posted
As readers and writers what length of chapter do you prefer? I’ve been reading Stephen King’s Eyes of the Dragon and the chapters are very short. I realize this is because of the omniscient POV and that it serves to move the story along at a fast pace, but I found it a bit odd to read. The main reason I’m asking this is because I just finished the first draft of a novel I have been working on since last July ( Yeh, to me) and one of the rewrite concerns I have is that my chapters are very long. They are consistent and follow plot points, but could easily be cut into more digestible shorter lengths.
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited March 28, 2004).]
posted
Honestly, I don't mind chapter length as long as it is not too short (10 typewritten pages would seem to be the minimum) and as it is coherent. After that...Up to you, I'd say. I go on an average of 30 typed pages per chapter, and so far nobody has complained.
Posts: 121 | Registered: May 2002
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Kickle: I don't realy mind, a chapter's a chapter. As long as the author says what he mean to say in the length of a chapter it is good.
However, I have a question of my own. I am writing a story, as readers would it bug you if the story didn't have any chapters whatsoever.
As in the book was broken into several POV (parts) and then into 4 sections. I think the flow of it works but I'm not sure how a reader would take it. Kicke's question made me wonder about the peice I'm working on.
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Chapters server the reader as a breaking point, and also serves as a nice place to change to a different POV character.
The length of a chapter depends on what it needs to do. I've read two page chapters that worked without problem, and I've also read chapters that I would bet spanned sixty pages. I would hesitate to eliminate all chapters and just have major parts.
For me chapter breaks serve to give me a breaking point to go to the restroom, or get something to drink...ect.
posted
Wraith, am I correct in assuming that you are talking about a novel length work? Then I would have to say that yes, a novel with no chapters and only four significant breaking points would phase me. In general, I don't really care when an author ends a chapter or how long they are, but in particular, I would say there have to be some. I actually prefer shorter to medium length chapters, but that is just personal preference. Then again, this issue isn't about anything other than personal preference anyway.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Frankly, chapters are a useful tool as previously mentioned, but as long as they aren't all extremely short or extremely long, the length shouldn't be an issue. Whatever feels like a logical stopping point as you're writing.
As a reader, chapters are important for me because they make a convenient stopping point (I read books fast, but not that fast... I do have to take a break at some point).
posted
Well, I've read books with very short chapters and books with very long chapters, and it really doesn't make much difference to me. I'm perfectly happy to stop at a scene break to get a snack or whatever. (Of course, with my kids, I often end up having to stop in the middle of a sentence! At least they see me reading. That has sometimes led me to choose books with shorter scenes, though, just as a function of my current situation.)
In my current project, I'm also using chapters to indicate POV. (I'm alternating two viewpoints.) It felt a little awkward at first, but I think it's working reasonably well. Because certain scenes need to be told from one viewpoint or the other, the length of the chapters is somewhat variable, but I don't think that's necessarily a problem.
posted
Interesting, really. It's probably similar to paragraph breaks. I've read books with big long paragraphs and thought, "gee.. I'd probably break that here, or here." Everyone has an innate feel for when a chapter is over. I'm sure it will just come out of you. But don't worry about exact lengths.
By the way, have you read some of Terry Pratchet? I don't know if he does this with all of his books, but I read two that had no chapter breaks at all and I hated it. Very inconvenient.
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Now you mention it, I'm fairly sure Pratchett rarely (if ever) uses chapters. Didn't bother me, I'd just treat an arbitrary scene break as if it were a chapter break when reading his books.
Also, I do frequently read Pratchett books in a single sitting.
posted
This whole thread I was thinking, "Ooh, ooh, Terry Pratchett!" only to find Jules and Rahl beat me to the punch. Pratchett does have frequent scene breaks at every POV shift. He also breaks when he shifts narration. He often has passages in an omniscient voice, then will switch to a limited third person. But, I'm hard pressed to think of a book where he actually uses chapters.
By the way, this has nothing to do with anything, but I'm typing this without being able to see my hands or the keyboard because my cat has decided to sit on my wrists. If only my High School typing teacher had known about this technique. She had lost all hope of my ever becoming a touch typist.
Back on topic, I like short chapters. All readers tastes are individual, but my argument for short chapters are . . . .
