Perhaps it's me just being too critical on myself, or maybe I'm not, or maybe it's some combination of those, but I feel like my last two chapters have an episodic feeling to them, which isn't what I want. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this?
My web serial is very episodic, but that's on purpose. To make it feel that way, with only one or two exceptions, I make sure to wrap up the main loose ends and get the characters to a point where to expect them to rest and discuss what had happened, and maybe do a little of that. Drop the tension back down to 2. So if I wanted it to not feel episodic, I'd do the opposite - end the chapter while there is still some tension, with the characters knowing and wanting to do something, but unable to or aware of the challenge they face.
The first chapter I wrote seems to only tie in very loosely to the previous chapter, maybe one or two small ties, and the chapter after that really doesn't tie into that chapter. The first chapter involves the MC starting a friendship with his girlfriend's sister who has similar problems as him, which was said in the chapter before, and it also reinforces the friendship with her brother. The next chapter has a small scene where him and his girlfriend's mom talk and start to become friends as well. Other then that there really isn't any significant ties. So yeah, they just don't seem very connected, at least to me.
What's the book about? Does it have a plot that ties all the way through and you're just doing relationship setup, or are these relationships the plot?
Hmm. I think this is the kind of thing that's hard to advise on without actually reading them and knowing the overarching story. But I know that the sort of vague thing I go by is that whatever happens in this chapter couldn't've happened without what happened in the previous chapter. Not saying that's a proper metric, but does it apply? Even if the ties are only loose, is the later chapter dependent on what happened in the earlier one? It can be character development stuff -- would the mc have talked to his girlfriend's mother without or before talking the the sister? Do the conversations build off of each other?
Try to end each chapter except the last with something pending. I don't want to call it a cliffhanger, but something that the reader really wants to know what's next. Don't always begin the subsequent chapter where the previous one left off, either.both of these maintain flow, break up the sense that each chapter is stand-alone, and thereby dilutes any episodic feel to the chapters.
I would say more of plot, because initially the sister and mom didn’t like him. They eventually come to consider him family. But the story doesn’t revolve around him being accepted by them, that’s just one of many things in it that happens.
