Where to Put Chapter and Scene Breaks in Your Romance Novel

One of the more deceptively difficult aspects of writing a romance novel is deciding where to end your scenes and chapters. There's no hard and fast rule for it, either; it's one of those things largely done by "feel," but there are a few useful tips to keep in mind to make the process of structuring your romance novel easier.

Because that's what scenes and chapters do: they provide the structure, the building blocks of your story.

So without further ado, let's get to know those blocks, how they work, and where to start and end them.

The difference between a romance novel scene and a chapter

Scenes are the building blocks of every fiction novel. Without a scene, you don't have chapter, and without a chapter, you don't have a romance novel.

Each scene features two things: an action, and reaction. For example, the meet-cute might be the first scene in your book, and that scene will include both the meet-cute itself, and at least one character's reaction to the meet-cute.

A chapter, on the other hand, is less defined, and adds artificial structure, allowing you to create an organised book that's easy to read and navigate. But chapters also affect a romance novel's pace. A book with few chapters that are very long, for example, will have a slower pace. A book with many short chapters will have a quicker pace.

There are no hard and fast rules for how many scenes and chapters to include in your romance novel. But remember that in a romance novel, you have three acts to cover—the "getting to know you" first act, the "falling in love" second act, and the "fighting for/keeping love" third act—and that there are a few romance beats (key scenes) in each act, so you're looking at least 9 scenes, and that's before you take into account any sub-plots or character development. Scenes can be anywhere from 500-2000 or, in longer romances, even 3,000 words, and most romance novel changes range in word count from 1000-3500, so keep that in mind when planning your scenes and chapters.

When to end a romance novel scene

Scenes should end when there is a shift in mood, tone, point of view, location, day, time—basically, when there is a clear change.

For example, after your characters meet-cute and one reacts to that beat, you might start a new scene that shows the other character talking to their best friend about the meet-cute the next day, and giving their reaction. Since the day, time, and POV have shifted, we need a new scene to signal to readers that this shift has occurred; otherwise, they might get confused about who is talking, when, and why, and that confusion could disrupt their reading flow.

Another thing that can confuse readers is when there is more than one event in a scene. This can make the scene feel crowded and pull focus from the other event featured. It's better to start a new scene when you transition to a new event; it signals to readers that they're about to read about something new, which ratchets up excitement and engagement.

When to end a romance novel chapter

Since chapters affect a book's pacing, the best time to end a chapter is when you need to emphasize drama, tension, or emotion, all of which also affect a romance novel's pacing.

To show you how ending a chapter can create tension, let's go back to our meet-cute example. We now have two scenes, one of which shows the meet-cute and one main character's reaction to it, and the other which shows the other main character's reaction.

At the end of the second scene, the second main character might declare that they don't care how attracted to the other main character they are, there's no way they're going to pursue them because they've sworn off that type of person (insert trope here). This is, therefore, a great time to end the chapter, because doing so inserts tension that we can play off in the next chapter, when we force this character to interact with the very person they've sworn off, and feel that pesky, unavoidable attraction that threatens their ability to stay away from them.

Should you include scene and chapter breaks when plotting or writing your romance novel?

I personally include scene and chapter breaks when I'm outlining because it allows me to evaluate the book's pace before I get to the writing, which is important since my outlines have to work without a developmental edit, which checks for things like pacing.

If there are too many long chapters in a row when I review one of my outlines, I know I need to break some of these up so I don't slow down the book's pace too much. Conversely, if I've included several shorter chapters in a row, I need to make sure I've done so for good reason, like building suspense, and at an appropriate time in the book, such as the third act.

However, many writers don't decide where scene and chapter breaks go until they've completed their outline, or their manuscript, and that's okay! Often it's difficult to see the natural stopping points in a story until you've actually written it, so if in doubt, let yourself go with the literal writing flow, and focus on finding those natural stopping points after you've gotten everything down.

You could even try both methods—including chapters and scene breaks in your outlines/rough drafts, or waiting until you're finished drafting—and see which one works better for you.

Until next post, happy reading and writing.