Pacing

Hm... I don't think you can measure pace in word count.

Over analyzing?

I think you might be going about this the wrong way. Perhaps you are over analyzing the details. IMO, a chapter is as long as it needs to be. It isn't about the numbers: the word count, page count, paragraph count or length. It's about what's appropriate for the style of your novel, the genre, the tone. Some novels have chapters that are only a page or two, and in the same novel, chapters that are 10-plus pages.

Chapters are essentially scenes of action. When the scene is over, the chapter ends. It's both as simple and complex as that.

CaroGirl said:

IMO, a chapter is as long as it needs to be. It isn't about the numbers: the word count, page count, paragraph count or length. It's about what's appropriate for the style of your novel, the genre, the tone.

Chapters are essentially scenes of action. When the scene is over, the chapter ends. It's both as simple and complex as that.

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I think the first quoted sentence is the key.

I think the second quoted sentence is an over-simplification. Scenes are scenes. Chapters are chapters. Sometimes a chapter is a single scene, but not by definition or of necessity.

willietheshakes said:

Scenes are scenes. Chapters are chapters. Sometimes a chapter is a single scene, but not by definition or of necessity.

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You're right. I didn't say what I meant to say.

Just keep the the chapters in parts (so to speak).
As a reader, I know I enjoy a good spot to put down the bookmark if a chapter is especially long. Otherwise it seems like jumping back into a pool that's grown ice cold and you have to warm it up again.

popmuze said:

In response to some people saying my novel started off too slowly, I happened by chance to look at my early chapters and made the following discovery.
Chapter One 4000 words
Chapter Two 6000 words
Chapter Three 7000 words
Chapter Four 5000 words
Chapter Five 6500 words
Chapter Six 6500 words
Chapter Seven 4300 words

Without knowing anything else about the book, is it possible to assume that one of the ways I could pick up the pace of the action is to find some natural breaks in these early chapters and effectively turn each into two chapters or more? Or would that just be a cosmetic change, revising for the sake of revising?

Several hundred drafts ago, I think I had shorter chapters, and then for some reason thought that longer chapters were the way to go. Just another example of the perils of too much revision. And yet here I am thinking about going back.

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Length of chapters doesn't necessarily have anyting to do with pace, tough very long chapters do tend to be slower than short chapters. But pace is, in brief, how fast the action comes, and how long individual scenes take, not chapter length.

I don't think that chapter length is the critical issue (as many have already said). I have no problem with a 50 page chapter or longer, as long as the scenes within it keep moving. Pacing is in the scenes and writing -- not in now long until the next chapter heading.

I do tend to get annoyed at really short chapters (a page or two) if they are used more than once in a book. They might seem "fast" or seem to pick up the pace, but for me at least they seem to derail my reading, like I stepped off the curb and it wasn't as far as I thought it was -- that oops! Not so fast! feeling.

TV

popmuze said:

Thanks to the feedback here I have gone another day without revising the entire book!


But I did smoke three packs of cigarettes, eat ten bars of chocolate and watch seven hours of daytime tv.

(Just kidding about the cigarettes)

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I suspect seven hours of daytime TV is far deadlier than three packs of cigarettes.

I'm going to disagree with some of the others and say that shorter chapters are an artificial but still perfectly valid way of giving the impression of a faster pace.

I will admit that a book has to be phenomenal for me to be able to read chapters of more than 15 pages. Many writers make each scene a new chapter. It doesn't actually make the story easier to read, but it makes the reader think it's easier to read because each block is easier to digest.

Long vs. short chapters is just like long vs. short paragraphs this way. Most people don't like to read really long paragraphs, and they don't like long chapters.

Wesley Smith said:

I'm going to disagree with some of the others and say that shorter chapters are an artificial but still perfectly valid way of giving the impression of a faster pace.

I will admit that a book has to be phenomenal for me to be able to read chapters of more than 15 pages. Many writers make each scene a new chapter. It doesn't actually make the story easier to read, but it makes the reader think it's easier to read because each block is easier to digest.

Long vs. short chapters is just like long vs. short paragraphs this way. Most people don't like to read really long paragraphs, and they don't like long chapters.

