Number of Chapters

I don't think the number of chapters is a key to a good book. The point of chapters is to give the readers a "break-up point". I've seen top-sellers have as few as 10 or as many as 72 chapters. I personally use chapters as my marker. It just makes it easier to put the book down (at 2 am) for me. Just make sure the last paragraph is a plot enhancer, giving the reader a desire to pick the book up first thing in the morning.

I don't think it matters how many chapters a book has.

Sol Stein in Stein On Writing notes, "Normally avoid chapters of fewer than three printed pages. They may not be long enough to engage the reader's emotions."

But I've certainly read best sellers that have extremely short chapters (James Patterson comes to mind). I guess it all comes down to the cardinal rule, does it work?

There's no rule regarding chapter length and number of them. However, it's my personal opinion that chapter length can mirror the genre you're writing. For example, I think three page chapters could work if you're writing a thriller because in theory it speeds up the pace.

As many as the story needs. There was an article a few years back now in Writer's Digest (It was a Febuary issue, must have been 2000 or 2001) That sugested a formula for first novels that sell.

It said 2,500 to 3,000 words per chapter with 3 to 4 scenes to chapter.

But, while I used that in one novel, and found it a useful guide on rewrites that vanished into the what works.

Shawn

blackbox




840 chapters. good book. not the greatest i've read, but it worked...

Whatever floats your boat. Remember the reasons for chapters (a collection of scenes that moves the story along, provides a breathing point at the end, but still keeps the readers interested to turn the page when they come back to it)... then do what works. My chapters range from 2 pages to 18...

emeraldcite said:

840 chapters. good book. not the greatest i've read, but it worked...

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-->At the other extreme, we have Terry Pratchett, most of whose Diskworld novels have no chapters. Well, one chapter. However you want to count that.


Along with "number and length of chapters doesn't matter as long as it's appropriate to the pacing of the book," we have "chapters don't even have to be numbered." They can be titled, or just start with datelines, or just start on new pages, like scene breaks that got carried away.

--E

Genre dependent

I think that the number of chapters is very genre dependent.

Mainstream novels tend to have longer chapters, and fewer numbers.

Genre novels, especially thrillers or mysteries, tend to have shorter chapters and a higher count.

I don't think there is any hard and fast number. Whatever seems to make sense to the writer, a grouping of the pertinent events or thoughts or collected prose.

I generally aim to use chapters of three different lengths: 1 thousand, 3 thousand, and 5 thousand words. For me, the contrast is the thing. It means you can vary the pace of the novel, or juxtapose a long, luxuriant chapter with a short, sharp one to wake the readers up. I'm not saying it's wrong to use chapters of a uniform length, if that's what you would prefer, but you would be missing the opportunity to use the visible structure of your novel to help create dramatic tension.

As far as length goes, I try not to write chapters longer than 5 thousand words. I've read a few novels that stray over that, and I almost always end up paging forward to find out how much more I have to read before I get a breather. You need to let your reader's up for air; limited attention span is not just a fault of "kids these days", it's a universal fact of human existence. As for Terry Pratchett, Discworld novels until recently might not have had chapters, but they did have breaks between scenes that can fit the same purpose. He didn't leave the reader to flounder in a sea of unbroken text.

I would reiterate what Spookster said. At the end of every chapter, you should encourage the readers to look forward to the next chapter. The point at which everything seems well and good in the world and everything's resolved is the worst place to end a chapter, because it doesn't give the reader any incentive to jump the gap over to the next chapter. Mind you, that doesn't mean you have to end every chapter with a cliff hanger. You can be a bit more subtle.

A subject near and dear to my heart and I undoubtedly won't agree with most people. I think the original concept was that a chapter is like a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph. It is a logical division of thought into a grouping with some sort of similarity, binding concept, or scene. The length, like that of sentences and paragraphs should fit the grouping.

I don't think the number of chapters is terribly significant, but most books i read are somewhere between 20 and 40.

Bud Rudesill said:

A subject near and dear to my heart and I undoubtedly won't agree with most people. I think the original concept was that a chapter is like a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph. It is a logical division of thought into a grouping with some sort of similarity, binding concept, or scene.

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Well, that's certainly the case for non-fiction. In a non-fiction book, a paragraph is one, coherent, logical unit of argument. A chapter is like an essay in its own right, with its own thesis statement and conclusions to cover one aspect of your subject. But when I turn my hand to fiction, my goal as a writer is slightly different. I am not trying to analyze my subject matter in a logical way, I am enticing the readers to keep reading, and to enter into the world of my story.

This means I want my scenes and chapters to blend seamlessly together, so that readers won't meet with anything to throw them out of the story until they reach the last page. In this context, any break I make to the text is rather arbitrary. There's only one purpose for a chapter break: to give readers a moment to stop, to reflect, and to revive before they move onto the next bit. It puts me in mind of advertising campaign we have here in Australia, aimed at people driving long distance -- the slogan is, "Stop, revive, survive."

