"How do I write chapters that move the story along?"

The third instalment of my fall WRITING TIPS series, from an award-winning, working novelist

This fall I’m running a series of writing prompts and advice to get you writing in these cosy colder months. Posts answer real questions I’ve been asked recently, by real people, like you, about writing. So far, we’ve covered, “I feel intimidated by, or unworthy of, writing a novel. Can you help me?” and “Should I write my book in the first person? Third person? Historical tense? Present tense? There are so many options.” Today’s question was submitted by a beautiful human being I’m very happy to know, who has had one non-fiction work published, self-published a brilliant young adult novel, and is working on their first adult work of literary fiction, which I very much hope will be sold to a publisher. Anyone can ask a question—I have a few to answer already, but I’ll do my best to answer yours—feel free to comment on any paid or unpaid post with your question, and sign up to receive all tips to your inbox!

Let’s get on to answering this interesting and, indeed, very worthy question.

Love, AJ xo

Through every book I write, every intention I have, there soars the arc.

In the beginning, for me, I find a novel by realising that my initial idea lands somewhere—I write an ending. That’s the arc.

Aside from the beginning, I don’t give much time over to thinking about the arc. I write from scene to scene, growing something. The arc exists in the background. Like oxygen is required for life. I am writing the novel because it already exists. If I can’t see an arc, what I have is not a story, but an idea.

I like to think very broadly when it comes to the length of a novel, but, roughly, a book is about 30,000 to 130,000 words. An average commercial novel lands at about 80,000 words. I go on a bit, so my works run on average at around 100,000.

I’ve just finished my fourth novel. It’s zipped away to two friends of mine, both writers, who are going to read it and let me know whether it feels like I’ve not quite seen the wood for the trees. After working on their notes, it will head to my agent, if she remembers my name after all this time.

It’s 103,200 words, and, as non-traditional it is in terms of being auto-fiction written to a somewhat strict political manifesto, it contains an arc that, very traditionally, starts at the beginning with an inciting incident, lifts when the protagonist decides to engage with the book’s challenges, meets a midpoint where things change for the character, takes a dive when she meets additional struggles, crests just past the break into third, and trails off in what I hope is an elegant way, with a little surprise bump in there of an unresolved issue which subtly leads us into the next book of the trilogy.

Controversial it may be to say, I don’t think you need to go to school to learn this. I don’t think you even need to know how to describe an arc in these terms to know how to write an arc.

I wrote all my early novels with no education. One sold for a six figure sum to Atria Books and won an award. At that time, I didn't know what the term “denouement” meant. Last week, I re-ordered and edited the contents of a denouement in a day. How?

Because I’m a human being, and creating stories is fundamental to being a human being.

I could say, “if you’ve grown up reading or watching tv or films, you know story”, but you knew it before that. As a child, you watched your caregivers closely to learn the story of what your surroundings required you to be. As an infant animal, you learn the story of the day, the swell of hope in the morning, the calming of evening, the unknowable but unfolding chaos of the mid-section. How you make sense of it, by night, awake, and then, by night, dreaming.

As a conscious person, with an understanding of the breadth of life, it’s rise and fall, birth and death, you know story. The expanse and contraction of human life is how we know story, relate to story. Our lives can’t help but be stories: beginning, middle, end.

So you know how to move a story along. I think a lot of writing coaching is helping people trust themselves. A lot more on that in my answer to the first question in this series. But in brief: your instincts are good. More important than that: your instincts are YOU.

You need to write the right book for you to write right now. Your instincts have known story since their very conception. Stick with your instincts.

So, part of what my writer friend was asking here was about how to move the story along—but you already know that, and so did she, because she said, “I am struggling to make what I want to happen in the chapter happen…” indicating that she did know what she wanted to happen to move the story along, to satisfy this moment in the arc, in the chapter. So we’ve covered that part. That’s the “arc”, and the reason it lingers in the background for me when I’m writing is because an arc is a story and stories are oxygen. Required for life. Irremovable from life. Part of the package.

So, if you also need the answer to this question, please know: you know what you need to do.

This leads me to wonder if she, and you, need to know what you need to NOT do.

My dear writer friend, when talking about where she struggled with this, added, “…particularly when I’m writing dialogue.”

I love writing dialogue. As you have the characters of your, er… characters in your head, there can be such whimsy and invention involved. And I mean invention from somewhere core in you, that does not require thought. Conversation is fun, it’s a dance, it’s poetry. Conversation between two imaginary people in your head is the same. They can be so amusing! Can you believe they said that?! Who’d a thunk it?

I told my friend, last night, when we were discussing this, that one day I’d like to write a book that is only dialogue, and I probably will, since it’s my favourite thing to write.

However. It does have a tendency to take flight.

