No Fluff: The Chapter Checklist For When Your Brain Is Fried

Here we go! Another rabbit hole!

I spent so much time trying to figure out what every chapter needs in order to be considered “done.” I read articles, watched videos, bookmarked threads… and everyone seemed to have a different answer.

Except they didn’t.

It was all the same core ideas, just phrased differently.

So I took all those overlapping lists, combined them, and turned them into a simple chapter review checklist. I even made myself a little half-sheet fill-in slip with a Yes / No column that I use to review each chapter once it's "finalized."

This is about making sure the chapter is actually doing its job.

Chapter Review: The Questions to Ask

1. How should the reader feel by the end of this chapter?

2. Is the time/location of the chapter understood?

3. Are physical descriptions present (location/people)?

4. Goals/The Wants:

5. Motivation/ The Why:

6. Conflict/What gets in the way?

7. What does the character(s) expect/plan to happen?

8. Do/does the expectations/plan happen?

9. Stakes (what happens if they do/don't achieve the goal?)

10. Do they get their goal?

    1. Yes but.../No and...

You can use this checklist during drafting or at the end of revisions. Personally, I prefer to save it for the end—I don’t want to get bogged down trying to write the perfect first draft.

This way, I can draft freely and evaluate intentionally later.

This is what mine looks like. Feel free to customize fit or what best fits your needs.