Changing Chapter Formatting

In the follow-up book to There’s No Such Thing as Dragons, the story continues, but it’ll continue in smaller pieces.

When I was a kid I was more interested in running around outside than reading books, so when I did have to read, and I had a choice about what to read, I always chose books with the shortest chapters. That way I could stop reading sooner and get back outside.

I still have that feeling now but it doesn’t impact my book choices anymore.

I recently picked up a book called Northern Spy by Flynn Berry, published in 2021. It’s a fine book targeted for an adult audience and contains blissfully short chapters.

I’m now reading No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, published in 2005. It contains chapter lengths that I expect, 15-20 pages or so.

Based on no research and an obviously small sample size, I wonder the following: are book chapters getting smaller to accommodate shrinking attention spans? No shade on Flynn Berry here, by the way. It's just that the difference between the books got me thinking.

Recognizing that my books are meant for middle graders, mostly, I’m going to make a change in my formatting that 12 year old me would have really appreciated.

I'll have unlimited small chapters, some might just be a page or two. Those will be numbered. Maybe more than a hundred. Then, some of those chapters will have titles. There are currently 22 titled chapters. Each titled chapter will mark the change in perspective between the two story lines. Here is where I reveal the first three chapter titles as an example:

CHAPTER	TITLED	STORYLINE
1	Disharmony	Alexandria
2		Alexandria
3		Alexandria
4		Alexandria
5		Alexandria
6	Marie	Plainsette
7		Plainsette
8		Plainsette
9		Plainsette
10	Humiliation	Alexandria
11		Alexandria
12		Alexandria
13		Alexandria

I hope this makes for an easier read.

Oakland Based Mystery Novelist Signs with Bootstrap Publications

Nicholas Louis Baham III, writer of the Sonny Trueheart Mystery series has signed a 4-book deal with Bootstrap Publications. His first book in the series, The People's Detective, will debut in early 2024.

The People's Detective

A Sonny Trueheart Mystery

When investigative journalist and BlackLivesMatter activist Aurora Jenkins gets too close to

the truth about the unsolved disappearances of young Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women

from the streets of Oakland, a powerful alliance of Black organized crime, corrupt police,

and white elites seek to suppress her story. Sonny Trueheart, a former Oakland Police Department homicide detective, burdened by alcoholism and the ghosts of his past, is called to investigate Aurora’s kidnapping and the facts behind her story. Together with his former aikido Sensei, a Bahamian human rights advocate, and an old friend with a propensity for gratuitous sex and violence, Sonny uncovers a vast criminal conspiracy.

Armed with little more than his wit and intuition, a snub-nose revolver, and the discipline of

aikido, Sonny Trueheart emerges as a symbol of revolutionary awakening in the Black

communities of Oakland, California.

Available for preorder now.

Nicholas Louis Baham III, Ph.D. is a Professor and Chair of Ethnic Studies at California State University East Bay and teaches Black Studies and Genders & Sexualities in Communities of Color.