As a reader, I'm more likely to read one more chapter if I'm laying in bed, needing to go to sleep, and I see the next chapter is only five pages long. Then I get done and see the next chapter is just seven pages. Then the next chapter is just six. Before I know it, it's three hours later and I'm within a hundred pages of the end. No reason to stop now. So, for me, short chapters give a book a can't-put-it-down quality. It's like the information of a book is, say, a pound of potatoes. If the author smashes the potatoes up and creates a great big heaping bowl of mashed potatoes, the thought of sitting down and eating the whole bowl gives me a queasy feeling. But if the potatoes are given to me in potato chip format, well, I start out just eating one or two and by the end of the night the bag is empty.
The potato chip school of writing also works for me as a writer. I do chapters that are 2000 to 3000 words long. This means I write my chapters in one sitting, and they all have a nice cohesion and flow to them. (Or I hope they do, at least.) I also think short chapters lend themselves to cliffhangers. In Nobody Gets the Girl, I end one chapter with the pin of a hand-grenade hitting the ground. If this came at the end of a 90 page chapter, it would have felt melodramatic and forced. At the end of a ten page chapter, it's an enticement to read the next ten page chapter.
Ending the chapter with a cliffhanger means I always know what to start with when I sit back down to write. Rather than structuring my chapters start, middle, end, break, I structure them end, start, middle, break. Of course, I don't write all my chapters this way, since that would be monotonous. But the story will give you its own ebb and flow. There are some chapters that have to end at the end if you want them to have an impact. The first two chapters of Nobody end with strong hooks. The third chapters lets the main character catch his breath as the bizarre situation he's found himself in is explained by someone who knows what's going on. I end with the character digesting the information. Not exactly a page-turner, but the reader also needs a moment to digest what's going on. If you write five cliffhanger chapters in a row, you run to risk of exhausting your reader's patience and making them notice the bag of potato chips.
A final note on chapters: I always give each chapter a title. I'm in a tiny minority of writers who do this, but for me, titles are an essential element of the storytelling process. A good chapter title hints at things to come, can serve as a puzzle that gives the reader a small thrill when it's solved, and can provide a nice ironic counterpoint to your whole chapter. A good title is like sour cream and onion flavoring on the potato chips.
Well, my cat has moved on and for some reason I'm hungry. I'll shut up now.
quote:By the way, this has nothing to do with anything, but I'm typing this without being able to see my hands or the keyboard because my cat has decided to sit on my wrists. If only my High School typing teacher had known about this technique. She had lost all hope of my ever becoming a touch typist.
Actually, I was going to add a cat comment to the "Non-writers Just Don't Get It" thread, insofar as my non-writing cats bug me about as much as Eljay's toddlers do her -- nudging and walking over the keyboard and in front of the monitor, sitting on my work, sneezing on it. Your comments, James, brought some thoughts together, particularly considering one of my cats once threw up on my work.
Maybe cats are literally (literally literally) prescient, the muses we only fantasize about, but muses without the New Age foo-foo, very down-to-earth. So much so they'll throw up a hairball to make their point or sit on our wrists to make us 'use the force' for our typing skills.
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James I guess I'm with you, who can argue with potatoe chips. Perhaps I can think of chapter titles as dip! Actually I think of the titles as little mysteries for the reader's amusement. I've got a 9 week old puppy teething on my leg , atleast she not wetting the rug this time. Posts: 397 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
What is it with writers and cats? This is just about the strangest thing I've ever encountered on a message board (and I've been involved in a few over the years). My cat is currently occupying the territory known as 'my lap' as we speak. Occasionally, she decides to gnaw on my fast-moving arms, earning an irritated (and absent-minded) 'relocation' from me. However, while I'm in the 'zone' (I'm sure you all know what I mean) she manages to sneak back up onto my lap again. [Insert exaggerated sigh here.] To be honest, I think writing without my cat on my lap would feel...weird...though I've never thought about it before. I suppose it's like having a tail for balance or something. You can tell that it's been a long day, huh? I tend to 'blah' on and on when I'm mentally drained. Sorry for the emergency venting.
As for the chapter length issue (took me long enough to get there, eh?)...I prefer shorter chapters. I think it's a psychological thing...I feel like I'm making progress when I finish up a chapter in minutes instead of hours (which happens rarely in my case...I was gifted with a 'cram-air' reading system). David Drake and Eric Flint, in their Belisarius novels, always clean up with very short sections. They're not quite paragraph breaks but not new chapters either...sort of in-between, I think. I happen to like this style, though I know a few people that are driven insane by it (not literally, you understand...most of them are already insane).
