Young Writers Society

Here's the problem:
I'm writing a book and I keep feeling (I know) the chapters are too short. Can anyone in YWS give me some hints on this?

The only thing we must fear is fear it self.

I'm actually worried about this same problem, so I'm sticking to short stories at the moment to increase my skill. I don't know if that helps?

You could also just try having loads of very small chapters. There are some books with chapters commonly only a couple of pages long.

Another thing is to describe, not in a Tolkeinish omg-it's-another-description way, but just to pad it out a bit. Using more dialogue would help there as well.

I don't know if any of this helps, but you can try it anyway.

-Kaz

Make the chapters scenes. If their too short, oh well. Write them like short stories (I got this from Sam!) although, not exactly...give each chapter a problem or conflict, a climax, and a resolution. Or, leave us at the climax and give us a cliff hanger!

I doubt that helped ><

So long as the chapters aren't so short as to make little sense and rush the scenes, it might not matter that much. Some books have no chapters, some have a lot of very short ones. Each has its own effect. If you're switching between places or points of view fairly frequently, then short chapters might be the way to go. If you're telling a longer, episodic tale [one or a few character the narration follows the entire time, a bunch of different incidents, stuff like that] then you probably will want to make the chapters longer.

If you can think of any published book that's kind of similar to what you want to write, take a look at that book [and others like it]. See what that author did.

I have read some books where the chapters are divided by lines, and some where there are not chapters at all. You needd to do what feels natural. If that is your style, then go for it.

I know when I write, the way I divide my chapters up is different. In one case, when the chapters are long I divide them with a chapter letter and a title. BUT on this book I am working on right now, the chapters are short.

Anyways, I think what I'm getting at is that every writer has a style and every book demands a style.

Unless there's a specific reason for making the chapters short, I don't see a problem with it. I've read books with only one or two page chapters. Actually, I kind of like them that way, I think a lot of readers do, it makes for a good pace, and breaks it up a little more. If you wanted, you could add chapters together, but if it seems to flow the way it is, I think you should keep it the way it is.

Personally, I'm usually annoyed with little chapters. I mean, if you're going to make a big deal about starting a new chapter on a clean page, might as well make it long enough for the reader to be immersed in the 'scene' and invest their time in reading it anyways, right?

What you can do is just start combining those "chapters" together. To space out the time problems, just paragraph two times and start a new paragraph. But if you're starting on a completely different place and time, then just paragraph, center a few asterisks, and paragraph again. Then start a new paragraph.

Sounds confusing, I know. But...oh well.

Also...do you plan out your story in advance? It helps to know if you're going to have to make a short paragraph or not.

Really, the whole big deal about chapters doesn't matter. Chapters, at least to my opinion, exist to be a sort of cliffhanger and also, the beginning of a whole new day.

It kind of depends on personal preference, disappointing as that sounds. Personally, I like shorter chapters because they make you feel like you're reading faster- a stupid reason, but most readers have stupid reasons. If they didn't we'd all be writing in chatspeak.

Besides what Claude said about stories, the only way to determine length is to play around with it. What do you like best?

Each chapter should have a purpose to your story like introduce characters, include thematic elements, ext. You should try to define what each chapter's purpose will be early on when you are outlining your story (if you out line). Sometimes short chapters are okay. As long it has a purpose and a good one short chapters are okay. I also agree with Kaz, practicing writing wouldn't hurt while you try to think of if your chapters are really too short.