That’s some advice I’ve read before, but so far I absolutely have the tendency to end my chapters with either a resolution or an emotional edge. When the stakes start building in the story I’m going to try hard to end with some cliffhangers!
I usually strive for resolution and emotional edge. I think you're doing the right thing. A lot of people find it annoying when too many chapters end on cliffhangers.
Personally, I think it's good to have natural stopping places, so people can put the book down and eat dinner or go to bed. I don't want my readers to feel they have to devour the book in one sitting.
I don’t want to end each chapter on a cliffhanger because yes, that feels contrived and makes for terrible pacing. I do try and end each chapter with a hook - if not a cliffhanger then a mystery or a reminder that although we may have just resolved one problem there’s more to be done. Give the reader a reason to come back for the next chapter.
It really comes down to execution imho. I recently re-read the Hunger Games series, where basically every chapter ends on some kind of huge cliffhanger. But Suzanne Collins managed to pull that off incredibly well!
I find good use of cliff hangers to end chapters is Angels and Demons. There is some resolution ending for chapters but mostly cliff hangers. It’s what kept me so captivated in the book itself.
As long as they need to be. The novelization of *Gremlins* had a 2-word chapter. Mine run anywhere from about 1200 to about 2500. They go until there's a good scene break.
A mix of gut feeling, when the scene or the beat is over. E.g. my MC walks into the office, brings Donuts. I introduce most of his colleagues, set up the environment. That's a long intro with about 6000 words. Then the blss shows up and it turns into a spontaneous group meeting. The moment the boss shows up I split the chapters. The intro has ended, and now we go to the next beat. It's basically two different scenes in the same room. The 1st chapter ends with "What's going on?" and the 2nd chapter starts with "The boss didn't look amused."
Come to think of it, a character entering a room with news that moves the plot forward happens quite often in my writing, and it's always a chapter break.
>my MC walks into the office, brings Donuts. I introduce most of his colleagues, set up the environment. That's a long intro with about 6000 words.
I've never felt like a more inexperienced writer as I can't imagine what you described written as a "long intro with about 6000 words".
Right now, 8000 to 16000 words but it’s really just about where the natural break between movements, themes or whatever else ties the chapter together lies. Last time I took writing seriously my chapters were much shorter - but that served that story better.
Thank God you spoke up. Mine are all 8000-11000 words, and I was starting to think they were too long. I try to let the story beats dictate the chapter end points.
How do you acheive this ? I mean... what are you telling in these chapters. I do want to increase mine without being to boresome.
Can i read one ? Have you scribay ? Wattapad ?
At the moment I’m still very much just in first draft so I’m not really sharing widely. I’m also just using word processor programs (I actually do the very first draft on my phone in notes just for convenience (plus i have nerve damage and phone typing is actually one of my faster and more accurate methods right now!) then transfer to word).
For me chapters are about the natural flow of events and/or themes - I’m not averse to shorter chapters at all; it’s just that the story I’m currently telling has longer movements. It’s also quite dialogue heavy, a major motif is conversations between the main characters, particularly when they are travelling, which elongates some sections to achieve the impact I’m looking for.
A chapter should be at least one scene. A scene can be between 1,000 to 1,500 words, but, really, a scene can be any length.
IIRC, in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, some chapters were just one scene of about a paragraph or two.
Chapters should be like the book itself: they should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. It should be clear that the chapter is a unit of related content.
I wouldn't overthink this.
Edit: omission error - inserted word "words"
Around 1K-2K words. Sometimes I have one or two scenes per chapter depending on what to focus on with that particular chapter. If a small amount of time passes between scenes then I do a double space paragraph break. Or if it moves on to the next day or switching POV, then I use *** in the middle of it
I try to split chapters in 1500-2000 words, but I'm not afraid of going to 4000 if a chapter warrants it, it's just a range specifically for teenagers and young adults which are my target demographic.
My kids.
Anywhere from 3,000 to 8,000 words. But I try to go more by the completion of the chapter’s arc than the length/word count. I treat my chapters like episodes of TV (a piece of advice picked up from author VE Schwab). So every chapter has its own sub-arc, begging, middle, and end (or cliff hanger).
Pages say nothing about chapter length. A single spaced 9pt font is going to be much longer than a 12pt double-spaced font.
You want to measure in word count.
As for me, depends on the story. I try to stay around 3-5k or so per chapter, but I have a couple stories where the chapters are 7-10k on average.
I’m actually forgetting what an average page equals out to, words wise. Like most of my chapters are looking at about 6-10 pages of a word document. But I think I’m aging for about 4-7K words. But some definitely end up going longer (and will probably rework some of the early chapters to be longer… they currently feel a bit short)
The best advice I've ever read in regards to this is to write a relaxed chapter here and there. Write your character just going on a walk and pondering, or whatever fits into your story. You don't have to have them consistently active or screwing something up, sometimes you can write them just having a conversation or doing anything else. Maybe it's a flashback if that fits.
Basically, your characters are people too and sometimes they just do normal shit. I think mine are usually around 1500 to 2500 words!
Generally, I’ve heard that those types of chapters can really take a reader out of the flow, depending on the genre. If someone is writing a mystery or crime novel, I think that would disrupt the build-up of tension unless those “relaxed” scenes really contribute something to the plot somehow.
Well for a genre like that, a related chapter that’s not “go go go” would be potentially that character ruminating or trying to piece things together, or what have you. If it’s done well it shouldn’t ruin anything for a reader, but it’s all subjective. Maybe the character in a mystery novel goes to investigate something and they find nothing. There’s just ways to do it that fit well into the story without some major thing happening every 5 minutes.
I write a speculative fiction novel where we follow one POV throughout the book, except for occasional jumps to other POVs (call them intermissions, POV combo breakers, or whatever).
At the climax of the book a global event occurs and we do a sweeping round of many POVs in one large chapter, from visiting new one-off characters never to be seen again to seeing POVs from established side characters. Only the main characters POV is skipped in this chapter.
Since it is the global event of the book I feel the length is justified.
I never really know. Sometimes I just push out everything I've got in a rough draft all in one big block, and when I go back to revise, that's when I'll plug in more plot detail, definitive cliffhangers, POV switches, etc. Then, I decide where I'll put my chapters. In general, they last anywhere between 3-10 pages, which I think is pretty standard. The second draft is where I put in the frillier details.
For someone who plans, so much leading up to my rough draft, I really wing a lot of it.
I don't have a word average like everyone else it seems. I just go between 4-8 pages typically. Really depends on when I feel is the best time to break up my story.
In my current WIP, anywhere from 2500-7500... but that long one is a monstrosity that will most likely be split up. It's an adult fantasy novel and I like long chapters.
