chapter + Novel Lengths

[Brian G Turner]

Honestly it does not matter what length your chapters are. Chapters can be anything from a few words long to nearly 10,000. Some books don't have chapters at all, just scene breaks. An agent or publisher is not going to reject a novel because your chapters are not all 5,000 words long. Neither are they going to advise you on the length of chapters, that's your department as the writer. Chapters and scene breaks are a means of controlling the pitch and flow of a novel. A means of moving on the story and changing scene, and POV. You use them as you see fit to create your story.

Absolutely agree. How a book is broken up is far less important than issues such as pacing, IMO. A well paced chapter will flow quickly, regardless of its length.

Also, I always remember the book adaption of the film "Gremlins", one of the chapters was simply the line: "Billy forgot."

On a related note then, when is a first novel too long? Mine's staying stubbornly around the 150000 word mark, despite a lot of editing.

So far as I understand it, 200k words is quite acceptable in the fantasy genre especially (but also probably sf), as there's a real hunger for longer works. Think George R R Martin, Peter Hamilton, Tad Williams, etc.

 

[MattJDrumm]

There are ways of filling out a piece of writing without "fluffing it out with drivel." There are always opportunities that could bear further exploration. There is always the possibility of further character development.

Most inexperienced writers either go overboard with the kind of florid description they wouldn't stand for in a book themselves, or (and here I include my own early drafts) their writing is too rushed and "flimsy," leaving out all the details that would bring it to life. Or they may have both problems at the same time.

A wise writer knows how to cut out the drivel and expand on those things that were left tissue-thin in an earlier draft, and end up with a book where the writing is tighter but the story is longer.

Nicely put Teresa I do find myself struggling with that a lot (Is there enough detail, Is there too much - can this or that be changed etc.) but I guess that's all part of the learning curve isn't it? I suppose if it wasn't then anyone could produce a best seller or even a halfway decent book without even trying! and that would as far as I can see defeat the whole purpose of writing.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'm not sure if what I am about to give constitutes good advice, but it works for me, has a good beat and you can dance to it...

My writing 'technique' in general is to know the overall arc of the story and then write and see how I get there, hitting 'waypoints' en route. I know there are pros and cons to this and have read lots of different methods re post-its, mapping the plot in great detail and so on, but this works for me.

One of the interesting side-effects is that it seems to impose an automatic chapteriser (okay, made-up word, sorry) in that as I am writing, I get a sense of the pace and this prevents the scene becoming too long in the tooth and enables me to produce chapters of suitable length.

Other than that my opinion is the same as those stated above: it is as long as it should be.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

So far as I understand it, 200k words is quite acceptable in the fantasy genre especially (but also probably sf), as there's a real hunger for longer works. Think George R R Martin, Peter Hamilton, Tad Williams, etc.

Well, yes, from established writers like those you mention publishers will publish books that long, but from a new writer it better be just about the best (or most marketable) thing ever written before they'll publish anything at that length.

The nice thing about 200,000 words, though, is that if you divide it approximately in half and make such alterations as become necessary to make dividing the story make sense, you still have two decent-sized novels.

Shorter, and dividing it will not achieve that result, unless you find things you can expand on without padding the story. Usually, you can, unless the book was over-written and full of info-dumps to begin with ... but that should make cutting the novel to size without dividing it easy to accomplish.

My advice is to write the book at the length it wants to be written, and then figure out the rest later, when you know what you have and (one hopes) see what strengths and weaknesses the manuscript possesses at that point.

And don't say "I can't cut it," "I can't divide it," or "I can't make it longer," until you have given the idea long thought with a willing mind.

 

[MattJDrumm]

I'm not sure if what I am about to give constitutes good advice, but it works for me, has a good beat and you can dance to it...

My writing 'technique' in general is to know the overall arc of the story and then write and see how I get there, hitting 'waypoints' en route. I know there are pros and cons to this and have read lots of different methods re post-its, mapping the plot in great detail and so on, but this works for me.

One of the interesting side-effects is that it seems to impose an automatic chapteriser (okay, made-up word, sorry) in that as I am writing, I get a sense of the pace and this prevents the scene becoming too long in the tooth and enables me to produce chapters of suitable length.

Other than that my opinion is the same as those stated above: it is as long as it should be.

My advice is to write the book at the length it wants to be written, and then figure out the rest later, when you know what you have and (one hopes) see what strengths and weaknesses the manuscript possesses at that point.

And don't say "I can't cut it," "I can't divide it," or "I can't make it longer," until you have given the idea long thought with a willing mind.

@Phyrebrat, That certainly sounds like good advice, at least it does to me. and made up word asides (Though that was a pretty good one!) what you describe is basically how I was writing anyway and that seems to be working so far and the fact that someone else uses that method tells me that I'm not doing it so wrong I can never recover.

@Teresa I like your advice in general especially the bit about not saying it can't be cut etc. until it's finished and I've thought it through, That will definitely prove useful to me at a later point.

Thanks both of you for your input.

 

[Varangian]

Matt,

You mention not having motivation due to a lack of guidelines with regards to chapter length. That's the left side of your brain talking. The left side is all about logic, boundaries, control. The right side is creative. When writer's bang on about 'writer's block' it is the left side of their brain that has control. If you're writing fiction, that's much badness.

