Middle Grade Novels

I think that's a bit short...? I thought they range from 25k to 40k?? But I write YA, so I'm not an expert...

Check out the Children's forum there is a sticky at the top that gives you a link to a great site for word counts.

Aw hang it, here it is: http://www.write4kids.com/colum44.html

Talking of middle grade books, how many pages would you include in a chapter?

Annie I think that definitely depends. Many books have chapters of varying length. The one thing I would say is not to make them too long. A chapter gives the reader permission to break from reading, and with kids they need it a bit sooner than most. I'd say write the book first, perhaps without even delineating chapters. And then see where things flow etc.

(I only say this because when I did my MG once it was submitted both my agent and subsequent editor asked me to shorten the chapters [which out of all my edits was totally the easiest, I just split them in two], so this time round I'm just writing the book and then figuring out the chapter breaks when I'm done.)

MGs usually range anywhere from about 25,000 to 35,000+

Chapters occur when you're changing scenes or about to spill the beans (hey, that rhymes!). Read your ms. out loud, and you'll get a feel for when a new chapter could start. And yeah, not too long.

For instance, in my book that's out at publishers now, it's about 32,000 words with twenty-two chapters. That could change. Don't worry too much about the chapters at this point.

Thanks for your help, guys!