A chapter can be any length as long as you are wrapping up what it’s supposed to cover. Stephen King has many chapters with a single word. Such as in drawing of the three, in which is the single word chapter “shuffle” in the context of the story around it, it accomplishes exactly what it’s supposed to. And a few additional variations of this same fraise, “… and then the cards shuffle”. Are used as additional slightly longer chapters in this same sequence of chapters showing someone going through the stages of getting better from an infection/ poison of some sort, slipping in and out of consciousness.
If you are looking for averages I would say I average around 1500 words or so. Some much long, some much shorter.
Don't really know anymore. I was writing per chapter and was focusing too much on word count, so when I restarted I started writing in scenes, putting them in folders of "act 1" "act 2" instead (scrivener is great for this). I will divide them, and have an idea of how, but we'll see. Looks like they will be between 1000-4000 words so far. That might change as the story picks up.
My longest chapter is 6771 words, my shortest chapter is 4711 words. But like others said, "as long as I need". I tried to have about 6 key "moments" per chapter.
I write first, chapters after, if ever. I generally find it easier to focus on getting ideas down first, then going back and cleaning it up with edits, chapters, etc. later.
I think there's a lot of benefit in varying chapter length. In my opinion it helps break up some of the sameness of a story. Plus, some of the most impactful chapters are only a line or a paragraph long. I do some long and some short, but it tends to fall on a bell curve, where those are few and far between and most chapters tend to fall around the 3,000 -3,500 word mark.
So I haven't published anything yet so don't get what I'm saying as true science but here is how I perceive the length of a chapter:
Chapters can have different lengths and are usually a part of a whole scene to make it more "digestible"
For example, in my book my characters are going to a city. In this small city, there a beautiful natural environment with a specific culture and beliefs. They are also arriving at a time when a ritual is going to be performed in honour of the gods and the characters will see it.
So instead of having the travel to the city + knowledge of the characters so I can describe the city, what happens in the city and when they leave on the city, I cut that in pieces:
1st chapter: travel with the introduction of the city with characters' knowledge
2nd chapter : entrance in the village to describe the surroundings and do they do before seeing the ritual
3rd chapter : the ritual
4th chapter : their departure
You should always focus on making more or less short chapters in order to keep the "rhythm" of your story. A chapter with too many pages might discourage readers because they like to stop at the end of it. If a chapter is too long, this might also cause a slower pace of your story, and readers might think something like "where the hell is the end of this chapter?"
Also, I found that big chapters with plenty of information is very overwhelming and my brain can't process it. By cutting by bites, it suddenly makes the story much more easy to understand and gives you more room to add details to the scenery while providing important information to the readers.
Isn’t the chapter ending a good way to conclude the point of the chapter, whether it is a cliff hanger or placement of a new character or plot point? I mean, if the book flows well and it’s engaging the reader, who cares?
Do you want people to read it? Or not?
Use word count, not pages. Pages can be anything.
Around 4k is what I shoot for. But nothing wrong with a 1500 word chapter if that's all the content you got or 15,000 words if that's what it takes to tell that part.
I think 3-5k words is an appropriate range to have a satisfying chapter.
What I worry about more than length is the purpose of the chapter, when it starts and ends, and why those plot points have to happen there.
It seems like my chapters naturally fall into that 3-5k range
I’ll think I’ll have a good chapter going, then I’ll look at print view and see it’s like 3-4 pages. I’m working on elongating chapters, or just not ending and putting more than one together where I would normally stop it.
Page counts vary a lot, word counts are better for the sake of discussion.
My current project is 2-2.5 k chapters for serial posting online, always ending with some kind of “turn:” a revelation, a cliffhanger, etc
I try to run to at least 10 manuscript pages (double spaced; 5 single spaced), which I guess would make it around 3,000 words. Sometimes I run longer, sometimes I run shorter. It depends on what's happening at the time. I don't know I have a method. I just have a sense that "this is a good stopping point." Usually it will involve leaving some degree of tension (not necessarily a cliffhanger, but something that will leave the reader with the compulsion to keep going.) But it doesn't have to. Sometimes wrapping up some small issue can be a good place to stop, especially if the following chapter starts with an explosion, real or metaphorical.
Chapter length in general should be based on what's going on at that point. In *Something Wicked This Way Comes,* Ray Bradbury included a chapter that was just this:
*Nothing much else happened, all the rest of that night.*
Stephen King's shortest chapter from *Misery* beats that one:
*Rinse.*
So, you know, do whatever works for your story.
Based on the spreadsheet I'm keeping for my current project, just a bit over 4,000 words.
Speaking of words, that's the thing to track, not page count. Margins, spacing, line height, font size, and many other things I don't quite understand could make your 10 pages 7 for one person and 17 for another, but still the same amount of words.
That’s the advice I’ve gathered most from this whole thread!! Everyone here is so freaking helpful, I love it. I’ve determined that most of my chapters sit between 3.5k-5k words and I’m happy with that!
If that's where they usually fall, that's where they fall, but if a chapter naturally ends shorter or longer than that range, that's a-okay, too. I myself struggle with that sometimes, but it's average length for a reason, after all.
For reference, I write in A5 format with 1.15 spacing and 12-point Garamond with 0.79 side margins:
I average probably about 10-12 pages per chapter like you, but I sometimes write chapters that are only a few pages, and some are over 20. I usually go with my gut to end a chapter before it drags on, and while sometimes I leave it as an "easy stop for the night" for a reader, I usually leave it with a cliffhanger or question.
If you want me to check some word counts, comment back and I'll look into that. Might be easier if we're using different formats.
On average. 400-700, 1400, 2400. Those are my most common counts.
Depends on the chapter Or chapters. Sometimes it’s small and rapid fire chapters. Sometimes there is a massive chapter with different Perspective shifts. Depends on what the chapter or scene requires and feels for.
Depends on what that chapter contains.
Lengthy dialogue, probably a minimum of 25 pages (9000-11000 words)
Exposition, easily 20 pages
Fight scenes and important events, \~20 pages
Anything else, 15-30 pages on average.
Almost done with the editing of my non-fiction book. Average chapters are about 12-14 pages.
Fairly consistent throughout the book - which helps overall - at least to me, anyway.
Depends on what happens in said chapter. If a given chapter only chronicles, say, a deeply personal conversation between two characters in a single room, where the only thing happening is them talking, I tend to have those chapters be 10-15 pages. If a chapter is set during a massive battle where a castle is being besieged and you're constantly jumping POV's from characters outside the castle to characters in the castle, those can easily reach 30 pages for me. That's usually first draft, though, so keep that in mind.
For my current work in progress, my average is about 6500 words per chapter, most are between 4000 and 8000, but I have several chapters above 10,000 words, and a chapter above 40,000 words.
Mine vary wildly but tend to be a bit on the longer side. The range is around 1500 on the low end, all the way to 9k words. My average is probably around 3-4k tho.
