Chapter Size

[Horserider]

So I'm on the third edit and yesterday it occurred to me that I have 80 pages to go, but only 3 chapters. Are these too long?

About how long should chapters be? I know varying lengths are best, but is there a such thing as a chapter that is too long?

[blacbird]

You have just asked the question with all the answers, and none of them. There must be fifty threads in this forum addressed to this question, and they'll all say the same thing: There is no formula.

caw

[Danthia]

My old creative writing teacher had the best answer for this. The length of a girl's skirt. Long enough to cover everything, but short enough to be interesting.

As long as your chapters are well paced and end making the reader want to read on, whatever length you find appropriate is fine. Some books have short, some have long, some don't use any at all.

[Toothpaste]

However I will say this. Chapters give permission for the reader to take a break. It also gives the reader a sense of accomplishment to have finished one. Therefore interestingly, the shorter the chapter, the more likely the reader is going to read more. How many times have you been reading a book and you come to the end of an exciting chapter and think, "Well maybe just one more" only to say the exact same thing at the end of the next one. Longer chapters, on the other hand, tend to have the reader flipping through to see where it ends. And when you finally reach the end of it often you feel, "Oh thank goodness, now I'll go to bed" because the thought of starting another huge chapter is so daunting you want to wait until you have the time to devote to it. And that's another thing. Let's say you go to bed and just want to read for five minutes. Knowing the chapters are short, you might just pick up the book for a quick read. But in doing so you might get hooked and wind up reading way more. On the other hand thinking about how long the next chapter is might put you off from reading something for a short period of time.

Now there is nothing at all wrong with long chapters, and I read books with both. But just make sure if you are going to have long chapters you either give your readers natural breaks within them, or make them super interesting that the reader just can't put the book down until they are finished.

One last thing. The very first editorial comment my agent made on my book was about shortening chapters. And you know what? Out of all editorial changes, it's one of the easiest. It's not about making the entire chapter shorter, it's about breaking it in half, or thirds. Finding a spot where you feel the story takes a natural pause. And on occasion, and please only on occasion, where there is a cliffhanger that will make the reader want to start the next chapter immediately (but don't do too many of those or your reader will start to resent you).

[Horserider]

Toothpaste I know exactly what you mean. I think these chapters could probably be broken up in halves at least. I like to break my chapters naturally. Usually at a cliffhanger point in the story. :)

[MarkEsq]

My suspense/thriller is 80,000 words and has 33 chapters. If shorter is better, then I'm in business. :)

[CheshireCat]

You can also use space breaks -- changes in scene/time, the text separated on the page by two or three *** or other symbols -- to allow the reader natural places to pause and also to keep the pace moving along, especially in longer chapters.

[scribbler1382]

How long is a piece of string? Pretty much depends on what you're going to use it for.

With that said, chapter breaks/lengths can be used as a good pacing tool (among many other things, of course). I tend to use shorter lengths when the tension is higher, but that's me.

[RainbowDragon]

I'm curious if you have only 3 chapters to go because you want an even number of chapters? Or do you have 3 more major plot points that you envision each taking up a chapter?

If you want to break the last chapters down to less than 26.67 pages each, you could look for points to insert extra chapter breaks (they may just surprise you and turn up unexpected), or just insert line breaks as someone mentioned already if there's a good place to do so, which also gives the reader a chance to catch his/her breath. Or you could just go with long chapters. Whatever works!

[Horserider]

I'm curious if you have only 3 chapters to go because you want an even number of chapters? Or do you have 3 more major plot points that you envision each taking up a chapter?

I don't care if I have an even or odd number of chapters. Originally there were 19 chapters instead of 18 and then I cut chapter one. I just added the chapters in while I was writing the first draft. I can always change them around, but when I wrote the story I had the chapter breaks there for a reason (cliffie usually). :) I'm probably going to leave them long at this point.

[C.bronco]

My chapters end when I get sleepy, LOL.

[Judg]

My chapters end when I can quote Forrest Gump: "And that's all I have to say about that."

Average about 9 pages, often split into scenes. I guess I run out of things to say pretty quickly.

Toothpaste's post should be studied. It says pretty much everything that needs to be said on the topic.

[Scrawler]

My current WIP is 24 chapters, each about 4200 words, give or take 100 or so.
I planned it this way.

[RunawayScribe]

I like reading short chapters, so I write shorter chapters. I like what Toothpaste said. I get hooked very easily if the chapters are short, and always plow through those books much more quickly. It's more fun for me. I try to write what I would like to read.