How Long Must a Chapter Be In Your Novel?
Richard posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:
My question is about novel structure and word counts. Using the Snowflake Method, I developed my story with multiple subplots that intersect meaningfully with the overall plot/theme. The result of my planning session created 12 chapters (3 each for act 1, 2a, 2b, and 3).
At 100k words, this averages around 8300 words per chapter. Since my story has multiple POVs, the chapters are currently broken into multiple scenes — anywhere from 500 to 2500 words each — all adding to the approximate 8300 word target count.
I’ve both seen and heard other writers that use single scenes for each chapter. So, my question is, what does the industry standard generally dictate? Should each 1500 word scene get its own chapter number? Or should I continue with the plan to keep chapter breaks dependant on significant story events rather than a switch in POV?
(Note: The mid-chapter POV changes keep the scenes in chronological order to prevent jarring the poor reader as this is intended for a YA audience.)
Randy sez: 1500 word scenes would be about six pages of manuscript and maybe 4 or 5 pages in the printed book, depending on page size and font size and all that. I shoot for an average of 2500 words per scene, so if I were writing your book, I’d probably have two scenes for most chapters. I’m not writing your book, so you get to decide. I’ve noticed that James Patterson has incredibly short chapters — a few pages each. I think with a YA novel, you might want to go with one scene per chapter. That makes it easy for your reader to decide to read “one more chapter.” And then another and then another.
There really isn’t any industry standard. Some authors like longer chapters. Some like shorter ones. It’s up to you. However, there is an industry average, and it seems to be about 8 to 10 pages, give or take a little.
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June 8th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Short chapters really suck me in. Books with those are the ones where I end up sitting up to 2-3am reading when I had planned on going to be at 10:30 because I have to go to work the next day. This causes me to love and hate them all at the same time.
June 8th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Just to clarify: Randy, do you shoot for 2500-long scenes or chapters?
Randy sez: 2500 word chapters. I shoot for 1000 word scenes.
June 8th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I appreciate your comments and understand your point. Ive tried to leave most scenes with a bit of “cliffhanger” or “mounting tention” feel to hopefully enspire the reader to one more scene, rather than one more chapter. But I also remember as a young reader the feeling of accomplishment when the chapter numbers flew by (for books written that way).
In a critique forum I frequent, I was recently called “the anti-James Patterson” LOL
June 9th, 2010 at 4:50 am
Oops. The chapters in my YA fiction are 7,000-8,000 words long :/ The last books I read before finalizing the setup had very long chapters and that’s how I calculated the length of chapters. There are several scenes in each chapter, so it’s downsize-able.
I hope the publishers won’t be put off by it, and if they want to cut it down to more chapters, I won’t protest.
June 9th, 2010 at 5:25 am
I usually go for 2,5000 to 3,5000 word length chapters in my own WIP. Seems long enough that I don’t feel like I’ve just started a chapter and it already ends (personally, I don’t like super short or super long chapters
so no Patterson for me).
June 9th, 2010 at 10:19 am
James Scott Bell uses really short chapters in his lastest series. For books 2 and 3, I was up until 3am. Pacing is really important in a novel. I wonder if focusing on shorter scenes/chapters–@ 1000 words like Randy mentioned–helps the author keeps things moving.
June 9th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Great post on length of scenes and chapters and I find it helpful to have such practical information. I have found that chapters of 2,500 or less get better critiques in my critique group. This leads me to believe that too long a length of chapters has the danger of the readers getting page-turner fatigue.
As with any rule, it can be broken as needed, but for now, I’m going to push for 1,000 words for scenes and 2,500 for chapters. Again, thanks for a useful post.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
I always thought that you break your story into chapters by intuition. I usually just feel where I want to make a significant pause between one scene and the other - and there I start a new chapter. Is the chapter length really that important? Some writers don’t break their novels into chapters at all.