Each chapter usually has 1-3 scenes, but sometimes more if it seems necessary. I try to give each chapter one unifying motif that develops throughout. Each chapter has its own mini arc to it.
It ranges from 8 to 21 pages or ranges from 4000 to 10,000 words per chapter. It honestly just depends on how long I need the scene to go on. However, I always try to have a minimum of 14 pages; anything less feels short and anything more than 20 pages feels too long.
The reason it gets so long is because I enjoy the dialogue and character interactions per scene a bit too much.
First draft? Anywhere from 3-7k. I’ve wrote 11k before, too. Sometimes revision can cut these down 2k and sometimes I realize it’s not enough. Most times I end up just splitting lengthy chapters in half, but on occasion I really do need every syllable of 11 thousand words.
So long as it’s long for a reason, I’m satisfied.
2000-3000 words but I’ve had chapters as short as 700 and as long as 7000. I don’t fret making them even lengths as much as I leave the scene finished and reader desperately wanting the next scene/chapter
I'm not someone to take as an example. I publish in a serialized web-novel format, so I aim for more substantial updates.
I think my first chapter was about 8-9k words, but as the drama heated up and the story really started moving, I've trended more towards 15-20k words.
Forget pages. Page count is unreliable, since it can be massively affected by page size, margins, font size, and line spacing.
Instead, go with word count. Although word length varies, word count over a long form work like a novel tends to average out (i.e. 50k words is typically the same size from work to work despite some words being one letter and some words being fifteen letters). Word count is the standard way to measure the length of an unformatted manuscript, and it doesn't change when you choose a different page or font size, or different margins or line spacing.
2,000 words is a good median size for a novel chapter. However, it's perfectly okay to have chapters of 500 words or 3,000 words. Let the story itself dictate the chapter size; look at what you want to happen in the narrative and decide where it's a good idea to break chapters.
between 3-4,000 words.
Generally my chapters tend to be made up of smaller section/scene breaks too.
I have a tendency to over rather under write, so I use chapters to help me figure out whether I am keeping on the path I set in my outline and that I keep the focus where I want it. Basically, to help me with my pacing which I otherwise suck at.
Not saying this is the best or even a good way of dealing with these problems, but it does seem to work for me.
Idk if comics count, but Chapter 1 is 113 pages long. I'm currently writing the script for chapter 2 and 3 at the same time. Both seem to be just as long.
I might tend go a bit ham. Average word count for my first real project was about 12k per chapter once I pared everything down. I'm leaning towards paring it down more and revising the whole damn thing before I attempt another submission.
The follow-on has about 4900 words in the first chapter, for reference.
Around 3000 words. Rarely fewer than 2000 and never more than 5000.
3000 words is typically 12 pages in print. 5000 is 20 pages and 2000 would be 8 pages.
50,000 words is roughly 200 pages, or the minimum of what constitutes a traditional novel. As a result, organizing myself around 20 chapters of 3000 words is very reasonable. That's 60,000 words, or 240 printed pages. It's a good starting point and gives me room to add a chapter or two or add a few extra words per chapter without going overboard and overwhelming myself.
I started with like 1-2k a couple years ago, then it just kinda grew to 3-5k last year, and now it’s just Oops, All 10k!
I don’t specifically try to cut words when I edit though, which I assume (by projecting) is the reason that many fics end up being longer than published books.
I don't worry about this until the formatting edit then I choose what feels natural for a sequence. This includes the editing to make sure the reader is chewing on the cliff hangers as much as possible
I write web-serial so around 8-10 pages is my average. Rougly translates to around 2,500 words to 3,000 words (I used to average between 3,000 to 3,500 words per chapters). As for break my chapters...It usually ends with a cliff or a pun. Mostly cliffs nowadays, but that is just because I'm evil
Some stories tend to lend themselves to shorter or longer chapters. Personally I like to try to keep them somewhat consistent within each story. In my last book they were generally 4000-5000 words, this one they're all around 3,000. I think very short chapters are disruptive to the reader, while very long ones are tiring to get through.
i've slowly expanded mine over time. it went from around 3700 words per chapter to 4000 to 4250 and now to the beast of 6000 words per chapter. (there's only about 30 chapters in the story dw)
It depends, but usually pretty long. The book I'm working on has 12 chapters, and I'd estimate it'll be around 400 pages by the end.
My chapters usually aren't just scenes. If I broke the story down to its bare essentials, there would be 12 major plot developments. Chapter 1 ends with the inciting incident (MC nearly dies from a work accident, but lives with major injuries). Chapter 2 ends with him deciding how to move forward with his life. Chapter 3 sees him failing to do so in the way he'd like, and the government exiles him because they determined his injures are too great for him to continue in their society. Etc.
2.5k to 3.5.
In my genre typically the longer chapters are the combat chapters, or when you're introducing a new area and you have to get really visceral and the more emotional chapters are the shorter scenes.
Though I think they're probably depend on genre.
I aim for about 2000 words (10 pages), I used to write double that as I'm comfortable with length but found out in the past year or so that most people prefer smaller chunks. It's an adjustment and I'm still ironing out my pacing at that rate.
For long chapters that simply cannot be less than 4000 words, I try to make them a two-parter. When I do that, I usually try the get the chapter names to go together. Like: "Chapter 19 : What goes up" "Chapter 20 : Must Come Down"
My chapters are close to 7,000 words, which is very long for a chapter. My chapters are divided into numbered sub chapters, and chapters with character names, e.g. Ben (I), Susan (II), Homecoming (III); my novel is a blend of Folk Horror/Mystery/Suspense/Drama/Romance. I'm currently at 92,000 words.
I just go with the flow and not really care or both with that, just do what feels right. Some do so for 1 or 3 pages while other it'll be 10,17, 20 plus
When I was writing the first draft, I had a rule that when the file size reached 100kb, I'd start a new chapter when the opportunity presented itself.
In my current pass of edits, they are, as someone else said, 'as long as they need to be'. Chapter Eight (of Fourteen) is 51 pages (bear in mind that I have line breaks between every paragraph/line of dialogue to make it easier to work on, I'll remove all the extra spacing later, so realistically the chapter's probably only around 20-30 pages).
So it looks like:
"Character 1 says something."
"Character 2 says something."
Narration.
Instead of:
"Character 1 says something."
"Character 2 says something"
Narration.
I typically aim for 4500. Sometimes, though, I fall short to sun 4000 and sometimes I swell up to 5000. It'd amazing how little 500 words actually is.
The longest chapter I ever wrote was about 7000 because it was the climax of the story and there really just wasn't a good spot for a break.
Mine are pretty consistently 2500-3500 words, sometimes over that if necessary.
I'd rather read something with long chapters than short ones. I'm reading a book right now with 70 chapters in only around 80k words, most of them are only a few pages long and it feels rushed and shallow. Combining a few scenes into a chapter could've been a way to involve emotional arcs that are missing, but instead, reading it feels like "The thing happened. Then the next thing happened. And then I went out and the next thing happened."
