The second question is better than the first because it's more specific.
If you just ask the first question, the answers could be about a character's looks or personality, a scene, or any other aspect of a story.
Does this question make sense:
What is the author portraying in this chapter?
or
What are the emotions being portrayed in this chapter?
3 answers
If you are trying to ask the same thing from both questions, the 2nd is definitely better. If you are talking about quality of the questions, you may still want to be more specific in the first question (eg. what is the author trying to communicate in this chapter). If you do this, you will get a more thorough response than the 2nd question. Hope that helps!
Thanks so much! :)