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How long should chapters be?

Zeph

Zeph

from up here the sky is my thoughts
Pronoun
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I vaguely recall a thread like this before, but I thoguht I should bring it up again. Apprxoimately how long, in your opinion, should the average chapter or a book or story be? I understand that it really depends on the format (Book, digital or whatever) and some chapters are deliberately very short for effect, but you get my idea.

Myself? I think that anywhere between 15 and 25 pages of, say, size 10 A5 is suitable for a physical book, but as for an online fic that will probably not be put into physical form, about 5 pages of the same.

So, yes. Thoughts?
 
Personally, my episodes (I prefer to call my chapters "episodes" to give them a TV show-esque feel) usually run about 6-9 pages, and can be longer or shorter depending on what I'm writing. I have told a coherent episode in 2 pages, and my record is 14 (that one took the better part of an afternoon to write)
 
It honestly doesn't matter. What's important is the content of the chapter, not its length. That's why you'll see books that have chapters that are a page, or even less, and others with chapters more around thirty. A lot of people tend to have trouble reading long blocks of text online, which means it may be better to err on the short side when writing for the internet, but there's really no hard and fast rule. As long as the chapter accomplishes what it needs to accomplish, it's as long as it needs to be.
 
The chapters in my story are pretty short right now; I really have no idea, when I'm writing, where a chapter should end or what a chapter consists of; rather, whenever I hit a point that could be a cliffhanger or right before I jump to somewhere else, I start a new chapter. I guess that's just what I'm used to reading, so that's what I do.
 
It just depends on who your audience is, how you want the flow of your story to feel, and where natural breaks are.

That said, it seems to me that most commercial books have chapters between 2000 and 5000 words.
 
I feel like we've had this discussion before.

A chapter should be as long as it needs to be to do what it needs to do.

See also: Negrek's post.
 
I find that having an especially long chapter is sometimes necessary to contain a particularly lengthy single event. On the oher hand, really short chapters, even just a page or so long, can serve to alter the pacing of the narrative, or place strong emphasis on something.
I don't really think about chapter length at all, but all mine tend to come out around the same size anyway...
 
A fic chapter should be like a TV episode. It should have a plot in itself, while getting you along in the main story.

...At least that's what Butterfree always told me.
 
I dunno, i try to keep my chapters around 15-20 pages, but sometimes you just can't go that long. It's just however you feel. Some chapters i've written (although not in a while) have only been 5-7 pages. It's just how long you want something or need something to be.
 
Scyther said:
A fic chapter should be like a TV episode. It should have a plot in itself, while getting you along in the main story.

...At least that's what Butterfree always told me.
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Television shows have commercial breaks, so I suppose, using that simile, things should always end with a cliffhanger. Reasonable, I suppose.
 
Chucho said:
Television shows have commercial breaks, so I suppose, using that simile, things should always end with a cliffhanger. Reasonable, I suppose.
Click to expand...

oh god what no it isn't

guys stop comparing chapters to episodes on a TV show. they are different media, it doesn't work.
 
There's not always a cliffhanger before a commercial. And if you end every chapter with a cliffhanger, the suspense is going to get old and dried out. Every once in a while, you've got to give the reader a break.
 
When did commercial breaks ever come into it? Proper television doesn't place obnoxious advertisements into the middle of episodes, anyway. :/

They're comparable to episodes of a TV show in a very limited way, namely in that both the episode and the chapter should generally focus on some one particular development in the story. In the TV show episode's case, it's always the same length, but that is not the case with chapters. They can be comparable in what they do for the plot, however: each episode feels like a little story of its own in a way (though obviously it's dependent on the previous episodes to be fully understood), and generally I believe the same should apply to chapters. The actual length, however, does not really matter in principle, except where they become too long to be read in one sitting.
 
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This is really just a moot question. It really depends on the just depends upon the author's own writing style and personal preference, as well the intended audience for the piece.

In the context of fan fiction, obviously you're going to want the piece to be accessible and quick to read. That's where the aforementioned TV style self-contained plot threads can really work.
 
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