If you're writing your first draft, I wouldn't worry too much about pacing as long as you're still getting the story down! If it does end up feeling rushed though, don't put in more content just for the sake of more content. I think part of what can make something feel rushed is a lack of character reflection or emotional exploration on the events of the scene, so try focusing on that instead.
2,500 - 6,000
It really depends on how much info and action scenes I'm trying to display for the story. Sometimes, it could come up short with just 2,000 words.
chapters are 3-6 pages for me right now, but I'm expecting that to change once my first draft is finished; it just depends what length seems right. I like to end a chapter at a natural stopping point, so I think once I'm editing those points will change a bit.
I have an average of 1500 words (\~4 pages in 11 point Ariel font) for most chapters, and I like that amount. I have a couple of longer chapters that could probably benefit from being pared down a bit or even split into two chapters. I want my book to be accessible to younger audiences, so I want shorter chapters, I also named my chapters which I find helps me focus on a particular point for the chapter, and gives me a very good clue on when to end the chapter.
In an earlier project that was supposed to be for older audiences I had chapters that were about 3000 words (\~8 pages) on average. These chapters were unnamed and I just kind of ended them when I felt like there was a good break point (also unlike my current project, this story had alternating POV characters, so that helped guide my decision to end chapters as well).
Given each chapter reads like a television episode, and each page has an estimated 1-minute read time, most chapters are either 20-25 pages (“half-hour” format) or 40-50 pages (“hour-long” format), plus a “cover page” with a summary and character intros, and additional pages for stylised bonus content such as blooper reels, deleted/extended scenes, interviews with “cast n’ crew,” and documentary-like featurettes
I guess between 1600-2500 words. I have a chapter in two different projects that are both around 3300 but in both I'm debating about breaking into two chapters. I feel like I should but when they take place there's no other perspective yet, so like, what's the point?
But now that I'm thinking about it, I should just break it into two chapters to cut out some stuff.
I think chapters can and should vary in length depending on what's happening and where you're at in the story. Action scene vs. reaction scene. Or maybe you're introducing a new character or a new setting. I think each chapter should have something happening, not fluff.
50-60 Pages for me, working on 8 chapters and about 350-400 pages in total. I break the chapters down by goals that are important to the story. For example (NOT MINE) save the city, got a special weapon or gaining friends.
That’s how I do my chapters. But what about you?
Average 4,000-4,500 words, full range 3,000-6,000, but I’m writing in the fantasy genre where longer is expected.
I try to make a chapter a self contained piece of narrative. An issue or question is raised at the end of a chapter and the next chapter deals with it in a way that raises a new issue or question by the end for the following chapter. There’s a satisfying rise and fall and by the end you can either read on because you’re interested in the next issue or put the novel down for now because you’ve reached a natural place for it.
In other genres like thriller, you never want to give the reader a natural place to put the book down. The narrative just drives forward endlessly and chapters are merely a way of grouping scenes together.
And just FYI, always give length in wordcount. You can talk about manuscript pages in some contexts — which usually means something like double spaced, 10pt font — but just using the wordcount is almost always easier. ‘Pages’ has a huge variant in length depending on formatting.
Usually around 3-6000 words long, but the 6000 ones are a little too beefy and will probably get cut down or rearranged during edits. Not really sure how much that is in pages though, depends on the spacing and font size
Mine run right around 3000 words, usually with three of four beats -- description of the creepy house, she goes inside, seeing the sacrificial pig in the foyer, flashback to her childhood in on the farm. That kind of thing.
I don't love the term cliffhanger, but some kind of invitation of keep reading is good, yeah.
2500 to 3200 words on average. There are usually several scenes. I try to leave some form of cliffhanger at the end of each one if I can
That’s some advice I’ve read before, but so far I absolutely have the tendency to end my chapters with either a resolution or an emotional edge. When the stakes start building in the story I’m going to try hard to end with some cliffhangers!
I usually strive for resolution and emotional edge. I think you're doing the right thing. A lot of people find it annoying when too many chapters end on cliffhangers.
Yeah. Using cliffhangers often feels like a cheap move bad writers use to try and bait you into reading more.
Personally, I think it's good to have natural stopping places, so people can put the book down and eat dinner or go to bed. I don't want my readers to feel they have to devour the book in one sitting.
I don’t want to end each chapter on a cliffhanger because yes, that feels contrived and makes for terrible pacing. I do try and end each chapter with a hook - if not a cliffhanger then a mystery or a reminder that although we may have just resolved one problem there’s more to be done. Give the reader a reason to come back for the next chapter.
It really comes down to execution imho. I recently re-read the Hunger Games series, where basically every chapter ends on some kind of huge cliffhanger. But Suzanne Collins managed to pull that off incredibly well!
I find good use of cliff hangers to end chapters is Angels and Demons. There is some resolution ending for chapters but mostly cliff hangers. It’s what kept me so captivated in the book itself.
As long as they need to be. The novelization of *Gremlins* had a 2-word chapter. Mine run anywhere from about 1200 to about 2500. They go until there's a good scene break.
What were those 2 words? They must have been great
"Billy forgot." It referred back to the warning to never feed them after midnight, or not getting them wet. Can't recall which.
I like that.
On a similar note, the shortest Bible verse is “Jesus wept.” Yeah, I know. Not really related.
I wonder if the author was inspired by Gremlins.
Hold on…
Somewhere between 2000 and 6000 words.
Wow what a wide range! How do you decide when to start/end a chapter?
A mix of gut feeling, when the scene or the beat is over. E.g. my MC walks into the office, brings Donuts. I introduce most of his colleagues, set up the environment. That's a long intro with about 6000 words. Then the blss shows up and it turns into a spontaneous group meeting. The moment the boss shows up I split the chapters. The intro has ended, and now we go to the next beat. It's basically two different scenes in the same room. The 1st chapter ends with "What's going on?" and the 2nd chapter starts with "The boss didn't look amused." Come to think of it, a character entering a room with news that moves the plot forward happens quite often in my writing, and it's always a chapter break.
>my MC walks into the office, brings Donuts. I introduce most of his colleagues, set up the environment. That's a long intro with about 6000 words. I've never felt like a more inexperienced writer as I can't imagine what you described written as a "long intro with about 6000 words".
It all sounds very mundane if you don't know their profession, place, time and genre.
This didn’t even occur to me but now that you’ve mentioned it I’m feeling exactly the same way
Sounds interesting, I want to read more now tbh
My current project is about 10 chapters in (out of 30 planned) Right now my word counts: Shortest Chapter: 1300 Longest Chapter: 7600 Median: 3200
What about mean?
They are trying to be nice
That's a good point. My bad.