While we're on the subject, there's one more, slightly off the wall idea I have about chapters. I sometimes think it would be a good idea to number chapters in reverse; e.g. the last chapter in the book would be 1, and the first would be 27 (or whatever). It's the way they do best-seller charts and top ten lists, and I'd be doing it for much the same reason: to create that same sense of rising anticipation. The reverse numbering would better serve what I'm trying to do as a writer. But, of course, if I actually did it people would react as though I'd slapped their grandmother's or something -- people get their knickers in a knot over the silliest little things.

Chapters

Zane Curtis said:

Well, that's certainly the case for non-fiction. In a non-fiction book, a paragraph is one, coherent, logical unit of argument. A chapter is like an essay in its own right, with its own thesis statement and conclusions to cover one aspect of your subject. But when I turn my hand to fiction, my goal as a writer is slightly different. I am not trying to analyze my subject matter in a logical way, I am enticing the readers to keep reading, and to enter into the world of my story.

This means I want my scenes and chapters to blend seamlessly together, so that readers won't meet with anything to throw them out of the story until they reach the last page. In this context, any break I make to the text is rather arbitrary. There's only one purpose for a chapter break: to give readers a moment to stop, to reflect, and to revive before they move onto the next bit. It puts me in mind of advertising campaign we have here in Australia, aimed at people driving long distance -- the slogan is, "Stop, revive, survive."

While we're on the subject, there's one more, slightly off the wall idea I have about chapters. I sometimes think it would be a good idea to number chapters in reverse; e.g. the last chapter in the book would be 1, and the first would be 27 (or whatever). It's the way they do best-seller charts and top ten lists, and I'd be doing it for much the same reason: to create that same sense of rising anticipation. The reverse numbering would better serve what I'm trying to do as a writer. But, of course, if I actually did it people would react as though I'd slapped their grandmother's or something -- people get their knickers in a knot over the silliest little things.

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The number of chapters doesn't bother me, but as a reader I really, really want chapters in novels to have a logical and coherent chapter structure. I hate trying to read a novel where the chapter breaks are arbitrary. Fortunately, I don't encounter this very often, but when I do it usually turns the novel into a wallbanger for me.

In defense of my idea, we have scene breaks all thorough a book as needed. A reader can stop at any one of them. But a chapter break gives the reader an excuse to set the book down. When I write I don't count pages as I write and arbitrarily put in a chapter break so my reader can go take cra!!. Fiction doesn't differ philoshopically from non-fiction in the use of sentences and paragraphs. A chapter is just a major scene break and the story demands where they belong.

Egg- you can always title and number:


from my WIP: Chapter 1: Kiira. Chapter 7: Janus. Chapter 15: The Black-Cloaked Man.

also, alternative numbering systems have been used before. in The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, the chapters were all prime numbers. chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 5, chapter 7, chapter eleven.

Incidentally, wht do y'all think of books with chapter naming "gimmicks". i mean things like Foucault's pendulum, in which each chapter is named for and represents one of the sephirot. the first draft of my WIP in which every chapter name was word for light or fire that described the tone of the chapter, or several books i've read in which each chapter was named for a tarot card.


does this bother you or entertain you?

Jamesaritchie said:

The number of chapters doesn't bother me, but as a reader I really, really want chapters in novels to have a logical and coherent chapter structure. I hate trying to read a novel where the chapter breaks are arbitrary. Fortunately, I don't encounter this very often, but when I do it usually turns the novel into a wallbanger for me.

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It's a question of degree, I think. In a formal essay you write formal paragraphs with a topic sentence at the start and a transition at the end; and chapters with a thesis statement at the start and conclusions at the end. You don't have that same discipline with novels. The only truly logical breaks are between scenes, and everything else is a judgement call. How many scenes should go in a chapter? And which scenes would belong to this chapter? There's not necessarily a "correct" answer.

Let's say we have a sequence of scenes that runs like this:

1. A man and a woman travelling in a car are having an argument.
2. The argument distracts the man from driving and he misjudges a corner, runs off the road, and crashes into a tree.
3. The man crawls away from the wreckage and goes in search of help.
4. The ambulance comes and takes them both to hospital.

How would you break these four scenes down into chapters? Maybe they all belong in the same chapter. Maybe the fourth scene should be carried over to the next chapter. Maybe the first two scenes belong in the first chapter, and the last two scenes in a second chapter. You could probably make a logical case for any of those arrangements. That's what I mean when I say it's arbitrary. I don't mean to imply that you could (or should) break the text absolutely anywhere, only that there are probably dozens of ways you could break a story down into coherent chapters, and no one is necessarily better or more logical than any other.

