I recently finished reading New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson. It was ultimately enjoyable and certainly thought-provoking about the results of global climate change, but I did have some problems easing into the book.
First, it’s a door stopper. At over 600 pages, you have to work up a commitment before you open the cover. Secondly, there are a lot of important characters to keep track of, most with their own story lines and character arcs. This leads to what I think of as the ‘Tarzan effect.’ When I was a teenager, Edgar Rice Burroughs used to torment me from the grave by switching POVs from one chapter to the next for a good part of the book: one chapter Tarzan, next chapter hapless character who will eventually be rescued by Tarzan.
Of course, unless you severely limit your characters and settings, you’ll have a hard time avoiding this problem as a writer. So what can you do to ease the transition? I think it can be managed by matching circumstances and moods, though not mechanically. I’ll start with an example of what doesn’t work well.
End of the old chapter . . .
She struck the door over and over again with shoulder, foot, and fist, but the oak panels held, indeed, they didn’t even bother to tremble. All that Jilla accomplished was a rain of dust from the low ceiling. If the skeletons rattled a bit in their chains, it was lost in the liquid flow of curses that followed her latest attempt to escape.
Now the start of the new chapter . . .
It wasn’t his favourite duty, and Old Trawney was being particularly difficult, setting him more than the usual number of lines to copy. Still, the sun was shining through the library window, and Jesson could think up a dozen princely excuses to end his lessons early and take advantage of such a fine summer day.
Both passages contain the circumstance of imprisonment, one real and one metaphorical, but their tones are so out of sync that the break between chapters will jar the reader. I’ll try again with the start of the new chapter . . .
“No, no, no!” Professor Trawney said. “There will be no escape for you until you finish these lines.”
With that, he slapped a hand down on the stack of blank parchment, raising a cloud of dust that found Prince Jesson’s nose and caused a sneezing fit that barely covered the curses he muttered under his breath. While his teacher coughed, Jesson eyed the library door. It was locked, and Trawney had the key, but there was still the window.
Not perfect, but a little better with tone helping the shared circumstance, though one tone is serious and the other is mocking. The break between chapters blurs, becoming less absolute (less Tarzan-y). It’s something to keep in mind while we try to fit a crowd of characters inside a single novel.