Chapter length consistency

Exactly, .matthew. From an author's perspective, a chapter break is offering the reader an excuse to put down the book. Thrillers excel at putting cliffhangers at chapter's end, to keep you turning pages. And I have a tendency to break the chapter when the action subsides. When editing, I deliberately look for chapters that end with my characters going to sleep or the like, then try to find other ways to define the chapter. Going to sleep is rarely an important part of the narrative. <g>
 
This is a great topic to bring up. I often scrutinize each and every one of my chapters, making sure each one is a piece that fits into the larger narrative. I, too, am not a fan of overly long or really short chapters, though I have a 7000+ chapter 2 in my current novel that I am almost definitely looking to split in two towards the end. Considering the layout of the chapter, that'll work better in the end anyway.

But, it's hard to say sometime as everyone tends to write a little differently. I remember Interview with the Vampire, for example, didn't even have chapters to it. Anne Rice can get away with a lot more than normal people do, though, so maybe that's not saying much. ;)
 
Good question!

I think the type of POV might play a role in chapter length. If you have one consistent POV, then chapter lengths can be dictated by the beats of the story. Some short for punchy scenes, some longer for emotional moments. If you have multiple main POVs, you might want to remain more conscious of giving each POV near-equal chapter length, or at least ensure you're spending quality time with each of them. But like all things, there are exceptions that can be managed through good, interesting writing.

One thing I've been working on is ensuring my chapters don't always end with a 'gotcha' moment. I've been paying closer attention to vary the type of ways chapters end, depending on what's happened to the characters. Sometimes I want to leave my audience panting from a sudden cut scene, other times I want to leave them down and depressed. I think the importance of chapters in allowing readers to take a breath (metaphorical or literal) can't be underestimated.

Chapter breaks can also give a chance to incorporate some 'off-page' time passing, thereby moving the narrative along.

And I agree with .mathew. - there's good marketing sense in the 'just one more chapter' feel.
 
I like the perspective that a chapter break is an invitation to the reader to go to sleep for the evening. That gives a good perspective on when to break, how to end, and how to begin the next chapter.
 
As some have said, I think it needs to be natural to the story - break when it makes sense. If it's too short, I would review whether it's a full scene.

I sometimes read in small bites so shorter chapters work for me, but I think it's down to personal preference.

I do like when they vary, particularly to change the pace at the book - when I'm reaching a climax, my chapters tend to get shorter.
 
Would you believe, I never actually noticed Terry Pratchett didn't use chapters until about the third time reading a book of his?

Actually, he does have some interesting things to say about why he chose to use chapters in his children's novel, The Wee Free Men. He mentioned the idea of it being a convenient stopping place for parents reading it to their kids at night.

I wonder if chapters, and the resulting chapter index, are also a useful way of dividing up the book for someone who wants to find a specific part, or wants to resume reading, but didn't put a bookmark. (I hated physical bookmarks as a kid. They stuck out of the book like a psychological insult.) Especially with memorable chapter titles--and the ancient practice (which Sir Terry spoofed in Going Postal) of actually telling you what was going to happen in the chapter with a subtitle.

("--in which our hero finds himself at dinner with his two worst enemies!")

Which, again, might actually stem from magazines and serials. I wonder now if there's anybody out there who's looked really deeply into the origins of chapters.
 
As a reader, whether I feel a chapter is too long or short isn't usually down to word count but rather down to poor writing. I tend not to like short, choppy chapters because it often feels like the author is trying to use constant jumps to build energy and excitement when the writing itself fails to do so. Overly long chapters usually result from the author being unnecessarily verbose, e.g. George R. R. Martin.

As a writer, chapter length also plays a role in the overall structure of a novel. Big events often have more impact when the reader has time to live with them. I sometimes break a chapter just after (or even just before) a big event and follow it with a chapter dealing with other characters or events. (Okay, all I'm really doing is making a cliffhanger.) The length of the intervening chapter, as well as the character, complexity and intesity of it's arc all contribute to how successful the intervening chapter is at prolonging the climax of the previous chapter.

