Okay. Serious question: How in the world do you decide how and where to cut a story into chapters? The more I think of it, the harder it seems to be. Maybe I’m just thinking too much about it. To me, my writing is just one long, flowing bit of work. It’s kind of like when you’re trying to dictate your recount of an event to someone else. You don’t say “Chapter 1: When I woke that morning, I had no idea how shitty my Monday was going to be…” and so on. You just keep going in one continuous narrative with no breaks (except to breathe of course). So, how about it people? How do you go about separating a story into chapters? Is there some rule I don’t know about? Please help!! As always, love and lust to you all!
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Emily Craft Erotica 
I kind of use the cliff hanger idea…if the last bit leaves me guessing what’s going to happen next that’s where I end the chapter.
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Sherry (LuLu) pointed your question to me. This is always hard, but I think 1) understanding your audience and 2) the style of your writing will help you in figuring out what works best for your audience RE chapter breaks. For ex. does your audience do well with longer chapters and does the style of your writing (i.e. experimental) lend itself to longer/flowing chapters? If so, great. If not, then shorter might be better. Agreed about ending a chapter with a cliffhanger or a storyline where the reader wants to progress to the next chapter. You want to engage with the reader and have them wondering what comes next.
Full disclosure: I’m a technical writer, so chapters in manuals are a very different thing; these thoughts mostly come from my experience as a reader 🙂
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For my writing, chapters are a transition or can be used to build tension. Kind of like a commercial break or scene shift in a tv show or movie. Or acts in a play. How does your favorite writer handle chapters? Maybe go back and read your favorite book as a writer, paying attention to stylistic choices. How do they format their dialog? When do they do chapter breaks?
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