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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/6186
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'm writing a novel that will have 9 chapters. Most of the chapters have the same structure:

1. The main character goes down a hole she found in her room.

2. She finds herself in a strange part of the city and has a conversation with a strange character.

3. She returns from the hole and discovers that something has changed in the world she came from.

Each chapter deals with a theme. The conversations she has with the strange characters and the changes in the world around her have something to do with each theme.

**Question:**

I wonder if using the same structure in each chapter and defining the themes in each of them is somehow a "bad" way of writing a novel.

If not, I would like to know how to make it so that the structure is not that obvious for the reader.

(One thing that I did was to start some chapters with the character having already jumped in the hole.)

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**EDIT:**

Here is a summary of the second and third chapters (to give you a better idea):

**2nd Chapter:**

Erin's father is in prison for raping her sister. She had promised her mom that she would visit him. She takes the train and reaches the prison, but she backs up at the last minute and returns home without seeing him. That night she realizes that the hole in the floor of her room has gotten bigger. She enters (there are some boxes and a corridor with a door) and finds herself in a empty alley (she's still in the same city). She enters a bar and has a conversation with a strange man. He talks with her about good and evil and questions whether they exist at all. She then returns from the hole and goes to sleep. In the morning she resolves to visit her father. But when she goes to call him in advance, he is no longer in prison but at the hospital. Erin calls her mother and discovers that her father has always been in the hospital, and was never in prison. Erin finds this very puzzling because she knows that her father has always been in prison. She goes to the hospital to visit him and finally reunites with her father.

**3rd Chapter:**

Erin's cat has disappeared and she looks around the area in search of the missing feline. Right after she gives up, her landlord calls to tell Erin that she found the cat. When Erin meets the landlord she finds that her cat is dead. Erin goes to her room and notices that there are pawprints leading down into the hole. She enters the hole and follows them until she reaches a subway. There is no one in the subway except a girl who is standing on the edge of the platform. Erin tries to find out what she is planning to do. The girl talks with Erin about life and death, believing them to be one and the same. At the end, the train comes and the girls board it. Erin gets out from the hole and goes back to her room to find a baby cat that resembles her recently deceased pet. She finally decides to take care of the new cat.

Original score: 7