Chapter Length

[Rane]

Working on my current project recently, I noticed something very stressing; my chapters are an average of two pages (11 point font, single spaced) each, and I want them to be longer, but I keep thinking of books like Maximum Ride and Holes, where the chapters usually aren't longer than three pages. What would a good length for a chapter be?

[Reaves]

Honestly whatever you want it to be. For me personally my chapters are around 3000 words each, + or - 1000, generally. If you want to make them longer you can just put a scene break in between two of your current chapters.

[maxonennis]

I've read books that are over 150,000 words long and only had about ten chapters. I've read books that are 30,000 words long and had about thirty chapters. You can write a chapter per scene, you can even not write chapters at all. It's really up to the writer.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Well, Holes is a middle grade book and I believe Maximum Ride is a YA book. Those tend to have short chapters. What audience are you aiming at? More adult books tend to have longer chapters, but it really depends on what you want the purpose of your chapter divisions to be.

Most Discworld books don't have any chapters at all, though Pratchett has bucked this trend recently (perhaps because he's getting better at plotting novels).

[Silk]

Ookla makes a good point about audiences,  but other than that, I'd say yeah, basically do whatever you want. Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union is fairly long, and intended for adults, but his chapters in that book run pretty short - 10 pages, maybe less, on average. (I never really counted.) Guy Gavriel Kay, on the other hand, has books with quite long chapters.

So the floor's pretty much open.

[Reaves]

Also The Red Badge of Courage published in late 1800's has extremely short chapters, only a couple of pages. So really the range runs all over.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

CJ Cherryh just had this to say in her blog:

02/15/09. Sunday. 4712. Chapter One done, and I'm happy with it. Well begun is half done, eh? Not quite. About 1/24th part done. How do I define a chapter, you ask? I try to keep them about 5000 words long. Occasionally I'll do a monster, and have to figure how to divide it---it's not fair to the reader, who may say, mmm, I'll just read a chapter before I go to bed, and then handing him a 20,000 word chapter? Cruel. So I try to keep it regular.

[maxonennis]

I think short chapters are best. Mostly because that means that the story stays on course and gets to the action faster.

[SarahG]

As a reader, I agree that I prefer chapters of fairly regular length, so - as Cherryh says - I know what I'm getting into if I just want to read one more chapter before bed.  It frustrates me to be tricked into reading longer than I meant to, and it also frustrates me to stop in the middle of a chapter.

Short chapters are nice, I think.  They make me more likely to decide to read just one more chapter before bed.  Long chapters can be more intimidating, especially at slow parts of the story.

[Silk]

I don't really mind irregular chapters. I don't mind long chapters either, so long as they're broken up by scene breaks.

[Skar]

I'll cast my vote on the 'regular chapter length' side of the house.  I kind of like it when I have a decent idea how long it will be until the next break.  Long or short doesn't really matter to me but the regularity does, a little.  Not a make or break proposition.

I find in my own work that the chapters average from 2K to 6K.  Big spread I know but, hey...

[42]

I also prefer regular length chapters. When I'm reading, I like to be able to plan how many chapters I can read in a sitting before reality interferes. It bothers me to place my bookmark into a book mid-chapter.

I find that I write chapters that are around 3,000-4,000 words long, which is just a little shorter than what most of my short stories come out as.

I have noticed a trend towards shorter chapters in a lot of books. Sometimes it's only the opening and/or final chapters that get shorter. I think psychologically, shorter chapters are less intimidating and may encourage the reader to keep reading.

I have actually stopped reading a book because the chapters were too long. I just felt I couldn't commit the time to read a whole chapter in one sitting so I figured it wasn't worth it to read the book. I actually think I might get annoyed with chapters that take longer than a half-hour for me to read.

[The Jade Knight]

The Da Vinci Code's first chapter is about 5 pages.  The first chapter of My Name is Asher Lev is 50 pages.  A lot of readers today tend to prefer shorter chapters, but I'm personally not one of them...

[Rane]

My main concern is that my chapters have only turned out to be about 1,500 words each, and I want them to be longer. The chapter I'm working on is at 1,515, and still has a little way to go, but all the other chapters I've written never get much past that mark. Hopefully they'll get longer when I revise it and do as my friend suggested, adding more detail to the setting, but I'm worried they'll still be too short for my liking.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

What's stopping you from just adding 3 chapters together and calling them one chapter?