Chapters. I like ‘em.
The same probably could be said for any reader — almost every book is divided into chapters, so they come with the territory — but if you’re paying attention, you begin to spot ways writers use chapters and how those divisions alter meaning.
I’ve been thinking about chapters for a while but finally buckled down to write when Maren Longbella wrote, in a review of “The House Hunt,” “I do love short chapters.” Her argument is that, like many writers who craft page-turners, C.M. Ewan uses short chapters — there are 116 in the 423-page book, many less than a page long — to propel a work forward so rapidly that it becomes difficult to put down.
I’ve often thought something similar about the thrillers of Michael Connelly, whose chapters are longer than Ewan’s but still come in at less than 10 pages apiece. “The Lincoln Lawyer” author often cuts between a couple points of view in his brief chapters, which establishes a speedy pace in the same way cross-cutting between two images in a movie can heighten the suspense by making us envision — and wait for — the moment when the two threads will intertwine.
Something similar happens in Louise Erdrich’s upcoming “The Mighty Red,” which contains 116 chapters in its 369 pages. That’s if my count is accurate. Erdrich’s chapters aren’t numbered in “Mighty,” which is set in 2008 and 2009 in a North Dakota community where most people have a rooting interest in which of two young men a woman named Kismet will marry.
I’ve seen folks on the Goodreads social media site say short chapters are helpful for those with attention disorders but even if you’re comfortably a long-haul reader, there’s a short-chapter bonus. Racking up chapters gives you a tiny sense of accomplishment: “I read 10 chapters tonight (and let’s just consign to the small print the fact that they were two pages long).”
The speedy, short chapters of “Mighty Red” (like Ewan, Erdrich is not afraid to cut it off after less than a page) suck us in — “Oh, it’s just three more pages. I can read another chapter before I turn off the light.” But they also give “Mighty” the feel of a Robert Altman movie, like “Nashville,” which is always shifting around to capture tiny portions of a huge canvas. It’s a big, meaty book but its chapters feel like tasty snacks.
