The Chapter Sequence: All of your planning culminates in the Chapter Sequence. Because you've mapped out the logic of the plot, characters, and setting, you can develop a careful outline of the book. The differences between this and the scene sequence are crucial. Here, you name the characters of each chapter, the action, the movement through the setting, and the myriad of details that will structure the writing of chapter.

Use the charting tool to keep track of the book's continuity:
The chapter sequence below is from a recently completed novel requested by an agent. You'll note that the plot is relatively simple here because it's a humorous novel. What's crucial is that you see how each description can (and did) lead onward toward the completition of the project.

 


Chapter Sequence
Tentative Chapter Sequence: Searching for Arnold Palmer

Chapter 1: Hogan McMulligan, a 47-year-old golfer whose chances at making the PGA tour have long passed, stows away in the luggage compartment of a Greyhound Bus which will take him home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania where his Mom, his daughter Nora, and his old love Daphne all live. Hogan has just been released from rehab, where he spent two months in lieu of prison. He was arrested for stealing a golf cart and attempting to drive it from Ohio to Pebble Beach where he planned to perform a bizarre kamikazee stunt, thus enacting revenge on the sport which has made him feel a failure. During the bus ride, Hogan recollects his stay in rehab, especially his roommate Willard.

Chapter 2: Hogan’s mom, obsessed with pitbulls, the Ramones, and Arnold Palmer, builds a rocket launcher in her bathroom. She tests it out on a rookie police officer who comes to her shot-up house in response to a call from some tourists who she’s run off her road. It works just fine.

Chapter 3: The Greyhound reaches Latrobe. The hopped-up bus driver finds Hogan stowed away and calls the police, but the officer recognizes him as Mom’s son and takes him to a bar that sits on the edge of the Airforce base turned golf course. The course, called the Hoary Scott (a disastrous swatch of land with ridiculous pretensions to Scottish golf), is run by Rhonda Flagyl, Hogan’s probation officer and the woman he once stood up on prom night. Hogan leaves the bar and makes his way home to Mom’s place, where he finds her shrine to Arnold Palmer and gets shot at only once before she welcomes him home.

Chapter 4: Hogan meets with Rhonda, who hasn’t gotten over the prom incident and plans to make his probationary time as miserable as possible. She lecherously suggests that if he’s good, he could become the course pro for the upcoming tournament. Hogan learns that Arnold Palmer, a Latrobe native, will make an appearance.

Chapter 5: Back at Mom’s, Hogan unpacks some boxes for her and finds large quantities of C-4, a contact explosive which she uses to gather them up some fish for dinner. Afterwards, Hogan visits the newspaper where Daphne works, only to be chastised by the woman he still loves, even 13 years after their brief affair, for not being a good father to Nora. So he goes to see his daughter, a lanky, chain-smoking beauty chipping golf balls outside her trailer home. In a touching scene, Hogan gives Nora golf tips while she teases him about his incarceration.

Chapter 6: Rhonda finalizes a deal with the Arms Dealer to host the gathering of nuclear weapon consumers who are coming to bid on a nuclear weapon mistakenly left in one of the abandoned Airforce warehouses. After picking up golf balls on the driving range, Hogan arrives home to find Mom has Willard tied to a chair. Once Willard proves adequately admiring of Arnold Palmer, Mom rewards him with the job of molding her C-4 into golf balls.

Chapter 7: At the Hoary Scott, Willard cons his way into a job as club pro, in part by stealing clothing and equipment from club patrons. Hogan returns a club Willard has stolen and in the process discovers a folder containing a manual for the disassembly of a tactical nuclear device. Hustled at gunpoint in to limousine, Hogan finally realizes that something fishy is going on and that the upcoming "tournament" is really a cover for a gathering of terrorists and Arms Dealers who plan to bid on the sale of a bomb stolen from the abandoned airbase.

Chapter 8: Hogan, Willard, and the Arms Dealer who has adopted Hogan as his couriers, go to the newspaper office to get a passport photo. Daphne knows he can’t travel because of his probation, but helps him out just in the hope that he’ll leave the country. Then Hogan, Willard and the Arms Dealer go next door to the Post Office to pick up a package. The blind postal clerk cannot locate the package, but after they leave, the postmaster drops off the package at Daphne’s office. She opens it and discovers information on the terrorists coming to Latrobe to bid on the bomb.

Chapter 9: The Arms Dealer visits Mom, thinking he will scare her into forcing Hogan to cooperate in the delivery of the weapon. He quickly discovers that terrorism is an art perfected by Mothers, angry alcoholics, and golfers. Mom combines the powers of all three. She destroys his limousine, his bodyguard, and his self-respect.

Chapter 10: Hogan, Willard, and the Arms Dealer sneak into the base warehouse and locate the nuclear bomb, which is cleverly catalogued under the Bs.

Chapter 11: Mom, Daphne, and Nora reveal their uneasy alliance.

Chapter 12: The terrorists begin to arrive for the "tournament." The bidding for the weapon, the need for a cover story for getting it out of the country.

Chapter 13: Nora, who has earned the honor of hitting the honorary first drive at the "tournament," is interrupted by a helicopter piloted by Mom and Arnold Palmer. Coverage by Daphne that will be sent to wire service. It lands, and Hogan, Daphne, and Nora all join Mom and Arnie in the helicopter and lift off just before the Arms Dealer hits the ball Nora has left sitting on the tee. From above, Hogan et al watch the small fireball send the pack of evil-mongers disappear in a flash of C4.

Chapter 14: The helicopter lands at the local miniature golf where Arnie and Hogan play a round together. They don’t keep score because, as Arnie reminds Hogan, "this is just a game." After the round ends, Hogan sits in the shade and watches Nora practicing her chipping. Arnie gently steps in and helps her master the art.

Chapter 15: Mom is at her cottage, cleaning up the debris of all her experimental weapons and gathering up all the empty scotch bottles lying around. When everything is almost cleaned up, she takes the nuclear weapon out of a bag and sets it among the guns at the back of her bedroom shelf.