Pacing. Not so much pacing within a scene, or even a chapter. But from chapter to chapter. And especially over the course of several chapters.—Jeffrey
The way to structure a chapter properly for pacing is to use the same structure you use for your novel, only holographically. That means in miniature. For every chapter, you need a hook, a series of conflicts, a faux resolution (“la-la-la, I can’t HEAR you”), a climax, and generally a (brief) resolution. This creates the up-&-down motion that keeps your reader reeling from hook to climax to hook to climax, endlessly, chapter by chapter, throughout your novel.
There’s a trick that’s commonly used in suspense, which is called “cliff-hanger.” You know what a cliff-hanger is? It’s sticking the hook to a chapter onto the very tail end of the previous one.
Of course, you’ve already got your entire novel plotted according to the main hook, series of conflicts, faux resolution, and climax, right? So the way your chapters fit into those major episodes is exactly the same: for each episode you have a hook chapter, conflicts in chapters, a faux resolution chapter, and a climax chapter. Say, six episodes with six chapters each gives you something in the neighborhood of thirty-six chapters for your whole novel at about eight pages or 2,000 words apiece. Now, naturally, if you prefer longer chapters you can cram several of those all into one chapter and if you prefer shorter chapters you can break a lot of them up into multiple chapters. But that’s your thumbnail.
The length of each chapter—short or long—affects the tension in your reader. Where do you need the most tension? Hooks and climaxes. Play with it.
Don’t bother with a whole chapter of resolution for each episode, just wave a dead chicken at it and launch straight into the hook of the next episode. If your reader’s really nice to you and really lucky, you might throw in a final chapter at the very end, after the climax chapter to the climax episode, as a resolution to the whole darn thing.
(This is covered in detail under Part 1: Developmental Issues, as well as elaborated upon in original, thought-provoking—rather risky, to be honest—theory under ‘Pacing’ in Chapter 16 “Running Them Like Rats in a Maze,” of The Art & Craft of Fiction. I’m also going to write a new essay on it for the magazine because Jeffrey is a subscriber and he asked nicely.)