BOOKS: Chapters in books

I'm finishing off my stash of Lee Goldberg novel tie-ins right now, having read the last Diagnosis Murder novel during Christmas and working my way through the Monk novels from my last birthday. Goldberg also wrote television episodes for the two series, and his knowledge and ease with the characters shines through. If you like the shows, the books are actually better.

One aspect of Goldberg's writing that I really, really like is his decision to write in short chapters, rather than combining many scenes into one long chapter. It matches my reading needs perfectly. I read, mostly in bed, just before turning out the lights and calling it a night. (when the power doesn't do that for me, see below)

Depending on the book, when I started reading and how tired I am, I can get in 10 minutes to six hours of reading. I like to start and end on a chapter, so that the bookmark I use, doesn't have to be carefully arranged not to take off any ink. I use the Post-It Markers, the little inch-long tabs. They don't fall out of the book no matter how hard you shake them, and go onto the back cover to show I've read the book when finished. Yes, occasionally I forgot I read a particular book, if it has been awhile. Checking the back cover eliminates wasted starts.

Goldberg writes chapters as short as two pages, and I don't think I've seen one longer than ten pages at this point. Which means, I can 'read just one more chapter,' as I tell myself during particularly interesting passages. And when I get really tired or my interest wanes a bit, then I'm really just a page or two from a good stopping point.

One of the reasons I developed an affinity for Jeffrey Deaver's works, especially the Lincoln Rhymes and Rune series, is he uses shorter than average chapters. Not as short as Goldberg, but quite reasonable. Deaver's The Empty Chair was the first book I ever read entirely on my hand-held computer (a palm pilot at the time). It was read in Bank lines, waiting to check out at the grocer's and while the kids were whiling away my life at the McDonald's Funland. Every time I was stuck in some nowhere place, including at clients' locations installing software, I'd pull out the PDA and get in another chapter or two. Waiting around can be fun if you have a good book to read.

The antithesis of short chapters are the books where the author wants desperately to set some sort of record in chapter length. I remember slaving away through the first Weapons of Choice book by John Birmingham wondering WHEN the chapter I was reading would end and I could go to sleep. I still wonder at how I worked my way through the first third of the book to discover a great book did, indeed, hide between the covers. That said, there was an even worse experience just ahead for me.

I had waited for the publication of We Few by David Weber and John Ringo for a long time. It was the fourth book in the Prince Roger series that had started so brilliantly with the threesome of March books. I had read them during the great Blackout we had a few years back. I pre-ordered the book for electronic delivery, not wanting to waste even the time to go to the store to buy a hard copy version. I got the email the book was ready for downloading late one night.

As the book unfolded, I found to my horror that this was not much like the preceding books in the series, but more in the lines of Robert Asprin's Phule's Company books. I was devastated. But I read on, thinking I would just get to the end of the first chapter and put it aside to finish another time. As you've probably guessed, the chapter's end NEVER came. I read for about an hour, surprised I could even keep my eyes open. I finally gave into sleep and turned the computer off.

I did finish the book a day or two later. Weber and Ringo are good writers and I got around to accepting that they were writing a new series with old characters, rather than the long-wanted (by me) fourth book in the original trilogy. Once I accepted that and recognized that there were not going to be any chapter breaks, I sailed through the book.

Sure would have been easier with short chapters, though.