Chapter Length

[maxonennis]

Rane, you want longer chapters? If so, as long as you're not titling each chapter, you can do what Ookla says. Although my chapters usually end up being about 3,000 words long, ideally each of them are a thousand words shorter because shorter chapters feels like I'm staying on task more even though I'm giving the same amount of story.

[Rane]

I'm hesitant to combine them into one chapter, because that chapter would cover a lot of ground. By the end of the first chapter, readers would probably feel slightly overwhelmed.

[Bookstore Guy]

not to be late to the party or anything, but using James Patterson as a benchmark for chapter lengths isnt the best idea in my opinion. his books of 90K words tend to be 120 chapters.  That's right, usually 750 words per chapter. A lot of times the chapters are only a paragraph. I personally think this is a gimmick to artificially speed up the pace of an otherwise were average (at best) novel.

My personal opinion is that a regular chapter size is a good idea. I go for 3-4K. However, I feel that prologues should be shorter, and that climatic chapters can be shorter to pick up the pace.

[maxonennis]

I personally think this is a gimmick to artificially speed up the pace of an otherwise were average (at best) novel.

How does that feel gimicky?

[Bookstore Guy]

To me, it is a gimmick to compensate for blah stories and pacing. It's all psychological. "Oh, this chapter is is only a paragraph long! Awesome! This book goes by so FAST and is full of action! Never mind the action of this chapter involved the PoV brushing her hair. The next chapter is about the PoV putting her finger on her chin and saying, 'hmm.'"

If you are doing short chapters, I would rather there be a reason for it rather than making a 200 page novel turn into a 300 because of 120 chapter headings taking up more room than the actual text.

When I managed a bookstore, I asked my customers what they liked about Patterson novels. Most of them said, "oh his stuff is so fast paced, that it makes the book hard to put down." I would then say, "oh, lots of action? amazing story?" to which they would respond, "Not so much. I dont remember most of the story. But the books have short chapters!" That is a gimmick, and it bugs me.

Don't get me wrong, he makes a ton of money, and releases 4+ books a year, and tons of people read them. I just think if he put as much effort into writing a good story as he put into creating a false sense of pacing, that his books would be better. That said, this is not a thread for me to rant on Patterson - i mean, it's not like im a gazillionaire from any writing ive done.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Brandon should have a chapter that's just braid-pulling so he can be like James Patterson.

[Bookstore Guy]

seriously. reading patterson is like reading a somewhat violent and overly sexual version of See Spot Run. Though to be fair, See Spot Run has more words per page.

[Shi]

I say just write the chapter, and let it be whatever length it ends up. Adding a lot of discription and text to make it longer will just bog it down, and trimming everything out to make it shorter wouldn't serve a whole lot of purpose, either. Sure, it's nice to sit down and know exactly how long it'll take to read a chapter (I usually determine my stopping point with chapters), but what's the point if the actual writing is butchered in the process?

[Shaggy]

I think Flowers for Algernon had some chapters that were less than two or three pages, so.…

Also as a side note I don't think you should say 'so-and-so's chapters were 5 pages long and so-and-so's chapters were 85 pages long, so…' because books differ in length, width, font size, font, margins, headings, spacings, and basically everything. So a 5 page chapter could really be equal to an 8 page chapter in a different book if  the 8-page-chapter-book has bigger type, margins, etc.