Chapter lengths

Garpy · Jun 8, 2005

I suspect its been covered before, however....I'm interested, how long are your chapters? And, does anyone have any per-genre guidelines on chapter length?

Atm, I'm working on a YA scifi novel, sort Eoin Colfer meets Jacqueline Wilson in space....and I'm averaging about 2k words per chapter....which if I'm right is about 8 book pages a chapter.

jules · Jun 8, 2005

There doesn't seem to be any kind of standard, is the consensus we usually come up with when discussing this. FWIW, I tend to write chapters about 5-10k.

azbikergirl · Jun 8, 2005

I have five POV characters and tend to switch POV at chapter breaks, so I have about 60 chapters in my 120K book. From time to time, I switch POV at a scene break when the scenes are closely related enough to be in a single chapter.

Roger J Carlson · Jun 8, 2005

How long is a word? How long is a sentence? How long is a paragraph? How long is a chapter?

The answer is the same: as long as it needs to be to fulfill its function. Any other rule would be ludicrous.

As for me, my first novel is a YA SF novel too. Amazingly, and without any planning on my part, every chapter turned out to be 1400 words (+-50). My second book is an adult fantasy and chapters average about 2400 words.

I'm not sure why this is so. I didn't plan it. Possibly because I always kept my audience in mind, and my subconscious simply kept the chapters to the length that "felt right" for that audience. I'd say that shorter chapters are better for younger audiences, but I wouldn't modify your chapters to adhere to some arbitrary rule.

Lisamer · Jun 8, 2005

UndercoverJackal said:
While we're hovering around the subject, how do you handle POV changes?

I give my characters a separate chapter. The best way to describe it is to think of the movie Rashomon. An incident is presented from the point of view of one character, let's say, "having sex." The next chapter is written from the POV of the "partner."

peteski · Jun 18, 2005

What about for agents?

I have a question regarding chapter lengths in regards to agents. I have one agent who wants me to send him 3 chapters from my most commercial novel--the problem is, my chapters are very short. Is there an average length? Is 20 pages enough? Or should it be more? Any advice here would be very helpful. Thanks in advance!

James D. Macdonald · Jun 18, 2005

What do you mean by "very short"? One word? (The shortest chapter I'm aware of in published English fiction is zero words, but that's in Tristram Shandy, and is a special case.)

James Patterson writes very short chapters. I'm certain an agent could determine his writing style and ability from them.

If the sample isn't long enough (that is, the agent kept reading all the way to the end and wanted more) he/she'll certainly ask for the rest.

peteski · Jun 18, 2005

Well, the chapters are about 1-4 pages each but get longer as they go. You make a good point that if the agent wants more he'll ask for more, though. My main concern was giving him enough to make sure he's hooked--so he'll definitely ask for more. Looking at the raw pages, ignoring the chapter breaks, I felt that I can sufficiently hook anyone after page 19. But is he going to take one look at 19 pages and think "this guy can't follow instructions!"?

Sorry, this is the first time an agent has actually asked to see something of mine, so I'm not sure how much of a micro-manager I should be--if I should worry about it at all. After querying so many agents, a good part of me wants to just go by instinct and send him what I feel like sending him (the 19 pages) but I thought it would be a good idea to see if I could find some advice from someone more experienced than I

Thanks for your fast reply, by the way!

James D. Macdonald · Jun 18, 2005

Who's the agent? What else has he/she represented?

Seriously, just go with your three chapters and synopsis.

peteski · Jun 18, 2005

James D. Macdonald said:
Who's the agent? What else has he/she represented?

Don't know--don't care! Lol--just kidding. Although to be honest, I do care--I'll worry about that once he wants to represent me. I got his info from WritersMarket.com and he seems legit. His name's Rich Henshaw. His website is here: http://www.richh.addr.com/

James D. Macdonald said:
Seriously, just go with your three chapters and synopsis.

Well, he didn't ask for a synopsis, but I was thinking about including it anyway. I think I will go with my 19 pages since they end on a tense moment where as 10 pages (where my 3rd chapter ends) isn't as "hot" a place to end. Huh--I just looked at his "submissions" page and he does ask for a synopsis and fifty pages but in his email he asked for 3 chapters... arg!

Thanks again for your advice, James! I really appreciate it!

James D. Macdonald · Jun 18, 2005

Then use your best judgement and don't worry about it. Richard Henshaw is a good agent. Good luck.

peteski · Jun 18, 2005

Cool--so you don't think I'm dealing with make or break kind of choices here?

Thanks again!

Richard · Jun 18, 2005

(glances at current WIP - unedited opening chap, 1-10 in outline sketch, approx 10,000 words by Word)

That's the catch, I suppose. Reading on screen, each scene is in 10pt TNR seems so short and inconsequential.

(walks away whistling loudly)

triceretops · Jun 18, 2005

My chapters always seem to end up between 18--24 pages. My chapter high was 32, and my chapter low was 7 pages.

Triceratops

Birol · Jun 18, 2005

UndercoverJackal said:
While we're hovering around the subject, how do you handle POV changes?

Sometimes I just do a scene break. Other times, it is a chapter break. Depends on what's going on with the different characters and how much time has elapsed between what one character is doing and what the next one is doing and, oh yeah, on what I feel works best at the time.

Mistook · Jun 19, 2005

UndercoverJackal said:
While we're hovering around the subject, how do you handle POV changes?

Normally a separate chapter per character, with a difinitive clue to the new POV right off the bat. Many such chapters begin with the character's name as the first words. If not, it's a description of a setting that makes the change and the new character obvious.

Occasionally there are chapters where I switch POV between scenes. These are always very fast moving, action chapters, the POV changes are logical. The hero interacts with the villains henchman in a battle. Hero runs one direction. Switch to lead henchman's POV as he is running the other direction. Switch to friend of hero a block away. Switch to local cop trying to make sense of the commotion.

Mistook · Jun 19, 2005

15 standard manuscript pages is my average per chapter. To me it seems that's on the short side, but that's my natural pace.

mistri · Jun 19, 2005

My chapters usually end up at about 4-5k. However, at the beginning of a book they tend to run a little shorter - 3k. But I think that's enough (3 shortish chapters) for an agent to know whether or not they'd like to see more from me.

hpoppink · Jun 19, 2005

When I started, my chapters were 10-15 pages. That's back when I didn't know quite where I was going with the story.

Now that I'm settled into the book, my chapter length is 30-45 pages.

I use a lot of scene breaks (# centered) instead of new chapters. If you counted scene breaks, each "section" would be around 6-7 pages.

Who knows what it will look like in the rewrite.

Saanen · Jun 19, 2005

Weird, I was thinking about the chapter lengths in my WIP just before I popped in to check the forums before bed. Usually my chapters are fairly long (7500-10k words), but in this case they're extremely short. I'm at 10k words right now and on Chapter 8, so the chapters are averaging just over 1,000 words each.

Still, it seems to be working. If I find the chapters getting longer as I go on, though, I'll probably go back and put some of the earlier chapters together just to keep the book feeling consistent.

Now that I think about it, the short chapters seem to be giving this particular work a much faster pace than I usually write. Since that was what I was going for when I started, I'm pleased. Now I wonder if the shorter chapters are a result of faster pacing, or if the shorter chapters give the illusion of faster pacing, or a mixture of both.

Garpy · Jun 20, 2005

If they are giving the illusion of faster pace, that's probably a good thing. I think generally, not just in YA fiction, but across the board, the trend or fashion is towards shorter bite-size chapters. I think that's mainly to do with how/when people read books these days....ie: on the train or bus, or on the toilet ;-)

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