Re: Making chapters interesting
I know this is a case by case question, but are there any general ways of making chapters interesting? That would make the reader/agent want to quickly turn over to the next one? This is a normal human story; no horror or sci-fi or fantasy. And there won't be any ticking time bombs under the chair at the end of each chapter.
One way I thought of was to divide my long chapters into shorter ones. Am also paying attention to the chapter switches in the books I find gripping. I was reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar last night. The story could be about any 20-year old girl, and yet I found myself bounding from chapter to chapter though I was sleepy. That's the quality I know I want, but... I am stuck as to how to actually do it.
Paritosh, I also write a basic "human" story with no bombs or terrorists or vampires or aliens. My ms. started too slow and the plot didn't become "interesting" until later on -- too much character stuff in the beginning and not enough "plot." Here's what I did:
1. I cut out 7 chapters, and started the story very close to the point of "no turning back" -- in my case, it's a decision. Before that chapter, the protagonist was basically reacting to things that happened to him. Not until he made a major decision in chapter 8 did the story really kick into gear. The cut was necessary. As Uncle Jim said, start your story when "the theater door is shut and you can't go back in." This work on both physical level (a bomb is about the go off) or pyschological level (I can't go back to my wife). A slow character-study start may work in long literary works of the past, but not in 2004 (there are exceptions, of course. I really liked the movie "Lost in Translation," which is pretty slow).
2. After that chapter, I had a major flashback that was about 15 pages long. I cut it up into smaller, logical chunks, and each chunk presented a question to be answered: Who is this person? What is he going to do next? Etc. Then intersperse these chapters with the main story chapters, creating a literary equivalent of a movie "cross cut." By starting and stopping the readers between the "now" and "then," I tried to create a sense of suspense, feeding them information yet also making them ask more questions -- and these questions are important to the on-going "now" storyline.
Still, that won't make the readers turn the page if they don't care about what is going to happen. You still need good characters, good dialogues, etc. to put them in that "dream state." Make them experience the story instead of just being "told" how it is. You've got to have interesting characters with real desires and a quest or something at stake. That's why you should start the story at that "point of no return" to make them care.
To build momentum and suspense, each chapter should answer at least one question that the readers asked in previous chapters, but create more questions for them to find out. It works for any genre, not just a thriller/suspense novel. If Simone is going out to buy tea, make us realize how the tea is so important to have (perhaps she is trying to impress a would-be suitor, with whom she's desperately in love?) -- that's a question answered. Then have all the stores in London out of that particular tea -- now that's a question that needs to be answered. Because the stake is pretty high (she will lose the man of her dream), you have the readers asking "oh oh, what is she going to do?" Now add another character, a woman called Sarah, who also wanted that man for herself, and she has the last bag of tea -- now you have a conflict. Build your plot with conflict, obstacles and high stakes in mind, driven by the characters' desires, fears, hatred, etc. And actions and circumstances that create consequences (if she doesn't get the tea, what will happen?) -- NOW, you have plot.