Chapter length standards and preferences?

My personal opinion is that short chapters can be used as a narrative tool, sparingly. I agree that short chapters throughout will feel like you're trying to make it fast-paced without relying on the writing to do that. For stories requiring world-building, I've read some opinions to keep it 15 pgs or more.

Food for thought.

AW Admin said:

Yep. The truth of the matter is that if the book is printed you'll likely have an editor looking at chapter breaks in terms of signatures (the sections of paper that become pages) and pages, so it may change.

And you can always insert chapter breaks later. If you want to really look at it analytically, take a couple of books published in the last ten years that you like and look at what happens in a chapter and where breaks occur, more than how long a chapter is.

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This is good advice. Maybe the question is--for writers that are trying to sell their books--what best works for agents reading their slush piles? Do they care much about chapter breaks? Will short chapters give them the sense the narrative is snappy? Or will too many chapter breaks give them an opportunity to stop reading?

In manuscript format, chapter breaks increase the number of pages, so if an agent asks for a partial of 30 or 50 pages, you are sending less words than someone who writes longer chapters. (Obviously doesn't matter if they ask for the first 10,000 words).

This is probably getting to nit-picky, but any little optimization matters when you're competing with hundreds of other queries in the slush pile.

tharris said:

In manuscript format, chapter breaks increase the number of pages, so if an agent asks for a partial of 30 or 50 pages, you are sending less words than someone who writes longer chapters. (Obviously doesn't matter if they ask for the first 10,000 words).

This is probably getting to nit-picky, but any little optimization matters when you're competing with hundreds of other queries in the slush pile.

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I wouldn't worry about losing pages for a 30-50 pg partial request. Chances are, if you didn't hook the agent/editor in the first page, the next 5, then onward, those lost pages aren't going to make a difference.

Page breaks a great for pacing and rounding out scenes.

Bufty said:

Just curious on reading you don't know where to put your bookmark if a chapter is 'hundreds of pages long'.

Don't you just put it wherever you decide to pause?

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It's a pet hate. I prefer to stop at chapter breaks so I don't lose the flow.

I'm glad you asked this question because I've been wondering the same thing while writing my first book. I've been putting new chapters where they "feel right" which probably isn't the best way to do it... It does appear that I like to break my chapters up by scene (as someone mentioned above already). My chapters are varying lengths, hence the reason I was wondering this too.

Rosanna Banana said:

I'm glad you asked this question because I've been wondering the same thing while writing my first book. I've been putting new chapters where they "feel right" which probably isn't the best way to do it... It does appear that I like to break my chapters up by scene (as someone mentioned above already). My chapters are varying lengths, hence the reason I was wondering this too.

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Ending a chapter where it 'feels right' to do so is as good a way as any.

Like the name Rosanna Banana

Wondering if she spins around and turns into SuperBanana!

I think a lot of this debate depends on whether or not the author is a planner or a pantster.

I'm a planner, as such I know how each chapter moves the plot along and have planned in advance regarding its length.

indianroads said:

...I know how each chapter moves the plot along ....

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Nitpick. Chapters don't move the plot along. SCENES do. Chapters are containers for scenes. Only if we restrict ourselves to one scene per chapter can we legitimately say the chapter "moves the plot along."

Rosanna Banana said:

I've been putting new chapters where they "feel right" which probably isn't the best way to do it...

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No. Your intuition is right. It IS the best way to do it. Trust your intuition. It has been shaped by the thousands of stories you've been exposed to all your life.
If we have several short scenes, or summaries of scenes, it may be helpful to contain them in a chapter. IF they all share some common factor, such as being snapshots of an ongoing activity, such as escaping from an pursuing army. Or IF they have some thematic commonality.

Very long scenes might best be put into several chapters. A chapter break could be made when the scene changes in some important way. One example is when a character exits or enters a scene. Another example is when the action changes, such as a flight becomes a fight.

indianroads said:

I think a lot of this debate depends on whether or not the author is a planner or a pantster.

I'm a planner, as such I know how each chapter moves the plot along and have planned in advance regarding its length.

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Laer Carroll said:

Nitpick. Chapters don't move the plot along. SCENES do. Chapters are containers for scenes. Only if we restrict ourselves to one scene per chapter can we legitimately say the chapter "moves the plot along."

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LOL - to nitpick right back - chapters are containers of associated scenes.

tharris said:

what best works for agents reading their slush piles? Do they care much about chapter breaks? Will short chapters give them the sense the narrative is snappy? Or will too many chapter breaks give them an opportunity to stop reading?

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Agents are looking for a great story, well told. Chapter breaks are irrelevant to that. They are not going to be fooled into thinking the story has a snappy pace just because there are frequent chapter breaks. If they stop reading, it's because they've decided the story is not one they're going to offer to represent.

In manuscript format, chapter breaks increase the number of pages, so if an agent asks for a partial of 30 or 50 pages, you are sending less words than someone who writes longer chapters.

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Possibly, but that hardly matters. If the agent is engaged by the story and wants to read more, he or she will ask for more. The ultimate number of words present in 50 pages has nothing to do with that.

If you want to optimize your chances by getting nitpicky, then get nitpicky about the quality of the story and the prose. That's the only thing that will actually make a difference.

indianroads said:

I think a lot of this debate depends on whether or not the author is a planner or a pantster.

I'm a planner, as such I know how each chapter moves the plot along and have planned in advance regarding its length.

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I dunno, not for me. I start out with a wordcount goal and aim for 3-4k per chapter. In total, always 4 acts, and 6-8 chapters per act. For me, variation in chapter length often indicates a pacing problem (won't apply for everyone.) I always end up tightly structured.

