YA chapter length

Akudie

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I read somewhere, that readers tend to read more in one sitting if the chapters are short because they have the sensation to progress faster and want to read "one more chapter" before putting the book down.

Personally, I don't like very long chapters (some long books have literally only 3 chapters) but I also don't think 2-3 pages should be a stand alone part. Feels a bit empty. It think longer chapters are ok as Long as they are some kind of scene separation that can be a good stop (Murakami does this a lot).

I am wondering if it is better to mix thing around, or keep a consistent length of all the chapters?
 

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I think chapters should be somewhat consistent within a book, but that somewhat is very wishy-washy. A short chapter among longer ones can emphasize itself, but only if they're few and far between. A long chapter among shorter ones, though, can sometimes annoy a reader who has gotten used to the short chapters. When I get a short-chapter book, it's a book I use for short chapter purposes (a book I read in the bathroom, a book I read a chapter of every X number of words I write, as another, a book I read on lunch break because I'll probably find a chapter break near the end of my half hour). But short chapters can also seem to interrupt the flow of the story, putting artificial breaks in there. It also gives permission to the reader to stop, so it's a double-edged sword between whether it makes them read one more (short) chapter or makes them put the book down faster than they would have if the chapter was another 2K words.

In the end, it's all about what works best for your story and your writing. Chapter breaks should feel natural.

(It's been a while since I wrote a book without alternating POVs at chapter breaks, but I seem to recall chapter breaks without them feeling natural :greenie )
 

RoseDG

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It is very much a personal taste thing. I can't imagine a YA novel with only 3 chapters, however.
 

Debbie V

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There are books with one sentence chapters. (I know I've read one but I don't know what it was.) This isn't the norm for the book, of course. (I know Maniac Magee, which is MG, has half-page chapters.) It's all in what you want the chapters to do. For my WIP, they have to feel complete and all scenes in them relate to a theme. Length varies based on that, but they come up close to the same. But I know that one sentence chapter made me stop and think.
 

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There are books with one sentence chapters. (I know I've read one but I don't know what it was.) This isn't the norm for the book, of course. (I know Maniac Magee, which is MG, has half-page chapters.) It's all in what you want the chapters to do. For my WIP, they have to feel complete and all scenes in them relate to a theme. Length varies based on that, but they come up close to the same. But I know that one sentence chapter made me stop and think.

I've seen this in books too, the tiny chapters. I think it's neat. It can be very effective in some cases.
 

spikeman4444

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Love short chapters. I can fly through a book with short chapters, but long chapter books take forever for me. Probably because I hate stopping mid-chapter so I will put off reading until I know I can finish the chapter in one sitting, and it takes days sometimes to get that time.
 

Akudie

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Thank you all for your answers!

I am trying to keep close to a target of 4,000 - 5,000 words max per chapter, but it's true that sometimes the story has its own rules, and when I finish a chapter with 2,700 words I feel like I must add something more which is a bit stressful. I am guessing these things can be fixed in revision. For me the most important is to have a neat start of a chapter and a "boom" ending (I love cliffhangers ;)
 

Laer Carroll

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SCENES, not chapters, are what we should be concerned about. They are the basic unit of every plot.

Chapters are just containers of scenes. They can hold one scene or several scenes. If we do our job well our readers will be totally immersed in our story. The end of a chapter then becomes just be a convenient place for them to bookmark the page, letting them rush to the bathroom or grab their dinner out of the microwave.

Chapters are thus more useful to us than to our readers. Some very successful authors put one scene to a chapter. If that works for you, fine. But other authors use them to collect several related scenes together. For instance, we might put a big chase-fight sequence made up of several scenes into a chapter.

Another example is in a book I'm reading. Each chapter contains several scenes from the viewpoint of one of the three main characters. The author weaves the story out of these three threads as each of the MCs tackles a shared problem from different directions.

Especially when we have a complicated story, we can use the practice of encapsulating related scenes in a chapter to help organize our thoughts as we write or re-write.

One point. Putting more than one scene to a chapter means we need to signal the break between scenes in some way. This lets our readers bookmark the break if they want to. Or maybe shift their viewpoint if, for instance, several scenes switch back and forth between characters. As in a chase sequence: chaser/chased/chaser/chased/etc.
 

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I'm nearly always 4,000-5,000 words per chapter. I've wondered if I should try to curb this, as it's a little long, but it just seems to be the way that I write. I think I've decided as long as the chapter lengths are fairly consistent, you're good. Although I know of several authors who break this rule and are doing just fine.
 

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I don't think it matters too much, though for YA I'd steer clear of 5,000 words+ chapters. Soon teens - and, indeed adults - read very slowly, and might find that annoying or intimidating if they want to read to a natural break. Mostly with my chapters I try to make sure they are roughly uniform, and both start and end at a natural break. Maybe it's the way in which I write but this has never given me too much difficulty. I also try to end each chapter on a note which encourages the reader to read on - not a cliffhanger, as such, but something intriguing.
 

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Long chapters are a struggle for me. Even if the chapter is interesting, I find myself wanting to rush through it just to reach the end.

