitly divide your book into parts to do so. However, if you do go that route, I like your first idea (day-to-day, with ample amounts of time between parts in the story).

How long are these 90 chapters? My last novel had 109 chapters and finished at 200,000 words. My recently published novel has 102 chapters and 145,000 words. By comparison, 90 chapters isn't "way too long". Depending, of course, on how long the chapters actually are.

90 chapters is way too many...

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

90 chapters is way too many...

I agree, but the fact remains that he's published and I'm not.

Well, I haven't written 90 chapters, and really there is no way I could. I'm just saying that if I did one chapter for each day in a story that goes from early fall to mid winter it would be 90 chapters long because the story would be take place in the span of 90 days. Actually, the chapters of my first draft are much longer than usual, ranging from 6000 to 9000 words each. I'm hoping to reduce the length in editing. I'd like to keep the final draft of my manuscript under 120,000 words in order to make it more attractive to potential publishers.

Real easy fix would be to type five months later, three months later, two weeks later, ect...
or you could possibly have the main character get injured and speed up time by writing a bit of he/she healing. I would think most readers could still have their suspension of disbelief remain with that technique.

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

90 chapters is way too many...

James Patterson, Jeffery Deaver, Dan Brown, Tom Clancy, and Stephen King all write books that typically have 90-100 chapters, so it appears your statement is rather flawed.

I've just posted what I have so far at http://www.writingforums.com/fantasy...-part-one.html.

Maybe I'm making a big deal over something that most people won't even notice. I don't know.

Originally Posted by Sam W

James Patterson, Jeffery Deaver, Dan Brown, Tom Clancy, and Stephen King all write books that typically have 90-100 chapters, so it appears your statement is rather flawed.

Probably explains why I don't read their books.