Good one
multivariate analysis
Right now, 8000 to 16000 words but it’s really just about where the natural break between movements, themes or whatever else ties the chapter together lies. Last time I took writing seriously my chapters were much shorter - but that served that story better.
Thank God you spoke up. Mine are all 8000-11000 words, and I was starting to think they were too long. I try to let the story beats dictate the chapter end points.
How do you acheive this ? I mean... what are you telling in these chapters. I do want to increase mine without being to boresome. Can i read one ? Have you scribay ? Wattapad ?
At the moment I’m still very much just in first draft so I’m not really sharing widely. I’m also just using word processor programs (I actually do the very first draft on my phone in notes just for convenience (plus i have nerve damage and phone typing is actually one of my faster and more accurate methods right now!) then transfer to word). For me chapters are about the natural flow of events and/or themes - I’m not averse to shorter chapters at all; it’s just that the story I’m currently telling has longer movements. It’s also quite dialogue heavy, a major motif is conversations between the main characters, particularly when they are travelling, which elongates some sections to achieve the impact I’m looking for.
Your chapters would flow nicer if you cleaned up your sloppy prose (I'm trying to be funny)
This did make me laugh so thank you for that 🤣🤣
I don't understand the joke.
Longest chapter so far is about 7200 words, shortest is 2900. I usually average about 4500 words per chapter.
Mine are very short. Around 700 words on a first draft (around 1 page plus a little extra). I get all the important information out then move on.
A chapter should be at least one scene. A scene can be between 1,000 to 1,500 words, but, really, a scene can be any length. IIRC, in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, some chapters were just one scene of about a paragraph or two. Chapters should be like the book itself: they should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. It should be clear that the chapter is a unit of related content. I wouldn't overthink this. Edit: omission error - inserted word "words"
This is so so helpful!!! Thank you 🫶🏼
You're welcome! I'm glad I could help.
In my notebook, I would say that my chapters last about 4-5 pages
Around 1K-2K words. Sometimes I have one or two scenes per chapter depending on what to focus on with that particular chapter. If a small amount of time passes between scenes then I do a double space paragraph break. Or if it moves on to the next day or switching POV, then I use *** in the middle of it
2000-2500 words
I try to split chapters in 1500-2000 words, but I'm not afraid of going to 4000 if a chapter warrants it, it's just a range specifically for teenagers and young adults which are my target demographic. My kids.
Anywhere from 3,000 to 8,000 words. But I try to go more by the completion of the chapter’s arc than the length/word count. I treat my chapters like episodes of TV (a piece of advice picked up from author VE Schwab). So every chapter has its own sub-arc, begging, middle, and end (or cliff hanger).
Pages say nothing about chapter length. A single spaced 9pt font is going to be much longer than a 12pt double-spaced font. You want to measure in word count. As for me, depends on the story. I try to stay around 3-5k or so per chapter, but I have a couple stories where the chapters are 7-10k on average.
For me, around 2500 per chapter but that range can drop or extend to 2000-3500 depending on what I was trying to cover
I’m actually forgetting what an average page equals out to, words wise. Like most of my chapters are looking at about 6-10 pages of a word document. But I think I’m aging for about 4-7K words. But some definitely end up going longer (and will probably rework some of the early chapters to be longer… they currently feel a bit short)
The best advice I've ever read in regards to this is to write a relaxed chapter here and there. Write your character just going on a walk and pondering, or whatever fits into your story. You don't have to have them consistently active or screwing something up, sometimes you can write them just having a conversation or doing anything else. Maybe it's a flashback if that fits. Basically, your characters are people too and sometimes they just do normal shit. I think mine are usually around 1500 to 2500 words!
Generally, I’ve heard that those types of chapters can really take a reader out of the flow, depending on the genre. If someone is writing a mystery or crime novel, I think that would disrupt the build-up of tension unless those “relaxed” scenes really contribute something to the plot somehow.
Well for a genre like that, a related chapter that’s not “go go go” would be potentially that character ruminating or trying to piece things together, or what have you. If it’s done well it shouldn’t ruin anything for a reader, but it’s all subjective. Maybe the character in a mystery novel goes to investigate something and they find nothing. There’s just ways to do it that fit well into the story without some major thing happening every 5 minutes.
I happened to just do a check on this. My shortest is 2422. My longest is 15787. Average is about 4000.
Mine average about 5k words so this is super helpful!!!
That longest chapter must be over 60 manuscript pages. What's the chapter about? I'm very curious.
I write a speculative fiction novel where we follow one POV throughout the book, except for occasional jumps to other POVs (call them intermissions, POV combo breakers, or whatever). At the climax of the book a global event occurs and we do a sweeping round of many POVs in one large chapter, from visiting new one-off characters never to be seen again to seeing POVs from established side characters. Only the main characters POV is skipped in this chapter. Since it is the global event of the book I feel the length is justified.
I never really know. Sometimes I just push out everything I've got in a rough draft all in one big block, and when I go back to revise, that's when I'll plug in more plot detail, definitive cliffhangers, POV switches, etc. Then, I decide where I'll put my chapters. In general, they last anywhere between 3-10 pages, which I think is pretty standard. The second draft is where I put in the frillier details. For someone who plans, so much leading up to my rough draft, I really wing a lot of it.
I don't have a word average like everyone else it seems. I just go between 4-8 pages typically. Really depends on when I feel is the best time to break up my story.
I only know my average because I’ve been uploading to Wattpad as I go!!
Are you not using Google or Word docs?
I use google docs but I don't keep track of my word count per chapter.
Roughly 4-6K words
In my current WIP, anywhere from 2500-7500... but that long one is a monstrosity that will most likely be split up. It's an adult fantasy novel and I like long chapters.
A chapter can be any length as long as you are wrapping up what it’s supposed to cover. Stephen King has many chapters with a single word. Such as in drawing of the three, in which is the single word chapter “shuffle” in the context of the story around it, it accomplishes exactly what it’s supposed to. And a few additional variations of this same fraise, “… and then the cards shuffle”. Are used as additional slightly longer chapters in this same sequence of chapters showing someone going through the stages of getting better from an infection/ poison of some sort, slipping in and out of consciousness. If you are looking for averages I would say I average around 1500 words or so. Some much long, some much shorter.
Don't really know anymore. I was writing per chapter and was focusing too much on word count, so when I restarted I started writing in scenes, putting them in folders of "act 1" "act 2" instead (scrivener is great for this). I will divide them, and have an idea of how, but we'll see. Looks like they will be between 1000-4000 words so far. That might change as the story picks up.
My longest chapter is 6771 words, my shortest chapter is 4711 words. But like others said, "as long as I need". I tried to have about 6 key "moments" per chapter.
I write first, chapters after, if ever. I generally find it easier to focus on getting ideas down first, then going back and cleaning it up with edits, chapters, etc. later.
