Where to Actually End a Chapter (5 Best Places)

Back in college, when I started taking writing more seriously, I sometimes wondered when to end a chapter. I sought guidance, and found little to no real help. I wasn't sure exactly how to create that little oomph at the end of a chapter or that satisfying beat of (temporary) closure.

Today, you can find many resources on how, when, or where to end chapters. In truth, though, you don't need a long list of ideas. You don't even need to necessarily rack your brain for a killer cliffhanger or a satisfying conclusion. Nor are chapter breaks a mystery you have to guess at.

The reality is, when you understand plot, structure, and scenes at a foundational level, it will become consistently clear where the best places are for chapter endings. Usually the best place is one of five. Really.

In order to explain those places, though, we need to briefly cover those foundational elements.

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How I Write a Chapter-by-Chapter Document

Hi everyone! As most of you probably know, I work as a freelance editor. One type of editing I do is content (or developmental) editing. It's an edit that focuses on what the story is, and how the story itself can be made stronger--this means focusing on things like worldbuilding, characters, plot, structure, theme, etc. (In contrast, a line edit focuses on the way the story is told on a line-by-line level.)

Any content edit will include what's called an editorial or critique letter, which is what it sounds like. It's a feedback letter explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the story with some ideas of how to improve it. I already did a post on how I, personally, approach critique letters. 

And today I wanted to talk about another document I started adding to my content edits a few years ago. I call it a "chapter-by-chapter document" (yeah, I know, really clever name 😉). See, after a couple of years of freelancing, I started to feel like, for a lot of stories, a critique letter wasn't deep enough or specific enough.

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Picking the Right Viewpoint Character for Your Scene

Hey guys, today I'm picking up right where I left off in my post about third-person point of view. If you didn't read that post and are just here to learn how to pick the right viewpoint character for a scene, no worries. I'll backtrack a bit. Last time I ended on writing in third-person limited, multiple viewpoints. I mentioned that right now a lot of people feel like you should only switch viewpoint characters between chapters (this goes for writing in first-person too). And others believe you should alternate chapters or cycle through viewpoints like this:

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