My friend writes in chronological order. Totally fine to write that way if that’s how you do it, no notes from me here. I write partially chronologically, in that I typically write the beginning paragraph, the end paragraph, and some in the middle, then use Scrivener to quickly create a bunch of chapters, keep going until I’ve crafted all I can, so there’s a bare bones version of the book laid out ahead of me like a road map, then go back to the beginning and pick up in the first place where the writing starts to break up and have holes.

I bop around quite a bit. Most days, I start out with my notes app, addressing tidbits I’ve written overnight, dropping them into the document. Then, I return to the point earliest on where the writing doesn’t “join up” and chug on from there.

So, I’d advise some looseness, even when writing in chronological order, and this is something I think can be helpful here.

Because even though I write literary fiction, and am most interested in voice, character, theme, rather than plot and arc, I really do stand by the rule that everything submits to story. Everything must serve story. Anything that doesn’t is at risk of being cut. That doesn’t mean I have no time for, for example, description (sets tone, which helps story; aids pace, which supports story to move at right speed, etc), or a hang out between characters where nothing much happens (setting up relationships can provide reasons certain things have to happen; why people can only make certain choices and not others).

So, my friend starts at the beginning of the chapter and she starts this chapter with dialogue (thought this advice is good for prose, too). The dialogue takes flight, as dialogue is apt to do.

(Another way I like to think about it: you’re making the characters do so much work, putting them through the ringer, they’ve been in so many actions scenes; now you’ve given them an opportunity to talk, they shoot the shit, ignore your intentions, relax. Who can blame them? But we have to call them back to the story, because then we can get it done and they can move on with their lives.)

As the dialogue takes flight, funny and inventive things go down on the page. Now, the writer doesn’t want to lose them. They express something about the character. They’re mentioning a side plot. There are words on the page and to delete them would be to delete half an hour or a whole page.

But you’ve already expressed character in the last chapter. That side plot can be got into another time. Now, the characters are talking about apples and you’ve got to bring them around somehow to the dark legacy of their father’s past.

“I think I might make a pie.”

“You know, since Dad died, leaving that strange sentence in his will, that we haven’t worked out the meaning of yet, I feel like a slice has been taken out of me.”

“It’s funny how this subject has organically come up…”

“I pipped you to it.”

I ended up giving my friend some very simple advice, that I hope will help.

So, this is how I write.

I start a new chapter (in Scrivener, each chapter is a separate document, and while there are some downsides to that, I prefer it. I “compile” really often too, to look at the book and scroll back and forth and see how it’s feeling; how the arc is soaring).

I write down the dialogue that needs to happen in this chapter to move us along the arc.

“I can’t get that strange sentence in Dad’s will out of my mind.”

“I know. What did he mean by it?”

“No idea. Is he trying to screw with us?”

“Or…?”

“Do we have a sister we’ve never met who lives in remote Madagascar working as a botanist?”

“Exactly.”

(Next chapter booking flights to Madagascar cued up right here.)

Then, I write more around what I have.

More commonly, these days, I write less around what I have.

I mean, look at the above. Wouldn’t that be a cute chapter? Of a very sparse, elegant, comedic little book about two Deet-smothered siblings trekking through jungle to find their botanist half-sister who shares (exactly a third of) the dark legacy of their father’s past.

A book needs only contain information important to the arc/story (this feels like a manifesto for a future novel).

Sometimes, that focus is necessary to move the book along and not get caught up in what you’ve written.

I know that sounds funny. But I’m writing, you may think. Why is she telling me not to get caught up in the writing?

But think about this: you say much everyday that you don’t write down. You crack brilliant jokes. You think pithy things. You happen upon the profound. It all goes. don’t be precious about something just because it’s written down.

Remember that you’re not actually “writing”.

You’re “writing a novel”. If you want to sell a novel, that is. Or, like me, you’re writing “an auotficton novel”, or a memoir or non-fiction. A novel is a concept and it can be played with, but it’s also an established concept. It contains a story. I really like this about novels. I don’t feel being constrained by story is a bad thing at all.

I like story. I know story. I am story. Story is the leveller that enables my books to sit on the shelf beside books of people far more educated, moneyed, and/or connected than me.

So focus on story and write the sentences you need to write to serve the story first. Prioritise them, not only in your mind, but on the page.

There’s another benefit to writing this way. Once you have the important information in the chapter, then you can have fun. You can try things, be playful. You can relax. It’s kind of like getting your to-do list checked off in the morning, and having the afternoon to engage with more expansive work.

This, for me, is why the arc sits in the background. I always know everything should serve the story. So I serve the story first, and then I can engage with what I love most about writing:

The singing out of a sentence, finding the one right word, the most mellifluous way to say something, finding gold in the sifting, and polishing until it shines.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed, please restack, share with a friend, comment or like—all helps others to find and support my work, so I can keep writing. Thank you again! AJ xo