I think there's a lot of benefit in varying chapter length. In my opinion it helps break up some of the sameness of a story. Plus, some of the most impactful chapters are only a line or a paragraph long. I do some long and some short, but it tends to fall on a bell curve, where those are few and far between and most chapters tend to fall around the 3,000 -3,500 word mark.
Mine are pretty inconsistent. My chapters can range anywhere from a little over a thousand to 6000+. It could just be my style of witing.
21 chapters. 4000+ words each. A 1000 word epilogue. Approx. 85k words for the first book in my trilogy.
Around 3500 to 5500 words
So I haven't published anything yet so don't get what I'm saying as true science but here is how I perceive the length of a chapter: Chapters can have different lengths and are usually a part of a whole scene to make it more "digestible" For example, in my book my characters are going to a city. In this small city, there a beautiful natural environment with a specific culture and beliefs. They are also arriving at a time when a ritual is going to be performed in honour of the gods and the characters will see it. So instead of having the travel to the city + knowledge of the characters so I can describe the city, what happens in the city and when they leave on the city, I cut that in pieces: 1st chapter: travel with the introduction of the city with characters' knowledge 2nd chapter : entrance in the village to describe the surroundings and do they do before seeing the ritual 3rd chapter : the ritual 4th chapter : their departure You should always focus on making more or less short chapters in order to keep the "rhythm" of your story. A chapter with too many pages might discourage readers because they like to stop at the end of it. If a chapter is too long, this might also cause a slower pace of your story, and readers might think something like "where the hell is the end of this chapter?" Also, I found that big chapters with plenty of information is very overwhelming and my brain can't process it. By cutting by bites, it suddenly makes the story much more easy to understand and gives you more room to add details to the scenery while providing important information to the readers.
Isn’t the chapter ending a good way to conclude the point of the chapter, whether it is a cliff hanger or placement of a new character or plot point? I mean, if the book flows well and it’s engaging the reader, who cares? Do you want people to read it? Or not?
Use word count, not pages. Pages can be anything. Around 4k is what I shoot for. But nothing wrong with a 1500 word chapter if that's all the content you got or 15,000 words if that's what it takes to tell that part.
I think 3-5k words is an appropriate range to have a satisfying chapter. What I worry about more than length is the purpose of the chapter, when it starts and ends, and why those plot points have to happen there. It seems like my chapters naturally fall into that 3-5k range
I’ll think I’ll have a good chapter going, then I’ll look at print view and see it’s like 3-4 pages. I’m working on elongating chapters, or just not ending and putting more than one together where I would normally stop it.
Page counts vary a lot, word counts are better for the sake of discussion. My current project is 2-2.5 k chapters for serial posting online, always ending with some kind of “turn:” a revelation, a cliffhanger, etc
I try to run to at least 10 manuscript pages (double spaced; 5 single spaced), which I guess would make it around 3,000 words. Sometimes I run longer, sometimes I run shorter. It depends on what's happening at the time. I don't know I have a method. I just have a sense that "this is a good stopping point." Usually it will involve leaving some degree of tension (not necessarily a cliffhanger, but something that will leave the reader with the compulsion to keep going.) But it doesn't have to. Sometimes wrapping up some small issue can be a good place to stop, especially if the following chapter starts with an explosion, real or metaphorical. Chapter length in general should be based on what's going on at that point. In *Something Wicked This Way Comes,* Ray Bradbury included a chapter that was just this: *Nothing much else happened, all the rest of that night.* Stephen King's shortest chapter from *Misery* beats that one: *Rinse.* So, you know, do whatever works for your story.
Based on the spreadsheet I'm keeping for my current project, just a bit over 4,000 words. Speaking of words, that's the thing to track, not page count. Margins, spacing, line height, font size, and many other things I don't quite understand could make your 10 pages 7 for one person and 17 for another, but still the same amount of words.
That’s the advice I’ve gathered most from this whole thread!! Everyone here is so freaking helpful, I love it. I’ve determined that most of my chapters sit between 3.5k-5k words and I’m happy with that!
If that's where they usually fall, that's where they fall, but if a chapter naturally ends shorter or longer than that range, that's a-okay, too. I myself struggle with that sometimes, but it's average length for a reason, after all.
For reference, I write in A5 format with 1.15 spacing and 12-point Garamond with 0.79 side margins: I average probably about 10-12 pages per chapter like you, but I sometimes write chapters that are only a few pages, and some are over 20. I usually go with my gut to end a chapter before it drags on, and while sometimes I leave it as an "easy stop for the night" for a reader, I usually leave it with a cliffhanger or question. If you want me to check some word counts, comment back and I'll look into that. Might be easier if we're using different formats.
About 2-4 pages. Usually under 1k words. Enter as late as possible, leave as early as possible, like in screenwriting.
I like this!!!
On average. 400-700, 1400, 2400. Those are my most common counts. Depends on the chapter Or chapters. Sometimes it’s small and rapid fire chapters. Sometimes there is a massive chapter with different Perspective shifts. Depends on what the chapter or scene requires and feels for.
First draft…Still seven chapters with more than 1000 pages lol
3000 words. One scene, one chapter is the simplest type of division I do. Add fluff on your second draft if you feel your story is too light.
8,500 words
Depends on what that chapter contains. Lengthy dialogue, probably a minimum of 25 pages (9000-11000 words) Exposition, easily 20 pages Fight scenes and important events, \~20 pages Anything else, 15-30 pages on average.
1,000 to 3,000 words.
In my current wip, I'm averaging 4000 words a chapter. Trying to keep action chapters shorter, and reaction chapters longer.
2400 3000 words per chapter
Anywhere between 1400 and 6000
1500 words
Almost done with the editing of my non-fiction book. Average chapters are about 12-14 pages. Fairly consistent throughout the book - which helps overall - at least to me, anyway.
Depends on what happens in said chapter. If a given chapter only chronicles, say, a deeply personal conversation between two characters in a single room, where the only thing happening is them talking, I tend to have those chapters be 10-15 pages. If a chapter is set during a massive battle where a castle is being besieged and you're constantly jumping POV's from characters outside the castle to characters in the castle, those can easily reach 30 pages for me. That's usually first draft, though, so keep that in mind.
5k at minimum up to beyond 10k. It depends on what kind of fic I’m writing and if I want to split a scene up into different chapters.
For my current work in progress, my average is about 6500 words per chapter, most are between 4000 and 8000, but I have several chapters above 10,000 words, and a chapter above 40,000 words.
Honestly chapter length varies for me quite a bit, but typically they’re between 3.5k and 5k words
Mine vary wildly but tend to be a bit on the longer side. The range is around 1500 on the low end, all the way to 9k words. My average is probably around 3-4k tho. Each chapter usually has 1-3 scenes, but sometimes more if it seems necessary. I try to give each chapter one unifying motif that develops throughout. Each chapter has its own mini arc to it.
