Just a thing I've noticed about chapter arcs which was discussed a little while ago. I'm reading a book just now - teen adventure/magic? - and the kids are being chased by a flock of attacking birds (a la Alfred Hitchcock).

One chapter ends with them being chased into a wood, birds pelting them, panic stricken, pecked to bits and the birds hanging ominously in the trees above. Then the new chapter begins with them suddenly being attacked by rats - no break, no puffing/panting, discussion about what to do, examining their wounds.

I have to admit - I hated it. I was almost physically unable to read on and if I wasn't reviewing the book it might have broken me. I always get completely emotionally involved with what I'm reading and to me this wasn't right. There should have been some sort of sequel at the end of the chapter to prepare me for the start of the next onslaught.

Am I being over-sensitive? Just because it doesn't "fit in" to my idea of the ebb and flow of the way a book works doesn't mean it's wrong.

I think in the last discussion I said I split the action between chapters - and I have since changed this idea and I have had my reasons confirmed because I couldn't stand reading it in this book. I have realised the action should be mid chapter building up at the start and relaxing towards the end. But is this a narrow view open to opinion.

Any thoughts?

I don't think you're being over-sensitive - I'm not surprised you felt like that, and I think many readers would, even if they couldn't pin down the source of their unease as you can.

Quite apart from the question of realism, there does actually have to be some tense-and-relax rhythm to even the most exciting story. Arcs have to come down to earth: that's as important as the top of it, to my mind, because it's from there that the next arc springs: if James Bond doesn't have a moment lying bruised and battered in a cave and thinking he might be safe at last, where's the drama in the next moment when the baddie appears in the cave mouth...

Emma

I would be annoyed too, eve.
The Indiana Jones films throw one action sequence after the other at the audience, but at least there are pauses inbetween and the audience is allowed to relax and take a breath as the scene is set up for the next thrilling installment. It doesn't have to be much - as you say, a pause to allow the characters to examine their wounds and say 'phew, I'm glad that's over. Lets go shelter in that cave' would probably suffice.

Thanks Emma and Naomi. I was thinking that if they jumped from one action to the other within the same chapter I wouldn't have noticed it so much. I guess I would have thought "aren't they being put through the mill". But to end the chapter on a stresser and then start the next one still under pressure with no breather in between was too much for me. I really had to force myself on with it and I'm really ploughing now!

It's so interesting the way techniques affect us as readers. I find it fascinating.

Eve, that would jar me right out of the story too. We all know how important pace is, and even if the story is a rush, it should still balance out and be a pleasurable experience. Of course it's subjective, but there are rules.

JB

You're absolutely right, Eve (and everyone else). A great example of this (peaks and troughs of suspense and action) I would say would be The Birds by DeMaurier, fittingly.

Nik.

I think Du Maurier is a very under-rated writer, no doubt because she was such a seller, and her gothic-ness can read old-fashioned. Rebecca is beautifully structured, and My Cousin Rachel has some of the best sexual-obssession horror I know.

Emma

Du Maurier even!

It's funny how big sales can sap artistic credibility, isn't it.

Nik.

A good deal to do with being a woman, too, especially at that date: much harder to establish 'literary' credentials. As I remember she published her first novel to huge sales, when she was a very beautiful and extremely well-connected girl of 19 or so, just at the time when fiction had only recently been acknowledged as high culture, and the literary intelligentsia were therefore busy trying to draw a line below themselves to establish their intellectual credentials by keeping out anyone who might be suspected of having a slighly middlish brow.

Emma

Yes, sad. And quite disgusting. I hope we're moving away from that now.

Nik.