Back when I was editing my Hades project, I decided to experiment with editing in scenes versus chapters. Editing by scene felt more connected because as most know, one of the best hook transitions are cliffhangers. The thought was that the bigger picture of the manuscript would be easier to see.
Overall, I felt it helped, but I also found that when I finished the edit and sorted it back into chapters, most of the transition spots ended up at the same points. Logically, it makes sense to pick the cliffhanger spots and those wouldn’t change much between the two. Scene endings are also natural chapter breaking points. Plus, it helped to see which scenes ended up running long, which allowed me to break up the even further into chunks.
For my next project, a Romeo and Juliet retelling, I decided to forego chapters entirely and write by scenes for the first draft. Concurrently, I am writing The Villainess Gambit’s serial and banking chapters for a relaunch. Because of the nature of serials, the scene writing process can’t be utilized. When comparing the two projects, the scene process feels smoother.
There are other factors at play — The Villainess Gambit’s audience expectations are different due to genre and format. TVG has to end in cliffhangers to keep the readers going (or subscribing) to the next chapter, so chapter endings are a big deal. Despite this, TVG is easier to write than R+J. The R+J retelling has a large number of moving pieces and political plays.
Yet, somehow, the writing process feels smoother going by scenes. I know I enjoyed the editing process using scenes during the Hades project, so I’m curious if I will still enjoy the process for this project. The first draft is almost complete (53/65 scenes as of now) so hopefully there will be a comparison point for that aspect soon.
In the meantime, perhaps try writing out a few scenes in their entirety before breaking them into chapters and see how it fares for you.