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited March 29, 2004).]
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Well, I like to think of myself as a writer (seeing as I write), and I've never owned a cat, nor do I plan to. I like birds--cockatiels--personally. Cats I find to be mostly evil and snotty, when they're grown. Cute as heck when they're little kittens, though.
posted
As a reader I prefer shorter chapters. Not many people have the time to sit down and read books for hours and often read them on the run. As someone earlier mentioned, if I see the next chapter is decently manageable, I'm more tempted to go ahead and read it when I have other things to do.
But I don't think chapters are too big an issue - how engaging the text is influences me more. I've read one book, The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing that didn't have a single break the entire book. It literally forced me to read it nonstop - but it only worked because the writing was excellent and the book was short (imagine a 500 page book with no breaks - ick!).
As a writer I'd rather have a chapter long enough that something of substance happens.
posted
Same here... I can hardly even write a short story without breaking at some point, for passage of time, POV shift, whatever.
Posts: 233 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Well I've got a story that starts with very small chapters and Accelerates. The first is six pages long, and the most recent is sixty-nine. (12 pt single spaced if you care) That last chapter was a beast, I didn't even finish the point of it. I'm in it's sequel right now. I've also added a single small paragraph chapter, That is actually a joke on the reader. Killed all the main chars with a big monster. It was so much fun. On a more serious note think of writing a whole page without periods Periods are a mental resting point A rock to sit on if you will Like periods chapter breaks can be a resting point where your mind can take inventory of everything Digest what was just read and realize clues that they did not pick up before. Ferignheight(sp?) 451 was written in three sections, and it troubled me. My brain just got tired. (And now I'm feeling guilty about my Mega-Chapter)
Posts: 1895 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
thanks for the head up. I'm still thinking on this topic. In fact Christine I'm thinking 1000 words is perfect(ha!)
Posts: 397 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Chapter length can have a big influence on pacing.
Yes -- I've lost count of the times I've found myself walking to and fro across the room, pondering how long my chapter should be... or didn't you mean that kind of pacing? Posts: 1517 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I don't know why, but chapter length has never been an issue for me. I never even think about it. I just type along and suddenly it seems clear th at this is where the chapter ends. Sometimes its a point of view shift, sometimes a cliffhanger, sometimes I want to skip a bit of time, sometimes I just finished telling that little subtale...whatever it is it just feels obvious and right.
I know this doesn't help, but I stillf felt like talking. Besides, of all the issues in writing, I find that how long the chapters are matters the least. I mean, you can use their length for pacing affect, but even if you don't it doesn't really matter. No one has ever criticzed my writing based on chapter length, and I have never made the comment to anyone else. I don't imagine that anyone's losing sleep over this issue, but if you are....forget it and go to bed. When you wake up, that's a new chapter.
As a reader, I tend flip back to the chapter I was reading previously...so it helps if there are chapters and they mark important narrative divisions of some sort.
I think that there is also a strong tendency for most readers to be "alerted" or woken up a bit by a chapter break. I'd guess that most people remember the text on the last page of a chapter and the first page of the next just a bit more vividly than they remember stuff in the middle...the page break and white space act as a visual break that does something or other to the brain.
Okay, I'm making that brain stuff up, but I've noticed that people forget stuff in the middle of the chapter more than they forget stuff at the beginning and end. That might be because most authors put the most memorable material near the chapter breaks...or it could be a combination of both factors.
For myself, I love schematics. If there's a schematic drawing, be it a map or a blueprint or a flowchart, whatever...it makes the accompanying text stand out in my memory. Sadly, they usually only appear in non-fiction works...and I also happen to know that a flawed schematic really irritates me a lot, so it is probably best that they usually only appear in works that are based on actual research.
But I'm guessing that a chapter break does something or other to the reader, if only to mark something the writer thought was worth ending one chapter and beginning another.
And in psychology, it's pretty much still true. People tend to judge experiences by the beginning, the maximum, and the end-- and forget about the rest. In some experiments with painful medical procedures, people were more willing to go through the experience again if they'd had an extra thirty seconds at the end that wasn't as painful as most of the proceedure. If you view chapters as a way of artificially creating smaller structural breaks with their own distinct start, maximum (which could also be a cliffhanger end), and end, I think that's definitely true.
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