Young Writers Society

Hello guys.

So I have a question...how long is an average chapter? I am writing my novel in a huge notebook, and I am writing my chapters on three pages, back and forth. Since my writing is small, I think it's long and okay, yet I feel like it's short. Know the feeling?

Anyway, so I posted this in here to get some help and advices from you. A very hearty thanks to all of those who help.

All up to you! I have seen a 200 page book with 100 mini-chapters, or a 200 page book with only 7 long chapters.

You don't even need to be consistent. I know I've got some chapters that are 7/8 pages, and I just finished one that's 25. It's best you try and stay consistent, but it's not needed. In your early drafts it's best not to limit yourself to a certain length of chapter because it can cut out surprises and some creativity.

Hope this helps!

I know how you feel, I sometimes feel like my chapters are too short, but in the end some just turn out longer than others. My suggestion is don't think about it based on what you've seen in other books, just write down everything you want to write, and don't worry about how long it is.

I'f it helps any though my chapters generally range from 10 to 20 pages in 12pt font times new roman.

I usually try to keep my chapters around 1,500 words, but that's just me. It depends on where you want to go. Generally each chapter should be a set up, or a scene. If you know how you want to tell the story you should know where each chapter needs to stop. It takes some getting used to, but if you just practice keeping your writing in trasitional spurts, it makes it a lot easier to get the feel of it.

Hope this helps! =)

Like Rosey said, it depends. The average is 6-8 pages according to Wikipedia. I normally write my chapters as 1.5-3 pages, but most of the time I edit it like crazy and make it 4-6 pages each.

I find a lot of fantasy books tend to have consistent chapter lengths, usually fairly long. While real-life sort of fiction may have shorter chapters, or chapters based on a set length of time (eg. one day) and the length of each will be based on how much happens in the story that day. Also, some books have very short chapters for a "special effect", especially in first person. Chapters in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time are sort of like diary entries, and vary in length on how much the character has to say on the topic.

Some books start a new chapter for changes of POV; othe reasons can be if a lot of time has passed in the story, the characters have moved a long distance, etc.

Generally, I think if the book is more of an action story, the chapters are usually quite even, whereas emotional/character driven stories tend to vary more depending on the character/s moods and how much they think or say about the events of each chapter.

Like everyone has said, it really depends. It can depend between authors, and it can even depend between novels of a certain author. I personally have one novel with very short chapters and one with very long chapters, and they are both fantasy. Granted, they are different types of fantasy, but that just shows it really doesn't matter. Just write and don't worry about chapter length.

I could really answer this by saying, there is no average.

It all depends on what happens in a chapter.

Myself, I can go from 1300 to 2600 words per chapter. Which, when you look at it, is a very big variable. When not a lot of stuff happens in a chapter, you aren't going to have a lot of length. The vice-versa is also true, chapters where a lot of stuff happens will be longer.

I try to stay consistant in terms of page count per chapter (which doesn't really matter when you think about it), but the word counts speaks bigger volumes about length.

And that's just me. Some chapters I have read are 20 pages long, while some are only a paragraph in length. It helps to remember what a chapter actually is. A chapter is an event in a story. And depending on how much stuff happens and how long an event is, chapter sizes will vary. Why, some events may be so big that they will be required to be split into two chapters.

Just something to think about.