Short simple chapters are easy to process. And when I need to put the book down, I can quickly finish a short chapter, and later resume from a new chapter. For long chapters. I tend to stop reading in the middle of the chapter, which is frustrating.
 
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SKara

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Personally I like long chapters they have a lot of coherent information. I like consistency in chapters because one does get used to the way a book has been structured. In YA, though, I think people do prefer short chapters because short chapters take a short time to read and then one feels like one has finished something, and that feels like an encouragement to go on reading (when you finish something, you get a dopamine rush).

I still love long chapters. They feel richer and more complete somehow.
 

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I love short chapters, but if the book is amazing, I won't care about longer ones. Mine tend to be shorter, but that's just my personal style.
 

Loke1997

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I love short chapters, but if the book is amazing, I won't care about longer ones. Mine tend to be shorter, but that's just my personal style.

I agree with this. Ashes has some really short chapters, but you still find yourself flipping through the pages of the sparsely-chaptered Hunger Games.
 

pingle

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My chapters were in scenes and coming in at between 6 and 10k, argh (after I deleted loads...). I'm a fast reader and happier with a long book because of this so I think I made the fundamental flaw of writing for myself rather than the audience. I'm going through it atm and adding chapters at points where it makes sense to do so.

The book I started recently has shorter scenes.
 

gem1122

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At first, my current novel's chapters ranged from 10-15 pages each. Some were just under 20 pages.

As I revised and revised some more, they became shorter. I cut the dead weight or split them in two. On the advice of my writer's group, I kept trimming. Now the average is 5-8. I think the longest is 11, and each chapter has one or two line breaks. As a reader, I am drawn to chapters of this length, though as someone else said, if it's a great read, I don't care.
 

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My chapter length tends to vary. I feel like on average my chapters are 3000-4000 words, but I do have several that are around 2000 words and a couple that are 5000 words. I write to the scene's natural conclusion. I dunno if it actually works; it's something I'll probably get feedback on.
 

brightspark

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I was actually writing all my chapters to come out at almost exactly 4000 words. I ended up fluffing things and adding extra detail in and not breaking in the right places because I felt like I needed them all to be 4000 words. A beta reader pointed this out and I have since learned to do what's best for the story! There's no hard and fast rule.
 

Fuchsia Groan

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Short is good for YA; for one book I tried to limit myself to 1,500 words, except for “meatier” chapters with lots of action/drama that could stretch longer.

More importantly, though, I think each chapter has to present a scene or scenes that the reader feels contribute something. Recently I read an adult novel (thriller) that started with a whole bunch of tiny chapters (1-3 pages) in a row. Each chapter ended on something scary (cliffhanger), but when the next chapter started, it turned out everything was fine. It felt incredibly manipulative, and I tuned out after that. Strategies like that assume readers have no attention span whatsoever; even short chapters should build on each other.
 

benacrow

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I'm very interested in this topic as well. Most YA I've read do have the shorter chapters (5-10 pgs), but many times it seems too quick. I'm working on a YA fantasy, and I've opted to go with long chapters (20-30 pgs). While it is on the longer side, I like giving each chapter a title so that it seems like a mini-story with a mini-cliffhanger ending. Most of the time, breaking it up would just seem like I'm breaking up a scene. I think of them as TV episodes, where the content all fits nicely into one, longer episode, but it all still fits coherently together.
 

Laer Carroll

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From all the popular YA books I read it seems there's little difference in chapter length between them and other kinds of books. Teens aren't necessarily dummies with short attention spans who need short chapters. A really fascinating story, it seems from my samples, will hold the attention of teens - and adults - no matter how long or short chapters are. And no matter what kind of story or audience. I'd say: Focus on making one's stories fascinating and stop worrying about mechanical issues like chapter length.
 
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Sonya Heaney

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I've never had an editor tell me anything about chapter length (but I suspect that if I turned in a book where every chapter was 100 words or 10 000 words they might have an issue with it!). There's as much variation in YA as in other books.

I know some of the posts in this thread are from a while ago, but I'd recommend not measuring chapters by pages. Measure them by word count. The page thing is largely irrelevant to publishers, because there are so many variants. The other day I actually saw someone at a Big Five lose patience with an aspiring author who described current books and the manuscript they were working on by number of pages.
 

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My chapters were coming out at around 2-2.5k each but when I went through the book, it seemed like a lot would be better combined. I went from 31 chapters in a 75k novel to 21 and I think it's much better paced! So I suppose my average is around 3k, but I do have a couple of shorter ones in there. I don't think it's something that needs overthinking though, unless they're way too long/short/inconsistent.
 

Laer Carroll

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Chapter length has little to do with pacing. Chapters are containers for scenes, and are more useful to us as writers than to readers. If our story is fascinating readers may not even notice the ends of chapters. They are just another page turn before diving back into a story.

Pacing has less to do with SCENE length, either. They are more about the events which make up scenes. How fast do the actions seem to be? How many actions take place, how closely do the crucial actions crowd each other or have "air" between them?

We learn to write by reading, soaking up "rules" and "suggestions" almost automatically, storing them in our subconscious. Then when we write our subconscious lets us create almost as a smooth intuitive flow.