Chapter Length

[hanoo_chan]

Okay, first, mini happy dance because for once, I met my daily word count goal.

Second, just out of curiosity, what is the ballpark average number of words for each of your chapters thus far? I know there's no set chapter length for any story, but I'm wondering what the average is. A single number or a range of numbers would be greatly appreciated for my own personal reference.

[Amagi-Kurumi]

I had a tough time with this question, because I always got the 'it varies' answer, which it does. What I did, though, was counted pages per chapter in a bunch of different books and averaged it together. What I came out with was about fifteen pages per chapter, give or take. Personally, I think that's a pretty good way to do it. It works pretty well for me.

[Byte Bandit]

Shout, shout, let it all out!
These are the things I can do without,
Come on, I'm talking to you, come on!

Chapters don't exist in my 'novel'. I call them sections.
Yeah, the word count in each chapter jumps around for me. I can go from 1,500 words to 5,000.
In my story, each section ends when the main character's therapy section does.[/shrug]

And when you've taken down your guard...
If I could change your mind, I'd really love to break your heart.
I'd really love to break your heart!

[GuruLazer]

This is a question I struggled over or a while, too. It's easy for some people to just write and go on for as long as it takes, but I always found that having an idea of the boundaries kept me from waffling too much. sweatdrop Although it's true that you should take as long as you need to say what needs to be said within a chapter, I've always found the guideline of 3000-5000 words for a medium or long chapter to be helpful. But it really does depend on your style and the kind of book you're writing. It might take a while, but if you find out the average chapter length of books in the genre you're writing for then you might get a better idea. Hope that helps. whee

[Muffers]

I usually do anywhere between 5k and 10k a chapter. I just did a word count on my latest chapter and realized I forgot to chapter break somewhere, though, because it's 16k. - has an epic derp -

i'll fix it later.

[crillbalu]

Well, i right consierably short chapters compared to most people- i actually just started my nanowrimo, so i am only done with the prolouge and am halfway done with the first chapter... I'd have to say that my chapters are, say... 3-5 thousand words each? it just depends- sometimes they're really long and sometimes they're really short -__-||

[HomebrewFox]

I divide my chapters into 3-5 part sub-chapters .Each being 1000-3000 words.
So roughly 5000-7000 words per chapter for me. My shortest is 2000, my longest is about 10,000 so far.

[ReidenLightman]

Only my shortest chapters will be below 3500 words. Most of my chapters will be very close to 3500 words without going below. A few of my chapters are actually 4,000 or more words.

[hanoo_chan]

Thank you all for your input. It's very helpful to me.

[radioactive alchemist]

I'm not even doing chapters this year. I don't know why. Probably because scene breaks suffice.

I have parts, though. I'm on part 3 now.

[Kawaii Shellfish]

I'm trying for at least 8,000 words in each chapter, which means I have to write about 6 chapters.

[Chouryou]

I am not yet done.
>>>>>>>>>>

sweatdrop
I only average 1500-2500 words per chapter, and there's one that's just roughly 700 words.

<<<<<<<<<<
WITNESS.

[Chitoko Kanzaki]

Wolftrot

I divide my chapters into 3-5 part sub-chapters .Each being 1000-3000 words.
So roughly 5000-7000 words per chapter for me. My shortest is 2000, my longest is about 10,000 so far.

I so totaly might do this... My story is getting _EPIC_ on me. What I mean is my world. (It has allways been well established in my mind that this book is part of a series, it was allways epic-awesome to me)

But because of this _extra_ epic... Some of my chapters are getting fat, and to much is going on in others.

[Ryokucha-aisu]

Well, mine really varies.
Shortest is about 400 and longest is about 10,000. ninja

[CourierSandy]

for the most part my chapters are 3-5 pages long ^^" i don't count the words, if i limited it to that, i wouldn't be able to fit in those mini cliff-hangers that have been at the end of every chapter.