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How long should a chapter be?
Yes, I know there isn’t a definitive answer but I’d be interested in fellow writers’ views.
One bit of feedback from an agent 1-2-1 at the Festival last weekend was that my chapters were ‘too short’. I was surprised at this; the chapters in the extract I had provided were in the 1800-2000 word region.
I’ve never consciously written to a specific chapter length, preferring to concentrate on taking as much or little time as needed to fulfil the chapter’s purpose. Some other chapters in that novel are 4,000+ words.
So, what do you think? Is there an optimum chapter length? Should all chapters in a novel be about the same length?
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2 Replies
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I don’t see why each chapter should be the same length, nor can I see the practicality of such idea, however hard my pernickity self tries to convince me of the contrary.
That said, I’ve found a general length that I am satisfied with, between 2,000 and 4,000 words. It isn’t very long, but it gives me enough space to have at least a whole scene worked with all the details. It isn’t a length set in stone. If in a story I end up with longer chapters, that’s going to be it. I go with my gut feeling.
I found this book useful, Novelist’s Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes, by Raymond Obstfeld. It isn’t about the length of scenes but about their structure and purpose, which should be our main concern. Once you see how your scenes work your chapters are naturally going to have a length you’re satisfied with that readers will too be happy to deal with.
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Agree with Natalia. It’s less a question of the length of the chapter than of the scenes within it. Someone once told me a chapter should be a mini-novel in itself – in other words, a short story – and that gives us some sort of a guide. A scene will also be composed of ‘pieces’ (beginning, middle, end) and all the pieces will naturally fall to a satisfying length, which results in each chapter being exactly the right length for that chapter.
Naturally length will vary, and the subject matter will influence that. It’s not coincidence that Grisham-style punchy thrillers tend to have shorter chapters.
In my case, chapters vary from 1,500 to 5-6,000 in extremes, but tend to average at 3,000 words, which turns out to be precisely the length of a piece of string.