Chain-of-thought poetry is a really good way to allow the right side of the brain to become dominant again. The trick is you cannot THINK about what you are about to write, you simply write exactly what you feel appropriate at the time. This exercise forces the mind to relax and loosen up. I'll do a quick example below, remember, no pauses, no THINKING, just relax and let the words flow:

Ten thousand years ago, or there abouts there was the jaguar, he stalked, quietly, slowly, watching. He watched for the better part of an hour before he leapt forth. The aircraft stormed into the sky like some huge bird, unprepared it moved with swiftness akin to the fastest of runners.

Makes no sense, but at the same time it kind of makes sense. That's the right brain unleashing random, creative thoughts and the left side of the brain will NOT like it. The left side will want to stop you, make you think, try to make you write logically. Each hemisphere of the brain controls the opposite side of the body, so having said that, it is little wonder that left handed people (by and large) are creative people.

Anyway, back to your topic (sorry), I think chapter length really depends on your audience. Young adult and older childrens' books by comparison, usually have shorter chapters. But you look at some books (like Lord of the Rings for instance, which has sold probably not much less than 100 million copies) they have chapter lengths in the tens of thousands, if not more.

I think chapter length depends on your story and your style. I wouldn't stress too much about it.

 

[MattJDrumm]

Matt,

You mention not having motivation due to a lack of guidelines with regards to chapter length. That's the left side of your brain talking. The left side is all about logic, boundaries, control. The right side is creative. When writer's bang on about 'writer's block' it is the left side of their brain that has control. If you're writing fiction, that's much badness.

Chain-of-thought poetry is a really good way to allow the right side of the brain to become dominant again. The trick is you cannot THINK about what you are about to write, you simply write exactly what you feel appropriate at the time. This exercise forces the mind to relax and loosen up. I'll do a quick example below, remember, no pauses, no THINKING, just relax and let the words flow:

Ten thousand years ago, or there abouts there was the jaguar, he stalked, quietly, slowly, watching. He watched for the better part of an hour before he leapt forth. The aircraft stormed into the sky like some huge bird, unprepared it moved with swiftness akin to the fastest of runners.

Makes no sense, but at the same time it kind of makes sense. That's the right brain unleashing random, creative thoughts and the left side of the brain will NOT like it. The left side will want to stop you, make you think, try to make you write logically. Each hemisphere of the brain controls the opposite side of the body, so having said that, it is little wonder that left handed people (by and large) are creative people.

Anyway, back to your topic (sorry), I think chapter length really depends on your audience. Young adult and older childrens' books by comparison, usually have shorter chapters. But you look at some books (like Lord of the Rings for instance, which has sold probably not much less than 100 million copies) they have chapter lengths in the tens of thousands, if not more.

I think chapter length depends on your story and your style. I wouldn't stress too much about it.

Thanks for the advice, I might just try it same time, And I have decided based on the advice I received here and elsewhere not too stress so much about the length of the chapters, I'll just write and hope that it all unbalances out in the end.

 

[seaside]

It's a personal thing, but I hate long chapters. Long as in 30+ pages. It's comforting to have a place to stop. Chapters around 10-20 pages feel better. I tend to finish books like that much faster too, even if it's the same amount of pages/words.

In my own writing, chapters are usually just under twenty pages with about 350 words per page. The shortest was nine and the longest near twenty five. I don't plan a given length, but often a scene will comfortably finish around that point. There have even been times where I've wanted to continue but I write a line that sounds so perfect for ending a chapter that I leave it there.

 

[Coragem]

When I started I remember actually aiming for around 5,000 words per chapter. Straight away I realised it didn't work FOR ME.

Oddly, all my chapters naturally seem to come out at almost exactly 7,500 words. So, at least I'm consistent.

As for total length, perhaps you'll tell me if this is a "bad" thing, but it seems to take me 80,000 words to do my basic setting up! That's where I am now in my current project, around 80,000. I'm envisaging another 80,000 for the "meat" of the story, followed by 80,000 for the "last act". 240K approx.

Coragem.

 

[TheTomG]

I would still go with 'as long as it needs to be' as I have read many fine works that were anything from 20K upwards, and there are categories out there for different lengths, like the novellette and novella.

Now, you want to aim for a publisher by trying to craft a work that fits the current vogue for length (is it just me or did books used to be shorter and none the worse for it, such as with PKD and with the Elric books?) So you could see what kind of books people are reading in terms of length and aim to write books that fit that as they will be appealing to a publisher.

Or you could aim to just write the story you want to tell, and it will tell you its own length, with the aim that if it's good then someone will want to publish you anyway even if you are writing less-fashionable novellas.

I would go with the second approach and worry about your story and characters, which will give you quite enough to stress about without also adding a goal for certain word lengths

 

[TheTomG]

I would still go with 'as long as it needs to be' as I have read many fine works that were anything from 20K upwards, and there are categories out there for different lengths, like the novellette and novella.

Now, you want to aim for a publisher by trying to craft a work that fits the current vogue for length (is it just me or did books used to be shorter and none the worse for it, such as with PKD and with the Elric books?) So you could see what kind of books people are reading in terms of length and aim to write books that fit that as they will be appealing to a publisher.

Or you could aim to just write the story you want to tell, and it will tell you its own length, with the aim that if it's good then someone will want to publish you anyway even if you are writing less-fashionable novellas.

I would go with the second approach and worry about your story and characters, which will give you quite enough to stress about without also adding a goal for cdrtain word lengths