Comments on: How Long Must a Chapter Be In Your Novel?

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:53:37 +0000

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.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:09:29 +0000

Just to clarify: Randy, do you shoot for 2500-long scenes or chapters?

Randy sez: 2500 word chapters. I shoot for 1000 word scenes.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:20:10 +0000

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

By: Tessa

Tessa — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:50:43 +0000

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.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:25:36 +0000

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).

By: Miriam Cheney

Miriam Cheney — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:19:30 +0000

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.

By: A J Hawke

A J Hawke — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:52:23 +0000

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.

By: Alice

Alice — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 06:55:03 +0000

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.

By: Wayne Reimer

Wayne Reimer — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:52:57 +0000

In books I read that have very long chapters, I find myself counting the pages to the end of the next chapter, and getting very discouraged and restless if I have many pages to read before I’m allowed to stop. I hate putting a book down mid chapter. So for that reason, I would personally write shorter chapters. But I have to honestly say I’m just as worried about what people will think about my chapter lengths… which is why I read this article.