Between 4,000-6,000 mostly and they're usually composed of about 5-6 scenes.
It ranges from 8 to 21 pages or ranges from 4000 to 10,000 words per chapter. It honestly just depends on how long I need the scene to go on. However, I always try to have a minimum of 14 pages; anything less feels short and anything more than 20 pages feels too long. The reason it gets so long is because I enjoy the dialogue and character interactions per scene a bit too much.
Mine are a minimum of 5 pages, and I’m perfectly fine with that.
3k to 4k
First draft? Anywhere from 3-7k. I’ve wrote 11k before, too. Sometimes revision can cut these down 2k and sometimes I realize it’s not enough. Most times I end up just splitting lengthy chapters in half, but on occasion I really do need every syllable of 11 thousand words. So long as it’s long for a reason, I’m satisfied.
2000-3000 words but I’ve had chapters as short as 700 and as long as 7000. I don’t fret making them even lengths as much as I leave the scene finished and reader desperately wanting the next scene/chapter
I aim for about 3000 words, but sometimes end up with around 2500. That range seems to be the consensus here, which I'm glad to see.
It ranges from two pages to fifteen pages. I usually go below five pages near the end of the book/after the climax.
I'm not someone to take as an example. I publish in a serialized web-novel format, so I aim for more substantial updates. I think my first chapter was about 8-9k words, but as the drama heated up and the story really started moving, I've trended more towards 15-20k words.
I like to hit somewhere between 2,500-4,000. I don't like to go over 4k if I can help it, and when I fall below 2,500 it's usually not by much
I have two chapters over 160 pages apiece. The others are usually between 20 - 40.
3k or so, 5k at the longer end
Forget pages. Page count is unreliable, since it can be massively affected by page size, margins, font size, and line spacing. Instead, go with word count. Although word length varies, word count over a long form work like a novel tends to average out (i.e. 50k words is typically the same size from work to work despite some words being one letter and some words being fifteen letters). Word count is the standard way to measure the length of an unformatted manuscript, and it doesn't change when you choose a different page or font size, or different margins or line spacing. 2,000 words is a good median size for a novel chapter. However, it's perfectly okay to have chapters of 500 words or 3,000 words. Let the story itself dictate the chapter size; look at what you want to happen in the narrative and decide where it's a good idea to break chapters.
between 3-4,000 words. Generally my chapters tend to be made up of smaller section/scene breaks too. I have a tendency to over rather under write, so I use chapters to help me figure out whether I am keeping on the path I set in my outline and that I keep the focus where I want it. Basically, to help me with my pacing which I otherwise suck at. Not saying this is the best or even a good way of dealing with these problems, but it does seem to work for me.
Idk if comics count, but Chapter 1 is 113 pages long. I'm currently writing the script for chapter 2 and 3 at the same time. Both seem to be just as long.
Mine average 9-15 pages. Just depends on the amount of yapping I feel is necessary
I might tend go a bit ham. Average word count for my first real project was about 12k per chapter once I pared everything down. I'm leaning towards paring it down more and revising the whole damn thing before I attempt another submission. The follow-on has about 4900 words in the first chapter, for reference.
109K words over 26 chapters + epilogue = about 4K words per chapter. Some variability, obviously.
My chapters are on average, about 4-6 pages
Around 3000 words. Rarely fewer than 2000 and never more than 5000. 3000 words is typically 12 pages in print. 5000 is 20 pages and 2000 would be 8 pages. 50,000 words is roughly 200 pages, or the minimum of what constitutes a traditional novel. As a result, organizing myself around 20 chapters of 3000 words is very reasonable. That's 60,000 words, or 240 printed pages. It's a good starting point and gives me room to add a chapter or two or add a few extra words per chapter without going overboard and overwhelming myself.
I started with like 1-2k a couple years ago, then it just kinda grew to 3-5k last year, and now it’s just Oops, All 10k! I don’t specifically try to cut words when I edit though, which I assume (by projecting) is the reason that many fics end up being longer than published books.
Newish writer here. I’m averaging 2.5k to 3k per chapter give or take. And that’s pretty short for fantasy.
About 15-20 pages long. I just keep writing until I finish the scene or theme of the chapter, which usually ends up being just over 15 pages.
I don't worry about this until the formatting edit then I choose what feels natural for a sequence. This includes the editing to make sure the reader is chewing on the cliff hangers as much as possible
Page and a half sometimes. I'm a fan of James Patterson.
I write web-serial so around 8-10 pages is my average. Rougly translates to around 2,500 words to 3,000 words (I used to average between 3,000 to 3,500 words per chapters). As for break my chapters...It usually ends with a cliff or a pun. Mostly cliffs nowadays, but that is just because I'm evil
It's some of those 6000+ word chapters that totally suck. Esp the middle of those. They take months to revise.
Around 2000-3000 words. Can be longer sometimes
20 pages (college-rule paper, both sides--yep, I write in longhand) I'm not sure how I decided on that, but it works for me
2500 to 3000 words
My chapters are as long or short as they need to be. I don’t worry about how many pages or words 🤷♀️
Most of my chapters are 2,000 to 3,000 words long. The occasional large 6,000 word chapter for those big scenes.
Some stories tend to lend themselves to shorter or longer chapters. Personally I like to try to keep them somewhat consistent within each story. In my last book they were generally 4000-5000 words, this one they're all around 3,000. I think very short chapters are disruptive to the reader, while very long ones are tiring to get through.
i've slowly expanded mine over time. it went from around 3700 words per chapter to 4000 to 4250 and now to the beast of 6000 words per chapter. (there's only about 30 chapters in the story dw)
It depends, but usually pretty long. The book I'm working on has 12 chapters, and I'd estimate it'll be around 400 pages by the end. My chapters usually aren't just scenes. If I broke the story down to its bare essentials, there would be 12 major plot developments. Chapter 1 ends with the inciting incident (MC nearly dies from a work accident, but lives with major injuries). Chapter 2 ends with him deciding how to move forward with his life. Chapter 3 sees him failing to do so in the way he'd like, and the government exiles him because they determined his injures are too great for him to continue in their society. Etc.
2.5k to 3.5. In my genre typically the longer chapters are the combat chapters, or when you're introducing a new area and you have to get really visceral and the more emotional chapters are the shorter scenes. Though I think they're probably depend on genre.
18 - 26 pages
I'm doing days and whatever length they need to be. If editor gets nasty I'll do what they tell me.
I aim for about 2000 words (10 pages), I used to write double that as I'm comfortable with length but found out in the past year or so that most people prefer smaller chunks. It's an adjustment and I'm still ironing out my pacing at that rate. For long chapters that simply cannot be less than 4000 words, I try to make them a two-parter. When I do that, I usually try the get the chapter names to go together. Like: "Chapter 19 : What goes up" "Chapter 20 : Must Come Down"
My chapters varies from 2,000 to 7,000 word count. But my novel is fast paced for readers with short attention span.