So word count alone is not the measure of a chapter's length, nor is equal/unequal chapter lengths in itself an issue. The issue is whether or not a chapter helps support the structure of the novel as a whole.
 
In terms of reading, quite important I feel. I'm reading at the moment some Stephen King for my sister, and it's usually a case of "finish this chapter and we're done for this morning", and then when the chapter goes on for tens of pages you kind of have to decide where to stop. On the other hand, King often does chapters (so-called anyway) which are as little as a paragraph or even a line long. I think that's frankly ridiculous, and I obviously know better than the master of horror how to write (!) but I suppose he has his reasons. I just feel a chapter ending is like reaching a door; you stop now and catch your breath before going through the next one, or you plunge on through and see what's there. Mind you, I guess I'm lucky I'm not reading her Terry "Chapters? What are they?" Pratchett!

In terms of writing, I find that personally I let the story dictate the chapter length, as some others here have said. To me, what's important is that the chapter covers a section of the book, story, novel and can be, if needed, referred back to later as the point where certain things happened - remember back in chapter six, when Joey got that weird ouija board? Or thinking about it now, the murder was foreshadowed by the party taking place in chapter nine and so on. I let my chapters grow organically; they'll kind of tell me when they're finished, and I seldom if ever finish a chapter unfinished, as it were, even a cliffhanger one has a definite ending. I believe it should feel right, it should feel, as you write, that the ending is coming up now, a few more pages, lines, paragraphs, and this chapter is done.

Just my thoughts. I'm famous (in my own mind) for writing way too much, but I prefer to write too much than too little. Some people might say it would be better if I wrote nothing at all, but those people are just jealous...

o_O
 
I know it sounds weird to say let the story dictate the chapter. The story doesn't speak, so it can't dictate. Yet, weirdly, that's how things sort of work out.

I try to work at the scene level (I use Scrivener, which facilitates this sort of thing), but along the way I group stuff. Inevitably, there is Big Fight Scene Chapter, or Final Chapter, or Chapter One, or Twist Chapter, and so on. Milestones, iow. I name my chapters (in addition to numbering) and sooner or later I start thinking about the relationship between the title and the chapter, and somewhere in that process, I have a whole bunch of chapters.

Weirder yet, they mostly all fall within a range for length. How does that happen? It's as easy to say the story dictated the length as it is to try for any longer explanation!
 
sknox said:
I know it sounds weird to say let the story dictate the chapter. The story doesn't speak, so it can't dictate. Yet, weirdly, that's how things sort of work out.

I try to work at the scene level (I use Scrivener, which facilitates this sort of thing), but along the way I group stuff. Inevitably, there is Big Fight Scene Chapter, or Final Chapter, or Chapter One, or Twist Chapter, and so on. Milestones, iow. I name my chapters (in addition to numbering) and sooner or later I start thinking about the relationship between the title and the chapter, and somewhere in that process, I have a whole bunch of chapters.

Weirder yet, they mostly all fall within a range for length. How does that happen? It's as easy to say the story dictated the length as it is to try for any longer explanation!
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There's a lot to be said for that approach. I think it gets easier as you gain writing experience and confidence, when chapters drop into that ever-growing bucket of issues taken care of by the subconscious.
 
Slightly off-topic but do any of you put a whole lot of thought into chapter titles? Or do you even title them? I like mine to accurately reflect the content without being too obvious (no "In which this that and the other happens" for instance). Things like, oh I don't know, maybe Canon in Troll Major (in which a bunch of trolls attack a castle and literally commandeer a cannon!) or "A Knife in the Dark", where there is either a literal assassination (if possible, in the dark) or some dark revelation comes out that causes untold trouble. Mind you, I tend to even do titles WITHIN chapters - I: Into the Void, II: The Idol that Spoke, III: Arrival at Cloud City etc. I just love titles, the cooler and more apt the better. I'm also a real git for using apt music titles (Born to Run, Stranger in Town, Keep the Faith etc) which might be a real problem if I ever get published. Luckily (or not) that's not very likely.
 