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I'm not wholly disagreeing with you, Wesley, but what you seem to be overlooking is that we have no sense of the content of the chapters, or the style, no matter the length. Pacing is not determined by chapter length -- it is determined by syntax, by word choice, by subject matter, by approach.

You say you don't like long chapters - would you rather read a fifteen page chapter largely of dialogue-fuelled plot development in several scenes, or a three page chapter that consists wholly of a single-paragraph description of a drizzly morning?

This is one of those 'how long is a piece of string' discussions...

When you're done with it, everything will be as long as it needs to be.

Your sentences and your word choices and your syntax will reflect the pace you're trying to set.

Your paragraphs will take it one step further.

Your chapters will be exactly as long as they need to be - not so short as to feel deliberate or choppy, not so long as to feel excessive.

Sorry to be vague, but all of these things are different for every writer and for every work. Concentrate on the sentences, and to a degree the other levels will probably take care of themselves.

I wasn't real happy with my chapter division when I finished my novel, so I took out all the chapter headings and just had one huge single "Chapter One".


Then I re-read it (actually I used sequential flash cards with scene descriptions) thinking about where to put chapter breaks, and even re-arranging them to help the breaks fit properly.
True, I frequently chose the places that had been used before, but there were a few places that didn't seem right, and a few new places that jumped out at me.
By the way, I find it helpful to keep a stack of flash cards titled, "put seque here" handy when I use them to arrange scenes.

Chapters

Wesley Smith said:

I'm going to disagree with some of the others and say that shorter chapters are an artificial but still perfectly valid way of giving the impression of a faster pace.

I will admit that a book has to be phenomenal for me to be able to read chapters of more than 15 pages. Many writers make each scene a new chapter. It doesn't actually make the story easier to read, but it makes the reader think it's easier to read because each block is easier to digest.

Long vs. short chapters is just like long vs. short paragraphs this way. Most people don't like to read really long paragraphs, and they don't like long chapters.

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I don't think I've read very many novels where each scene was a separate chapter. The large majority of novels I've read have more than one scene per chapter, and usually several. But it really has little or nothing to do with pace.

Nor does pace have anything to do with making a novel easier to read. Nor do short chapters really have anything to do with making a novel easier to read, or even of making it appear easier to read. Short or long, chapters have structure, chapters have pace, and you can't just say you're going to make every chapter a certain length so the book will seem easier to read. Chapters are the length they are because the style of writing dictates the length of the chapter, and chapter breaks come when the structure of the chapter is completed.

And I don't think very many readers are as picky as you think about very short chapters. A lot of novels with very long chapters hit the bestseller lists each and every year.

Long paragraphs can be a more serious problem, but an awful lot of readers love Faulkner, and some of his sentences are two pages long, nevermind his paragraphs.

Sentence, paragraph, or chapter, each should be as long a sit needs to be to say whatever it is that the writer wants to say. You can't just arbitraily make anything a certain length. Abe Lincoln was supposedly asked how long a man's legs should be, and he answered by saying "Long enough to reach the ground."

And a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter should be long enough to reach the end of whatever it is you have to say.

Please note that I don't think that shorter chapters are actually easier to read. I just remember reading somewhere in the past year or so about a study or poll about length of chapters. I've been looking for it, but I can't find it online. It may be referenced in one of my reference books somewhere. But the gist is that the researchers gave the same novel to two or three different groups. The content was the same but there were more chapter breaks in one than the others. The group that read the version with the most chapter breaks read the book faster and reported enjoying it more than the others.

I'll keep looking for it.

Eliminate all unneccessary adverbs and adjectives, needless dialogue attribution, and read it to yourself outloud so that you can tune in to its "sound" and eliminate anything else that is unneccessary. Simplicity reads easy. Repetition and added glump proves for a laborious read.

Pacing will come from your action/plot, not from the word count. I can't tell you anything about the pace of a story based on words. I write everything from flash fiction to novels, and let me tell you a lot can happen in 200 words - and in 2,000. Just to give you an idea what I mean, myst of my 90K novel takes place in a week.

Ronda