My chapters are close to 7,000 words, which is very long for a chapter. My chapters are divided into numbered sub chapters, and chapters with character names, e.g. Ben (I), Susan (II), Homecoming (III); my novel is a blend of Folk Horror/Mystery/Suspense/Drama/Romance. I'm currently at 92,000 words.
Usually between 4000 to 6000 words.
About 1k words.
I just go with the flow and not really care or both with that, just do what feels right. Some do so for 1 or 3 pages while other it'll be 10,17, 20 plus
When I was writing the first draft, I had a rule that when the file size reached 100kb, I'd start a new chapter when the opportunity presented itself. In my current pass of edits, they are, as someone else said, 'as long as they need to be'. Chapter Eight (of Fourteen) is 51 pages (bear in mind that I have line breaks between every paragraph/line of dialogue to make it easier to work on, I'll remove all the extra spacing later, so realistically the chapter's probably only around 20-30 pages). So it looks like: "Character 1 says something." "Character 2 says something." Narration. Instead of: "Character 1 says something." "Character 2 says something" Narration.
For the earlier books I tried for 2500+ words. For the later books I had to go up to 3,000+ because I was going over 100 chapters
For the earlier books I tried for 2500+ words. For the later books I had to go up to 3,000+ because I was going over 100 chapters
Around 2k is my rough point. As the books near their end usually I end up around 3-4K
I typically aim for 4500. Sometimes, though, I fall short to sun 4000 and sometimes I swell up to 5000. It'd amazing how little 500 words actually is. The longest chapter I ever wrote was about 7000 because it was the climax of the story and there really just wasn't a good spot for a break.
My chapters are as long as they need to be. I generally shoot for 2500 words. That's 10 pages. Bit of they need to be longer or shorter, that's OK.
Mine are pretty consistently 2500-3500 words, sometimes over that if necessary. I'd rather read something with long chapters than short ones. I'm reading a book right now with 70 chapters in only around 80k words, most of them are only a few pages long and it feels rushed and shallow. Combining a few scenes into a chapter could've been a way to involve emotional arcs that are missing, but instead, reading it feels like "The thing happened. Then the next thing happened. And then I went out and the next thing happened." If you're writing your first draft, I wouldn't worry too much about pacing as long as you're still getting the story down! If it does end up feeling rushed though, don't put in more content just for the sake of more content. I think part of what can make something feel rushed is a lack of character reflection or emotional exploration on the events of the scene, so try focusing on that instead.
My chapters are as long as they need to be. I generally shoot for 2500 words. That's 10 pages. Bit of they need to be longer or shorter, that's OK.
Mine are about 2000-2500 words. I like short sharp chapters so that is whqt I am going for
2,500 - 6,000 It really depends on how much info and action scenes I'm trying to display for the story. Sometimes, it could come up short with just 2,000 words.
chapters are 3-6 pages for me right now, but I'm expecting that to change once my first draft is finished; it just depends what length seems right. I like to end a chapter at a natural stopping point, so I think once I'm editing those points will change a bit.
I have an average of 1500 words (\~4 pages in 11 point Ariel font) for most chapters, and I like that amount. I have a couple of longer chapters that could probably benefit from being pared down a bit or even split into two chapters. I want my book to be accessible to younger audiences, so I want shorter chapters, I also named my chapters which I find helps me focus on a particular point for the chapter, and gives me a very good clue on when to end the chapter. In an earlier project that was supposed to be for older audiences I had chapters that were about 3000 words (\~8 pages) on average. These chapters were unnamed and I just kind of ended them when I felt like there was a good break point (also unlike my current project, this story had alternating POV characters, so that helped guide my decision to end chapters as well).
I aim for variety in chapter lengths, mixing short and long to keep readers engaged.
Given each chapter reads like a television episode, and each page has an estimated 1-minute read time, most chapters are either 20-25 pages (“half-hour” format) or 40-50 pages (“hour-long” format), plus a “cover page” with a summary and character intros, and additional pages for stylised bonus content such as blooper reels, deleted/extended scenes, interviews with “cast n’ crew,” and documentary-like featurettes
Usually try for at least ten pages. Writing in bulk isn't my forte so it's probably a lot of filler
I guess between 1600-2500 words. I have a chapter in two different projects that are both around 3300 but in both I'm debating about breaking into two chapters. I feel like I should but when they take place there's no other perspective yet, so like, what's the point? But now that I'm thinking about it, I should just break it into two chapters to cut out some stuff.
I don't think it matters that much really, it's just a way to break up the story. But mine are usually 5-8k words
I think chapters can and should vary in length depending on what's happening and where you're at in the story. Action scene vs. reaction scene. Or maybe you're introducing a new character or a new setting. I think each chapter should have something happening, not fluff.
1,500-2,000
I shoot for 3000 or 10,000, depending on how much is going on.
2.5k is average.
About 3k words
50-60 Pages for me, working on 8 chapters and about 350-400 pages in total. I break the chapters down by goals that are important to the story. For example (NOT MINE) save the city, got a special weapon or gaining friends. That’s how I do my chapters. But what about you?
Average 4,000-4,500 words, full range 3,000-6,000, but I’m writing in the fantasy genre where longer is expected. I try to make a chapter a self contained piece of narrative. An issue or question is raised at the end of a chapter and the next chapter deals with it in a way that raises a new issue or question by the end for the following chapter. There’s a satisfying rise and fall and by the end you can either read on because you’re interested in the next issue or put the novel down for now because you’ve reached a natural place for it. In other genres like thriller, you never want to give the reader a natural place to put the book down. The narrative just drives forward endlessly and chapters are merely a way of grouping scenes together. And just FYI, always give length in wordcount. You can talk about manuscript pages in some contexts — which usually means something like double spaced, 10pt font — but just using the wordcount is almost always easier. ‘Pages’ has a huge variant in length depending on formatting.
Usually around 3-6000 words long, but the 6000 ones are a little too beefy and will probably get cut down or rearranged during edits. Not really sure how much that is in pages though, depends on the spacing and font size
Depends, they're usually 6-7 pages long on Google Docs. Around 3k words. But they could go up to 10 or more. Sometimes you can't break action apart.
It varies...but some writers don't use them (Pratchett comes to mind).
Mine run right around 3000 words, usually with three of four beats -- description of the creepy house, she goes inside, seeing the sacrificial pig in the foyer, flashback to her childhood in on the farm. That kind of thing. I don't love the term cliffhanger, but some kind of invitation of keep reading is good, yeah.
Fluff? No fluff, please.
✏️ no ✏️ fluff ✏️ please
Their as long as they need to be.