Switch Blayde: Blog

In my last blog, I felt as if I were apologizing for posting such a short chapter in "High School Massacre" and I guess I was. I'd like to discuss chapter length here.

I read mostly thrillers and that genre typically has short chapters. Very short to be exact. I've been reading a lot of David Baldacci novels and his chapters are 2-3 pages long (paperback). And I believe he starts a new chapter for no other reason than he reached his 3-page "limit." I believe that's the wrong reason to end a chapter. But I'm currently reading a Lee Child novel (Jack Reacher) and he does it as well.

Thrillers are page turners and it's good to end a chapter with the reader anxious to start the next chapter (turn the page) to find out what's going to happen. Not cliffhangers, although they have a place too. So it's not necessarily a life threatening moment (cliffhanger) but a "OMG! What's going to happen next?"

With a novel, that's not a problem. You simply turn the page and start a new chapter. As an aside, as a reader I prefer reading short chapters so I can stop when I want without trudging through the end of a long chapter. Like when it's time to have dinner or go to sleep.

But SOL has issues with short chapters.

First, if the story isn't completely posted yet, like "High School Massacre" currently, you can't just "turn the page" to the next chapter. It's not there. But that's a short-term problem because some day it will be there.

The second issue is very specific to SOL. People with free memberships only get so many downloads each day. So whether the chapter is 5K or 50K it counts as one download. There's nothing I can do about that.

As I said in my previous blog entry, I don't take the SOL constraints in account when I write a novel. If I believe the chapter should end, no matter the length, I end it.

I actually had the opposite problem in my novel "Sexual Awakening." My chapters are typically 1,500-3,500 words. "Sexual Awakening" has a chapter over 6,000 words. When I was finishing it I found a place about halfway through where I could split it into two chapters. It was actually one of those "OMG! What's going to happen next" moments. But I felt it was an artificial chapter break so I left it as one large chapter.

The last thing I want to mention is that I write very succinctly. I use few words to tell the story. In fact, when I'm in editing mode, I have to force myself to add things like description. Pay attention to stories you read. As an author I can't help but do that. Even with the traditionally published novels like the Baldacci ones I'm reading, he tells the reader the same thing over and over again. That takes a lot of words. So does enormous amounts of description. So don't think a long chapter automatically means it's giving you more story than a short chapter.

Okay, for someone who likes short chapters I sure wrote a long blog.

I said I would post a chapter a week until the entire novel (High School Massacre) was posted. Since I posted Chapter 1 on a Tuesday, I posted Chapter 2 on a Tuesday as well. However, I posted Chapter 3 today and it's Thursday. Why?

When I write a novel, I don't take word count into consideration when writing chapters. If the chapter is real short, so what? All you have to do is turn the page to start the next chapter. However, that's not true on SOL if the next chapter isn't yet posted.

Chapter 3 of "High School Massacre" is real short. It's an important chapter though, introducing characters and something major in the plot. I was going to post it on Tuesday and also post Chapter 4 at the same time. But I thought I might as well post Chapter 3 early rather than bundle chapters 3 and 4 together.

So be forewarned - Chapter 3 is short.

"Steele Justice," the first book in the Lincoln Steele series, is now available on Bookapy (the other books in the series are "High School Massacre" and "Death of a Hero"). It's the last of my novels to be migrated to Bookapy so now all of my books are on both Bookapy and Amazon. Well, "Conflicted Nun" is not on Amazon because of the underage character having sex. Bookapy is more liberal in that regard.

I created the Lincoln Steele character with characters like Jack Reacher, Rambo, and Dirty Harry in mind. But after three Lincoln Steele books, I moved on. Someday I may write another, but after the third book I wrote "The Breeder" and then "Conflicted Nun." Now I'm writing a novel with the working title of "War Widows" or "World War II War Widows" (probably the former).

My novel "Last Kiss" is now available on Bookapy.

This is a very different novel from my others. It has no sex. NONE. You can buy it for your teenage daughter and she'll love it. You will too, by the way.

My short story with the same name was written for a contest on wattpad years ago. It received almost a perfect score from the judges.

I got many positive comments from the readers there, many asking for it to be longer. So I converted it to a full-length novel (85,000 words) and decided to go the traditional route (hence the squeaky clean nature of the novel). That publishing industry experience frustrated me so much that I decided I would forgo them and self-publish. And that's what I've been doing ever since, which allows me to write my other novels filled with graphic sex and violence that the traditional publishing industry is not ready for.

I eventually put the short story on StoriesOnline, but now that Bookapy exists, I decided to publish the novel there.

Until recently, I published my novels only on Amazon, but now have been publishing them on Bookapy as well. However, when I published on Amazon I enrolled each novel in the Kindle Unlimited program which requires the novel to be exclusive to Amazon for a 90-day period. For each novel, as the 90-day period expires I will be publishing the novel on Bookapy.

"High School Massacre" was released from the exclusive agreement with Amazon so I published it on Bookapy. The cover looks like it's a horror book, but it's not. And the title sounds like it's all about high school shootings, but it's not. It's a thriller/mystery and the high school shooting simply sets the story in motion and is the mystery that needs to be solved. The shooting itself is only the first chapter.

"High School Massacre" is the 2nd novel in the Lincoln Steele series, but all the books in the series are standalone, like James Bond or Jack Reacher novels. There may be some common characters across the novels (like "M" in James Bond), but they are not dependent on each other. I believe the only character other than Lincoln Steele carried over to this novel from the first one is Mr. Cian. He heads up a CIA-like organization that is so secretive it's the only government agency without initials.

"High School Massacre" has non-consensual sex. The purpose of it is to show the evilness of characters so that you root for them to get what they deserve, which is what Lincoln Steele does. He hands out his own form of justice (hence the name of the 1st novel in the series - "Steele Justice").

Like other SOL authors I know, we're putting our novels on Bookapy to support Lazeez (the StoriesOnline owner/webmaster). And like others, I use a different author name for my novels than my stories posted on SOL. On SOL I'm Switch Blayde, but on Bookapy and Amazon I'm S.W. Blayde.