I’ve spoken to a lot of kids about writing over the years, and I’ve been surprised at how many of you want to write . . . I think that’s fantastic, but I’ve heard a common question from many, “I start writing my story, but it always ends up being only a page or two. How do I make my story longer?”

I know how frustrating this can be, you have an idea for a story, but when you start writing, it just ends too soon, I get it. It happens to me sometimes, and when it does, I look at the structure of my chapters and ask myself, am I giving the reader more than just a summary of actions. You see, a chapter is more than just a bunch of action, there is description needed to put your reader in the scene, there are the relationships between the characters to reinforce, there are a lot of things you should add to give your reader the full experience of your adventure. So I thought I’d take a moment, and summarize for you how I structure a chapter. I don’t do this for all chapters, but I’ve found I do it frequently in my writing.

The chapter I’ll talk about is Chapter 6 from Into the Spiders’ Lair.  

When I start a chapter, I usually have something in mind for the characters and the reader. Every chapter must have a purpose and must be critical to the story, or it should be cut.

Usually, I start the chapter with some kind of sensory experience, meaning the character is going to use their five senses to show the reader where they are. I have the bad habit of forgetting about smell, so I usually will go back and add the smells when I rewrite the hole book. This is really really important, because it allows the reader to feel like they’re actually in the environment with the main character; SENSORY INPUT IS CRITICAL! 

In the current chapter I’m working on, Watcher and his friends are entering an ice spikes biome. There are a lot of sensory things you can mention: feet making a crunching sound as they break through the frosty layer of snow, their breath billowing out like tiny little clouds, the cold freezing the tips of their noses or finger tips, the snow sparkling like a field of diamonds when the sun reflects off it, the sun getting split into rainbow colors when the rays pass through the blocks of ice making up the tall ice spikes, the air feels crisp and smells clean . . . I guess you could have Watcher eat some snow, but I’m not sure how to add that to the story.

After I do the sensory input, which is only a sentence or two, I go to dialogue right away. Some awesome authors taught me the most important rule in writing, which is now my Rule #1:

In your writing, you want to get to dialogue in a chapter as quickly as you can. Dialogue is how you reveal your character to the reader, and make them fall in love with your characters. Reader will never fall in love with the visual description of the surroundings, so don’t spend too much time there . . . always get to the dialogue. You can use the dialog to show two characters are angry at each other. Or maybe one character is jealous of another. Or maybe a character is afraid of something and they’re telling their friend. Notice, I just mentioned 3 emotions; what the character feels and how they deal with their emotions is what defines them for your reader; this is character development and is extremely important for your story. READERS DON’T LOVE PLOTS, THEY LOVE CHARACTERS!!! If you want your reader to fall in love with your character, or love to hate your villain, like Erebus, the King of the Endermen, who was a prominant antagonist in many of my novels, then you must spend time showing the reader what makes your characters tick. You need to uncover some part of the character’s personality and lay it bare for the reader to see, and hopefully, your reader will see something of themself in your characters. As soon as they do that, as soon as they can empathize with your character, you have them hooked, and the reader will be yours for the rest of the story. This brings me to the all-important rule#2:

In this chapter, I’m going to introduce Saddler to the reader, a character new to the group who is going with them to help them find some witches. I want to give some backstory about Saddler so the reader knows who they are and will empathize with them. I want the reader to feel sorry for Saddler, so I can manipulate the reader’s emotions later in the book, but in order to do that, the reader must relate to Saddler, they must like Saddler, and they must root for them to be successful. But I don’t want to do an info dump, and just tell the reader about Saddler. I must slowly reveal Saddler to the reader by letting them see Saddler’s reactions to events. I think you will find other authors disaggree with me, but I like to give pieces of backstory through dialogue. So I’ll have a character ask another about some event, or ask what they are worried about, or . . . I try to use dialogue to give the sad background, hopefully the reader to empathize with the character. All of that is the same for Watcher, the main character, but this is the third book in a series, so I’m guessing they already know about Watcher. That being said, I still must reveal Watcher’s personality to the reader, through dialogue, whenever possible. DIALOGUE IS THE KEY TO ANY STORY!

As I use dialogue to uncover Saddler’s backstory, it’s important that it doesn’t feel like just a bunch of history. Everything in a story must raise the tension, so the backstory about Saddler will demonstrate her sadness at leaving their village and betraying the oath she gave to her community, but she did this to save her daughter, Fencer. It’s important that the stakes are being raised all throughout the story, that’s what keeps a reader turning the page. It is extremely important to keep the reader hooked, so they won’t put down your book. And one way to do that is to continually raise the tension. A great author by the name of Steve James told me, you need to think about your story as a series of obstacles you’re putting in front of your character, and each obstacle gets harder and harder. Increasing the tension will keep your story moving and keep the reader from putting down your book. This concept of continually cranking up the tension is probably as important as rule #1 or #2, but here, I put it as Rule #3.

In the chapter below, there is a debate in the dialogue about what is bravery and what is cowardice and knowing who you really are, will be a theme that is carried through the entire novel. This is the first introduction and is important. But notice how the dialogue sets up some tension between Planter and Watcher. Watcher wants Planter to agree with him, but she’s siding with Blaster and Cutter about the villagers being a little cowardly, this adds to the tension.

Now, I’m four pages into the chapter, and I need to shift from dialogue to action. Remember RULE #1! We had some dialogue and now we need some action.

I move the story forward by having them find a chest full of weapons, which will be important later in the story . . . I’m planning ahead. Actually, I didn’t think of this originally, but when I outlined the story, I realized Watcher had to find some weapons for other villagers at some point, so the igloo seemed like a good place.

There is a rule in writing:

The character can’t find a gun at the end of the story unless you show it in the beginning.

And also the converse:

If you show a gun at the beginning of a story, you better use it at the end.

You never want your character to just get lucky and find some kind of magical sword, just at the right time, so they can defeat the bad guy. The reader will never believe it, and it will feel like you cheated. That is why, in this chapter, I have them find a chest full of weapons, because I need it later.

After finding the loot, I end the chapter with some action, a polar bear and her cubs. They are very dangerous in Minecraft, so this adds more tension. They avoid killing the bears, showing that these are the good guys, but I reveal something about Cutter’s character . . . he doesn’t mind killing. I also reveal more about Watcher’s personality and the theme based on, what kind of person does Watcher really want to be?

I end the chapter with a plot question. A plot question is like a little mini-cliffhanger. I might end a chapter right before the monster attacks, or I end it with some kind of uncertainty in the character, or maybe I’ll end it right before it looks like the good guy is going to lose (that’s my favorite). This keeps the reader on the edge of their seat, remember RULE #3 and will make the reader wonder what will happen next. You always want to leave the reader with some kind of unanswered question, so they’ll turn the page and start reading the next chapter. That brings us to Rule #4.

The plot question at the end of the chapter keeps the reader engaged and hopefully, motivates them to start the next chapter. This is really important and takes a lot of practice. The more you write, the better you will get at this.

So this is how my stories end up with 200+ pages. There is certainly more to it than this, like how to outline the plot, which is really important, and maybe I’ll post that soon, but if I have 30 chapters, which is typical in my books, and they’re only 2-3 pages long, that’s a problem for me. My chapters tend to be about 8 pages long, on average, and that’s because of what I mentioned above.

I hope this helps.

Keep writing and watch out for creepers.

Mark (Monkeypants_271)

Click below to download the chapter

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