No I never use Chapter titles. I think they create a need to find the 'reference' in the chapter so it distorts the reading into a sort of word search puzzle for the title event and I definitely don't want my readers subconsciously skimming to get to it.
 
I used to use chapter titles, and yes, I put a lot of thought into them. I haven't used them in my last few books. Which is not to say that I wouldn't do so in some future work if it seemed appropriate.
 
I love chapter titles, especially those that excite the reader's interest without giving anything away. Tolkien was especially good at them.
 
I use chapter titles. I tried just using numbers, but found that I myself needed them. When looking at a list of chapters while I'm in mid-writing, it wasn't helpful to see One, Two, Three.... But "Salzburg Station" and "Herr Doktor Professor" and "The Queller Expedition" serves as a reminder as to what that chapter was about. Having named them for myself, using them in the completed work just feels natural and inevitable.
 
I think it can be good and draw someone in. Remember Homer reading the Jessica Button series? Just look at the title, Homer: "An Unexpected Occurrence? What could it be?" We've got him!

I don't say I have any less interest in untitled chapters, but I personally feel it gives the reader some idea about what he, she, or it can expect when they read. Obviously it shouldn't give too much away (again cue the Simpsons. Bart and Milhouse read their comic book and see their hero die. Milhouse cries "There was no warning on the cover!" The cover shows Radioactive Man in his coffin, mourners around him and the title emblazoned in large letters THE DEATH OF RADIOACTIVE MAN! ) but I think it can really help someone follow your story. I like clever titles. I used A Murder of Crows for the title on one of the chapters of the novel I'm currently working on, in which crows attack people in a shopping centre, so there's a nice pun there, and an upcoming one is going to be titled Grant Unto Them Eternal Rest which will feature grieving relatives seeing their loved ones' bodies being blown out of the graves by explosives placed there overnight. Sure, it's vanity and a little arrogance, but hell, I like doing it, and would hope it might make a reader smile knowingly. I guess it's something of an addiction for me.

Uh, I mean clever titles. Not blowing people up in graves. Well, not much.

What about quotes after a chapter title? You know the kind of thing, sort of poetry or music or lines from a TV show, linking int to the subject of the chapter? Anyone do that?
 
Trollheart said:
What about quotes after a chapter title? You know the kind of thing, sort of poetry or music or lines from a TV show, linking int to the subject of the chapter? Anyone do that?
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As a reader, they can provoke as many negative feelings as positive. They can seem pretentious, or like the author is trying to piggyback on a superior talent. So they should be chosen carefully.

As a writer, I wouldn't -- they cost too much (unless the source is out of copyright).
 
My take on it is that chapter lengths have to just fit with wherever the story is going at that moment. My current range is about 3,200 to 10,500 or so, although I previously had a monster 13,000+ word chapter that I have to massively trim. I should also say that I personally use mid-chapter 'separations' of chapter breaks, usually for changing character perspective. Some chapters have 1 section, others have anything up to 6, particularly if a particular event is being viewed from two perspectives simultaneously. So, in terms of section length, it's probably between 3,200 and maybe 7,000.

I also use and love chapter titles. I think it's a great way to bring some identity to what could otherwise be just another chapter. I look at it like song names on an album. You wouldn't want the album track listing to be Song 1, Song 2, etc., so I think the chapter title is there to capture the mood or the relevance of particular event, or character arc point.
 
I think if I was using a large number of POV characters, I would use their names for the chapter titles, as George Martin does. As it is, I have four, so I feel that chapter titles are ok. I've tried to use the POV's name early in each chapter and to have something early on (generally a thought) that shows who the POV character is. I've used short chapter titles ("The Farm", "Homecoming" etc) but nothing much more elaborate than that. One of my pet dislikes is the author winking at the reader, so in-jokes and real-world references are out for me.
 
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