When I'm writing, I'm not necessarily thinking of a chapter as an isolated unit. I'll be trying to draw on what's gone before, so that the relevance of a the chapter to the overall story is readily apparent. Before I get to the end of the chapter, I'll also want to be pointing the reader to the next chapter. I always want the reader to have the incentive to read on past the chapter break. For me, ideal chapters bleed into each other, at least within the narrative, even if the change-over involves a time shift or viewpoint shift.

I've been working my way though a pile of Stephen King books recently, rereading old favorites. Two stood out in my mind in regards to chapters. "Dolores Claiborne" had no chapters and was a run on dialogue with Dolores telling the story.

The second, "Needful Things", was divided into parts, then each scene was numbered.

Neither method detracted from my reading experience. I think it's a case of "what works, works"

Naming chapters

fallenangelwriter said:

Incidentally, wht do y'all think of books with chapter naming "gimmicks". i mean things like Foucault's pendulum, in which each chapter is named for and represents one of the sephirot.

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Incidentally, Foucault's Pendulum is one of my favorite books -- the ultimate "kook conspiracy" novel.

Another good example is in "Something Happened" where Heller names the chapters from the first quote in the chapter. It begins with "Closed doors give me the willies" and ends with that terrible "Nobody knows what I've done".

As long as the chapter names aren't too cute, it's okay, I think. A well-created chapter title can set the mood and therefore entertain. But if it's overboard, it's distracting.

Incidentally, in Roger Zelazny's great novel, "Roadmarks", he has several repeats of Chapter One and Chapter Two to indicate alternate realities and/or time travel.

1. A man and a woman travelling in a car are having an argument.
2. The argument distracts the man from driving and he misjudges a corner, runs off the road, and crashes into a tree.
3. The man crawls away from the wreckage and goes in search of help.
4. The ambulance comes and takes them both to hospital.

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Chapter breaks can create suspense, and you can use them as a break to jump to another subplot, before coming back to the main plot. If your story just keeps going from the main thrust, it could become linear and exhausting.

If I were to break those four scenes into chapters, I would probably do this:

Chapter 1: Man and woman arguing; the man is distracted, runs the car off the road crashing into a tree
(suspense: then what happens?)

Chapter 2: Something else (a subplot, introduce minor characters)

Chapter 3: Man crawls away from the wreckage and looks for help; an ambulance comes and takes them to the hospital; the woman is dying...
(suspense: does she die?)

Chapter 4: Follow the subplot...

Even if you don't have the subplot, I'd probably still break it into two chapters (1 and 3 become 1 and 2). To me, after the man crashes the car into a tree, it's a good place to break for pace, suspense, and let the readers break for the loo.

Short chapters for effect

I also use short choppy chapters for effect. Here's a sequence from an upcoming novel I'm writing (4th in the series)...

=========

(my protag & his girlfriend have had a romantic dinner and are driving to his house for a loving encounter. We pick up near the end of Chapter 22)

The weather was warm and the top was down. It was a glorious spring evening and still balmy for the hour. We took Montrose straight north and easily navigated through the light traffic. Kate continued to rub my leg and I could barely steer. But I persevered.
I stopped for the red light at Washington, and Kate leaned over and kissed me deeply.

A guy had been riding my bumper so I waved him around while we were locked in the embrace. I was really in no hurry because Kate and I had all night. And we were in love.

The gunfire was over before I even knew it had begun.

Chapter 23
​

Throughout the next few days, parts of it came back to me in disconnected snippets like those quickly cut scenes in a horror movie, illuminated by lightning flashes.

Car pulling beside us.

Rattle of rusty muffler, stink of fumes.

Ski mask.

Shotgun barrel.

Burst of flame.

Blood.

And more blood.

============

So you can see this chapter is very short. But on either side are much longer narrative chapters, accentuating this image-laden shortie.

Chapter breaks can create suspense, and you can use them as a break to jump to another subplot, before coming back to the main plot. If your story just keeps going from the main thrust, it could become linear and exhausting.

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I have been raked over the coals by critiquers for doing this! Personally, I don't mind when writers do it, and I will do it myself, but I guess some readers consider it a "cheap trick" on the part of the author.

My current WIP has 25 chaps of between 3 - 5000 words.

Short chapters tcan sometimes speed up the pace of a book, but longer chapters feel nice to relax into. Then again, I get annoyed with chapters that are too long as it's hard to get to a put-down point at night

I'm hard to please, I know. Really, it doesn't matter - different things work for different books.

Write as you like to read.

If short 'jumpy' chapters that move through the action are your bag, fine.
If longer 'scenic' chapters that create chunks of the story are your thing, good.

Someone will love it, someone will hate it, but the goal is for lots of someones to read it.

A