A Writer's Device: Flexible thinking about Chapters.

In the early stages of a writing plan for anything of any size, you are going to have an outline. If you are formally trained in Creative Writing, you've probably had a scheme for outlining beaten into you at some point. There's a reason besides just keeping track of what happens in what order; it really does give you targets for what to write in each chapter.

Because, come on, the GOAL is to write each Chapter. Get them down in words and have something to work with, rather than blue-skying a thousand rewrites in your head. You have to get the damn thing written. But if you are too closely wedded to an outline you created before starting to produce chapters, you might panic when something seems to run too long or too short.

Don't.

There is nothing to panic about. Unless you are a writer that sets and locks in a single point of view in each chapter, and that chapter is a single continuous flow, you have lots of flexibility. If you do lock in single POV in a chapter, then you sure as hell shouldn't worry about a chapter running long or short. You're committed to writing what is needed in that plan, no more and no less.

In any other chapter structure, like continuous time-flow multiple perspectives, every two or three paragraphs are likely a structural unit. You can treat those as modular constructs. Not in sequence, but in where you break the chapters. If one chapter runs too long, in your thinking, look back and find a natural break between modules. Then start the next chapter with the paragraph that starts the next module.

Worst case, split a big chapter in two at some obvious modular break in the middle. Push your Chapter numbering up one, and get back to writing.

Don't let anything keep you from getting that first draft down in words. You can't publish, you can't solicit test-readers, you can't even properly edit, what you haven't written down.

Which means... I need to get back to writing. Here's to your success!