Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Length

This is topic Length in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Montag (Member # 9421) on :

I am working on an early chapter and it only has 2236 words. Is this a problem? It's not meant to be overly long but this might be a little too short and over emphasize the point.

Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :

Like the answer about short stories in another thread, chapters should be as long as they need to be.

My chapters usually run between 2000 and 3000 words, averaging about ten pages (roughly 2500 words) in proper manuscript format. I have some chapters that are longer and in some works a few chapters that are shorter.

There isn't any one right answer to how long a chapter should be.

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

I would agree with Meredith. I'm reading a book now with chapters from one page to ten. Well, some of the later ones are longer.

My chapters seem to be usually around 3,000 to 5,000 but one novel I wrote, currently 89,000 words, has only nine chapters. That's about 10,000 words a chapter even though I know the first one is quite a bit less. I might break up the two longest ones, we shall see.

Posted by Lissa (Member # 9206) on :

Other than word count, what "is" the rule of thumb on chapters? Is it totally up to the author's discretion? Should there be a certain "rise and fall" in the action/story? Is it the content? What about passage of time?

Etc, etc, etc!

Lis

Posted by Grayson Morris (Member # 9285) on :

I just read that a chapter should contain no more than three pieces of action (in an article about pacing).

Posted by axeminister (Member # 8991) on :

I believe chapter length depends upon the GENRE.

Fantasy - longer chapters. I want to read about the mundane because I'm submersed in this world. Seriously, I love it when the elves eat dried bread and cheese. (I'm looking at YOU Terry Brooks.)

Action/Suspense - shorter chapters. It should be a scene as if from a movie. Something should happen, tension should rise, there should be a mini cliff hanger, then it should end.

Sci-fi - somewhere in the middle. Since it's generally a new world I do want to know/read more about it, but it's not an elf and company walking through the forest fantasy. Keep the pace and action moving. Give me 10 pages and move on.

Disclaimer:
The above is Axeminister's guide to chapter length.
Please adopt or discard at will.

Axe

Posted by Wordcaster (Member # 9183) on :

My thoughts (not professional writing advice):

In one of Joe Hill's (Stephen King's son) novels -- I think it was Heart Shaped Box, there are chapters that are only a few words in length.

Your word count is about 7-8 pages. For an adult novel, this would be on the shorter side, but not uncommon for a fast-paced thriller (James Patterson or Dan Brown). It is not typical for a fantasy or science fiction novel. I think Meredith writes middle grade/YA and the middle grade novel I wrote has a similar word count to what she cites. If a middle grade novel clocks in at 40k words, naturally the chapters will be shorter.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with short chapters, but it may be too short if it is a typical chapter length for an adult sf novel. Terry Pratchett (I only have read one of his books) had commented somewhere that he doesn't like chapters because they break up the flow of a story. I think the question you need to ask is not about word count, but if this is a good time to pause your story (such as in a point-of-view shift).

Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :

From this reader's standpoint:

I don't care about their length one way or the other. Sometimes chapters put a period on the action, or isolate something (action, POV, whatever) -- fine. But just as often they're merely an annoying interruption that I suppose is meant to make me eager to continue through CliffHanging, but in fact just distracts me, as then I think "WTF does it break *here* for??"

Posted by EVOC (Member # 9381) on :

I agree with most of what is said here. Chapters should be as long as needed to tell that part of the story. I don't think there is a right answer when it comes to a number of words.

Posted by axeminister (Member # 8991) on :

Grayson,

Thanks for that link. You have no idea how much that helped me. That's exactly what I needed to read when I needed to read it.

Axe

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

I write YA and Middle-grade sci-fi. Most of my chapters are right around 1200-1400 words. I have a few that are closer to 2k, but I try to cap them at or under 2k. Audience considerations, and pacing of the book. A chapter that keeps going and going keeps a reader stuck...and chapters are a great opportunity for more hooks, more interest, more "you really just have to turn the page to figure out what she does NOW" moments.

I noticed something interesting during a period of my life when I read every Harry Potter book in 2 weeks (and then every book again.) -- Most of those chapters take almost exactly 15 minutes to read. It made it dangerous at nighttime when I really *should* be turning off the light and going to sleep, but what's 15 more minutes? Right??

I've noticed the trend with most other YA/MG writers is for a varied chapter length, a few very short ones interspersed, but the length is generally pretty short (I don't know page count anymore because I read almost everything on the Nook where pages are somewhat meaningless, but I'd bet it's 1500-2k words.)

Good luck!

Posted by Grayson Morris (Member # 9285) on :

Axe, glad to hear it! I've inhaled everything on that site. Good stuff.

Posted by Natej11 (Member # 8547) on :

I've found in my writing that with several character PoVs a great way to keep interest in each story line is to end the chapters on somewhat of a cliffhanger when you're going to another PoV so people are excited to get back to the character. Since you can do breaks inside chapters with the extra space and maybe a fancy little design or line or something, the place to end the chapter is the place where it'll help the overall story flow the most.

That said, not to name names but in a book that rhymes with Shmeragon the author had an annoying tendency of putting in like a dozen 2-3 page chapters in the middle of his book, and I found it very annoying. Short chapters are fine, but stringing a bunch of short chapters together is off-putting.