: Re: The value of labeling book sections My wife is beginning a novel, and she's written four chapters in under six pages. I suggested that she consider using page breaks, or lowercase Roman numbered

@Deb2945533

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Adapt multiple levels of division. What I see as the worst problem is abusing chapters as sections. Get your wife to adapt * ~ * ~ * section breaks with the current frequency of chapters, use chapters much more sparsely, possibly name each, and if that isn't enough, divide the whole thing into 2-4 parts.

The division into parts is clear, memorable and obvious though not very helpful in finding specific places. But with parts, named chapters become entirely meaningful and really help locate points of the story. Meanwhile the sections serve as thread separators, scenes for benefit of the flow. They aren't for locating events but for keeping them distinct.

That is not to say some very short chapters are wrong. Breaking the rule of chapter length and serving a fully featured chapter to present a single paragraph of text will certainly give that paragraph some weight. If the event is the turning point of the whole story, the readers will certainly remember "that special chapter" and it will do the story good. But 130 chapters in a moderately sized book? No. Just no.

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