But I am a pantser very much on the chaotic end of the spectrum.

Mine seem to end up being 2-3k on average but sometimes go much higher than that. On the other hand I've written chapters that were under 1k. Whatever works to make your story works seems fine to me. I'm a planner.

I will admit I do despair when a chapter ends up shorter than I wanted it to be, so I make a note of it for future editing and keep writing.

Harlequin said:

I dunno, not for me. I start out with a wordcount goal and aim for 3-4k per chapter. In total, always 4 acts, and 6-8 chapters per act. For me, variation in chapter length often indicates a pacing problem (won't apply for everyone.) I always end up tightly structured.

But I am a pantser very much on the chaotic end of the spectrum.

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I'm right with you regarding chapter length. 3-4K feels about right - and as a reader I like that consistency... that's just my late night reading style though, I'll end a chapter then look at the clock and decide if I can get another one in before I shut myself down. IMO this is all personal preference though.

Planner of pantser, I do both depending on the work, a chapter for me is not about word count, but the scenes that are in it.

I make sure each scene has a point to it, has a beginning-middle-end, and has a plot point to move the story forward to the next scene. Word count is irrelevant when constructing a scene. Just like in a play, they need to build up to a point or carry something through to the next plot point.

Writers who read plays learn about this device and put it to use. Next time you're at the library, look for books on writing plays.

My other device is having 1-2 plot points per chapter, which can mean 1-2 scenes. If it is an especially important scene, that will get its own chapter. I've had them running long and short, but so long as they run.

It's all tied in with the pacing of a work. I'm apparently good at it, having gotten complaints that a 50K word work was not a novel but a short story. All it means is the reader couldn't put the book down. We all want that!

Depends entirely on the particular book as far as word count. Right now in the current WIP the chapters are running shorter than my usual, about 2500 words, give or take. The book wants for a quicker pace, which seems to be accelerating. I'm a pantser and I generally know what the end of a chapter could be before I write it. There's an emotional or dramatic movement that is a natural place to pause. Often that changes, or I discover something new, and I go with that.

As long as the pace of the story doesn't suffer, then chapter length is pretty flexible. I'm lucky that my chapters naturally fall into the 2,500 - 3,000 word length. If you are writing 3rd person and have two distinct POV, such as protagonist and antagonist then alternating scenes between these characters as chapters works well (for me at least). Terry Pratchett is famous for not having chapters and he has sold quite a few books

Laer Carroll said:

Nitpick. ... Chapters are containers for scenes. ...

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indianroads said:

LOL - to nitpick right back - chapters are containers of associated scenes.

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Hah! Great comment. Thanks.

My comment was general and still holds. A chapter is a container for scenes, used in whatever way we writers want to use the chapter.

Associated scenes is a very useful way. The association might be temporal, as in several scenes of a flight from an enemy, or in pursuit of an enemy. Each scene could be from a different character's viewpoint, as when the chaser or chased is a crew. Or each scene might be from one character's viewpoint, but at successive times.

The association might be thematic, or some other association.

The main point I made is that chapters are tools of the writer. And if we've hooked our readers really well they may not even notice the end of the chapter, as they are so eager to turn the page and continue a story they find compelling.

I accidentally made my past chapter in my current WIP over 9,000 words long because I was so immersed in the scenes I forgot to break the chapter.

I'll add my 2 cents. My chapters are often shortish, but if necessary they can grow to some length. It all depends on necessity. Also I have the very rare chapter that is only a page. If the story demands that a chapter be short then it has to be short. If it does not fit into a longer chapter with a scene break then what other choice is there?

As has been said a chapter contains associated scenes. Therefore, if the scene is not associated with others and would feel wrong if it were jammed into another chapter then it must be a short chapter on its own.

There is no crime in having a book with a lot of chapters. I would think jamming scenes together and forcing ideas into each other would be a worse outcome than a book with a lot of chapters. Lots of chapters do not confuse the reader; squashed together ideas and chapters can confuse the reader.

I think you'll find this analysis useful: http://creativityhacker.ca/2013/07/18/analyzing-chapter-lengths-in-fantasy-fiction/

I certainly did. These days, I usually shoot for chapters of 3,000-9,000 words, with a median of about 5,000. That's just me, though.

A much more interesting question, and one that I'm sure will be far more divisive, is when you should break a chapter. Chapter breaks are a finite resource and a useful one.

I've never worried about uniform length chapters, as I always write from multiple POVs and each chapter is as long as it needs to be. But if I wrote from one POV, I suspect I would make them the same length.

I've been writing my WIP by scene, not chapter. There are (now) multiple books, but I didn't break it up into books or chapters until after the first draft.

First I figured out the best places to break the books so each one had a good structure - it's an ongoing story but there are shorter plot arcs. They've turned out to be about 70K each. Then I broke each book into chapters. I have multiple POVs (only one per scene) and always end a chapter at the end of a scene (cliffhanger endings don't suit my style). So each chapter is from 1 to 3 scenes long, sometimes from one POV throughout, sometimes up to 3.

My chapters are 2000-6000 words each. I was nervous about the multiple POVs per chapter and the varying lengths, but I've decided to leave it.

I think my shortest chapter may be around 1300 words and my longest a little over 10K. Average length is probably 5-7K. Some are composed of a single scene; some contain several scenes, and sometimes more than one viewpoint. I've never tried to control their length and never worried about it either. They are what they are.

I always stress about my chapters being too long when they break 4k. I'm glad other people routinely go longer (it's reassuring).