Does something need to happen in every single chapter?

Does something need to happen in every chapter? Yes.

Something needs to happen in every paragraph.

Something needs to happen in every sentence.

The story must advance. A story needs more to advance than physical action by the characters, however. It is the telling that needs to advance. Actions are merely one device for advancing story. Description, reflection, and conversation can all advance the story. One the other hand, action does not always advance the story.

Description, reflection, conversation, action, and all the other parts of human life are matter for story. The right use of any of them advances the story and the wrong use of any of them retards the story. Action may seem like a easy and reliable way to advance story, but story is about the arc of a character and you can have action galore without advancing the arc of a character. Thus many big action blockbusters fall flat, while many quieter slower-paces movies become hits.

Every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence must propel character along the arc of story. How is entirely a matter of the nature of the story itself.

posted almost 8 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Mark Baker‭

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That's up to you. Whether you decide to advance the plot in each chapter or not is entirely your call. Your readers may disagree with your decision, but frankly that's their problem. Ultimately, what you write is yours. If your goal is to sell copies, then by all means appeal to the common denominator. If your goal is to convey meaning, not everybody is going to "get" it anyway.

Personally, I actually find that almost always, my favorite parts are the parts where nothing happens in the common interpretation of plot advancement, but instead we see exposition. For example, in Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery, there's a part where, in the course of the titular heist, the main character decides to run atop the train, and jump between cars.

Crichton breaks what many readers would implicitly consider a pretty important rule: he tells the reader something exciting is happening, but then takes a pretty lengthy unexciting detour before resolving the tension. He goes into detail about why this character decided that running on top of the train was not a terrible idea. Crichton explains concepts of fluid dynamics, which actually shed light on real-world phenomena that lots of readers have probably wondered about (and in fact, I ended up asking my high school physics teacher about it and learned about all kinds of stuff as a result). Then he explains that the character's application of these concepts is fundamentally flawed and it actually really was a terrible idea after all.

It's by far my favorite part of the book. It could have been an entire chapter and I would have loved every word of it, even with Mike "leaving me hanging" on the action. Maybe some other readers didn't care and were put off by it but, like I said above, that's their problem. If Crichton had left it out for their sake, I wouldn't have enjoyed the book nearly as much.

So, if you feel like there's a way you can add meaning, don't be afraid to spend time (pages? chapters?) not advancing the plot to do it.

posted about 8 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Devsman‭

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