When to end a chapter.

I have so much trouble with this. I know to think as if the whole chapter were one big paragraph and try to see if the next part of the story would be a new topic. I don't know if that explains it. However, I am having so much trouble with deciding when to end a chapter. Any tips?

Ahaha, my method may not make any sense at all, but it helps me. Whenever I'm planning to end my chapter, I ask myself either, "Where would be a good spot to get a snack and go pee before continuing to read?" or "Where would cable find appropriate to put in a commercial?"

And also, a guilty pleasure of mine is making a mental fanfic of the story I read (or basically putting myself into the story), so I would ask myself if that chapter I've just written gave enough information to start/continue my mental fanfic. But this may not help you at all. Simply asking yourself if you loaded your reader with a lot of information or not enough information in that chapter is sufficient!

Chapters tend to mark a certain point in the story. If you just go through the table of contents in a book you've already read, you can summarize in a sentence what each chapter is about. Altogether, those sentences basically describe what the book's about in more detail than the back cover. That there is the novel's outline, and each chapter marks an important part in the story. Basically, making an outline of your novel can help you decide when and where to end/begin your chapters!

Jabber has some good advice. Also, a lot of writers like to end their chapters with cliff hangers. Of course, you shouldn't do this every time, because it just gets annoying, but if you do it every once and a while it's a great way to make people want to keep reading.

Ok I can't describe myself as an expert but what I do is end the chapter when a scene ends, when some event ends.
In my novel each chapter is about this certain event or this certain story about someone (My novel consists of many stories of different characters.).
But it's not necessary, you can end your chapter before the climax of an event and carry on the suspense to the next chapter.
For example Dan Brown, the writer of Angels And Demons, writes very short chapters and carry overs the suspense onto the next chapter.

I usually don't divide chapters until I've at least finished the first draft. Amazingly, I find the task fun, so I keep it as a kind of reward for finishing (I know, I'm weird). This gives you a good overall look at the plot, but wouldn't work for the sort of novel where chapter divisions are dictated by time (eg. diary novels), point of view changes, or basically any specific reason clearly defined in the text (I can't think of any examples... say a travel novel where it changes for every place they visit or something).

Good places to change chapters:
1. When something has just been revealed.
2. When a significant amount of time passes (compared to the overall time frame of the novel).
3. When there's a significant change of location between scenes, like a scene at school cutting to a scene at home.
4. A cliffhanger (be careful not to overuse, as other people have said).
5. When a scene has ended emotionally. It can be good to give the reader a break, and also allows the characters time to recover before the time of the next scene. This means you don't have to quickly "summarise" long periods of shock, anger or mourning between scenes.
6. Between scenes of different types, for example an action scene and an emotional scene.
7. As above, clearly defined reasons unique to the text.

I used to worry about having chapters roughly the same length, but nowadays it's not so much of an issue.

Ending a chapter isn't starting a new book- you're continuing the story.
Usually the ending of a chapter is so the book isn't so daunting- if the books was all one chapter you'd be pretty nervous to read the whole thing.
Also, chapters are places you can stop reading at.
Try to end chapters on a cliffhanger like.

'The man pulled of the mask. "Hello, Diana."
It was Mark.'

Now, in this instance, Mark is her old, dead boyfriend. Now, we start the next chapter.

'I looked at him, my eyes widening. "How are you alive?"

It continues the story. It doesn't pause or anything.
Hope you liked!

I usually have an "arc" for each chapter. As in, I have a central goal each chapter is built around. So if the theme is revealing a villain's motive, I'll start tying off what was in the last chapter and begin looking at the villain more closely. The chapter ends when the theme is either revealed or exhausted. So one goal could be to reveal where a threat is coming from (not necessarily the person/thing it's coming from. It could be the location its coming from). I write everything that builds up and reveals where the threat is coming from. The next chapter could be something mildly unrelated, like revealing a new plot/subplot. I just weave the two theme together to make the chapter transitions.

That's probably a bit complicated, but I hope it helps!

~Rosey