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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25074
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25074
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It is hard to be sure from such small samples, but I would guess that the problem is not really abruptness. All chapter endings are in some sense abrupt. The action simply stops.

The problem is, where should it stop. Every chapter should have a dramatic arc. It should stop at the end of that arc. A dramatic arc generally ends either with the creation or the resolution of tension.

The problem with your first example is that its "'okay lets do this' 'do this' 'that it is, see you!'." structure does not seem to either create tension or resolve it. It is the end of a scene only in the sense that it is the end of a conversation, after which the characters presumably walk off in different directions. But it ends on what is essentially an administrative decision. No grave matter has come to a head. No grave matter has been resolved. The end of the conversation is not the end of a dramatic arc. The problem is not a lack of winding down but a lack of winding up.

Similarly in your second example, although it is a battle scene, there is no apparent arc ending. (By the way, explosions don't implode. The terms are opposites.) There was an explosion. Some people died. Okay, but do those deaths create tension? Do they resolve tension? What is at stake for our hero in this battle? Love? Honor? A moral dilemma? The fate of a loved one? Does this explosion create or resolve tension relative to what is at stake to our hero?

If not, the explosion is just a random bit of violence that no more creates dramatic tension than an administrative requirement to get advice from the castle. It is not the end of the chapter because it is not the end of a dramatic arc.

A chapter end should be a point of flexion in the overall shape of your story. The fate of the characters should change in some material way -- or at least be in peril of changing. If a chapter ending feels abrupt, it is probably because it has not reached that point. (Or possibly because it as run on past it, or the chapter contains no such point.)

Original score: 2