I recently read a blog post from BookFox, in which they categorized twelve different kinds of chapter endings. They gave an example of such a chapter ending for each of their categories, which was illuminating. It's worth reading, and I'm not going to repeat what they said. Instead, I'm going to talk about what I got from it.
Namely, however you end a chapter should have some pull to draw the reader further into the story. A cliff hanger is the obvious one, but there was also ending in a question or a mystery or having someone enter the scene who you know will carry forward the action in the next chapter.
On the other hand, the end can be a breath, or a moment of pause, and that's fine as long as the rest of the chapter sets up action pushing the reader forward. Let's say something very exciting happened in the chapter, but then the chapter ends with a description or a character moment or reminds you of the main themes. It's fine to take that pause because the reader is propelled through it and into the next chapter. I found that to be a relief, because I find it exhausting to ready when every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and even more exhausting to repeatedly write cliffhangers. I'm reminded of feeling manipulated while reading The Divinci Code. I'm reminded of getting bored reading weekly Shōnen manga, that attempt to have to have a cliffhanger or a reveal at the end of every issue. The issues are so short that there are hundreds of reveals and therefore they all blur together until none of them are important.
But the main take away I got from this blog post was that I could go through the chapter endings in my novel and identify what I was trying to do in each one. It gave me a vocabulary. And with that vocabulary, I was able to pin-point what was going wrong with the endings that felt weak.
There are four chapter endings that I'm unsatisfied with. In all four of them, I try to end on a joke that doesn't land.
Keep in mind, a lot of my jokes do land, and make for great chapter endings. As pointed out in the chapter ending blog post, a good joke can elicit an emotional response that will connect your reader to the work so that they carry on reading. Jokes can also be surprising, which can draw a reader along. There are several good jokes in this novel (as far as I'm concerned). And the ones that weren't working are good jokes that I hadn't set up to be "chapter ending jokes." They aren't set up so they end in a cymbal sting. They're set up like jokes thrown in during a longer dialogue. I need to recenter the conversation leading up to them so that the conversation actually leads up to them.
If you have chapters, I encourage you to try this exercise, because it's a good one.
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