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Writing that way kills your hook.

I’m not advocating changing the way you write. You see the situation and how it ends. That’s terrific. Again, it is very natural to write this way. What you need to do though, is recognize that chapters are totally, one hundred percent arbitrary, manmade conveniences.

After the section is written, you control where the chapter break occurs. Either don’t put chapters in at all until the end, or recognize that when you are done with that part you need to go back and find the unanswered question and end the chapter at that point. Write, THEN decide where the chapter is going to break...at the critical point...just when the gun is about to go off, the hero is about to confront the antagonist, the height of the "black moment" when all seems lost.

Many times, I cut the final page from a chapter, and make it an opening for the new chapter, or use the cut to start a new scene a little later.

Knowing you have control over the chapter endings is helpful. First, you leave the reader with the hook and they must go on to the next chapter. You see, most readers don’t know what you as the author do to get that “ARGH! I have to read the next chapter!” feeling. They don’t know that you consciously created when and where those chapters are going to end.

If you stop writing at the point you are about to answer the hook question, you provide yourself a great place to start the next time you sit down at your keyboard, a second benefit. You can open the next chapter with a new story/character/plot question, but the answer to the last chapter’s story question will come later, perhaps provide the second half of the current chapter you are working on. It reminds me of the game of “leap frog”. You might even change the point of view character here and ease into answering the question from the last chapter’s hook.

Recognizing the chapter breaks are in your control makes ending the chapter with a hook a lot easier to do. Controlling hooks helps with your pacing and keeps your reader turning pages.

Sandra, editor Aspen Mountain Press