The Word Cloud

Just wondeirng what word count people have per chapter

just now my word count per chapter varies from 2500 -4000 its hard to keep a steady word count as with some chapter you just get right into the story

Mine varies enormously. Some chapters are only 2 - 3,000 and others 5 - 6,000. I don't think there is a set rule on this. It depends on the flow of your story, and you should always try to end a chapter at a point that makes the reader want to turn the page and keep reading.

I had a bit of an argument about this with someone on here in the early days. She tried to maintain a good 15-20 pages for each chapter, whereas I was of the opinion that a chapter should be as long as it needs to be. More particularly, being unconventional, I decided that my first book should have extremely short chapters of between about 1 and 4 pages - easier for me to write that way, and gives the reader plenty of opportunity to break at a chapter end rather than in the middle, and easily find or refer back to previous text.

When I came to submit to agents and publishers, I ate my own words of the argument. Several of them requested a very strict 2, or in other cases 3 chapters (rather than a word count), which would only have given them about the same amount as some writers' synopses. So I repaced chapter breaks with * * * breaks to make it up to 50 pages for the first two chapters.

Whoever I argued against: nicely played, madam. You won.

I think the chapter break is too useful, as a part of the structure and the tension, to be theoretical about numbers of words. I know some writers who write the whole novel, and only divide it up at the end, when they know where the breaks need to be. I find lots of short chapters in a conventional, commercial novel tiresomely breathless, on the whole: it's a bit like the kind of prose which is all very short and similarly-structured sentences.

FWIW, in the WIP, the chapters average 14,000 words, in two halves as I've got two first-person narrators. The first and last chapters are monsters, at 17,000 each...

But yes, no reason not to much about with chapters for submitting stuff, so that you can send them a good chunk even if yours are short (I do wonder what some agents thought of my first 3 for TMOL: 45,000 words...)

Emma

I think E's right. Literary fiction tends to work with longer chapters (though Emma's are certainly on the longer side).

My own current WIP has 50 chapters and 115,000 words, so that's just a bit over 2000 words per chapter.

But one can get overly worried over these things. Where chapters are shortish, readers will simply read straight from the end of one chapter to the start of the next. The inner pause they experience may be no greater than the pause they experience at an ordinary "within chapter" break (usually signified by a line or two of white space separating chunks).

As for submitting to agents, the normal rule of thumb is that the three chapters they're looking for should amount to 10-12,000 words (approx 50 pagse). If your chapters are huge or very short, most agents wouldn't care if you adjusted things accordingly.

I would say, though, that because I'm usually monkeying around with various forms of parallel narrative, and the eternally useful double-line-break, I doubt if you get a slab of unbroken narrative in a novel of mine that's longer than about 3,000 words.

So maybe it's just that for me a chapter break is simply one of the higher-order divisions in a whole hierarchy of structural elements: full stop; paragraph; double-line-space; double-line-space with ***; change-of-narrator; chapter break; Part break.

My agent, FWIW, says helpfully, 'the first three chapters or first 30 pages, whicever is shorter. My first chapter was 43 pages, so I sent that, and it didn't do me any harm...

My story is 88,000 words and 48 chapters. After reading this thread I'm now worried that my chapters are too short. Should I be worried? It is a thriller, so I wanted to allow plenty of breathing spaces for the reader!

You can always build breathing space into the narrative...

On average my chapters are 4,000 words- a few are over 5,000 and equally a few are below 3,000 words.

I think it's interesting that some people write the entire novel then break it into chapters.- I broke my story down and gave each chunk a heading- these headings eventually became the chapter titles. I knew when I started to write each chapter what would happen in it. If my word count was already past 3,000 words and I wasn't yet half way through the chapter- then I'd decide if I could split it into two chapters or I'd try to condense it down if I thought that I'd just been waffling. I've also tried to end each chapter on a cliff hanger and sometimes the perfect cliff hanger showed itself after only 2, 000 words.

This is my first attempt at writing a novel and it's been really interesting to see how others do it- especially hearing from those of you who are published!

I had been put under the impression that one should aim for between 3 to 5 thousand words per chapter, but now i read the opinions here, i feel like perhaps this shouldn't be what i do anymore. Which is bloody useful, because im currently on a chapter that could do with being a short one.

I'm currently rewriting my first novel (approx 100,000 words). Originally it had 4 major chapters up to 30,000 words length and five minor chapters, up to 1000 words length. I've now totally changed the way it's laid out, and it has 52 short chapters. My second novel (approx 150,000 words) will have just 5 chapters.

It's basically just a matter of presentation.

Depends if you want to make money or not !!

James Patterson makes millions with extremely short chapters. His genre is suitable, I guess.

To be honest, as a reader, ploughing through one chapter of c.30k words is bloody hard work.

No offence intended, but from my postings (and responses), I sense that a few Cloud writers, in some instances, produce something that they think readers want, rather than what readers tell them they actually want. I could be totally wrong here, and I accept it is just my POV.

I've now reduced mine to 40 chapters (each one is between 1,500 and 3,000 words) and I think it works well.

Thirteen chapters, 46,000 words. Chapters vary from 1700 to 3000. I have found most chapters have come to a natural 'cliff hanging' ending, although I know some of the endings will need some work.

Anyone know the averagel length of a novel, or what agents and publishers tend to look for? Or is that like asking how long is a piece of string? I thought my current work would be approx. 90,000 words but the story seems to developed on its own and I think it will be longer than that by the end.
As a reader, I tend to agree with Stephenterry, ploughing through a very long chapter can be hard work.

Ah, my MS has 12 chapters with a 77k word count, over 6k per chapter consistently throughout and it was not a conscious decision.

The first book I written averaged about 2,000 - 3,000 words per chapter. Altogether there was 114,000 words so there was a lot of chapters but I think this makes a book easier to read. It also worked well for my story as it jumped back and forth between 2 main storylines and a few subplots every now and again.

The book i'm writing now is going to be different. I'm trying to keep the chapters to a minimum and have the word count well into double figures before I use a chapter break.

Will have to see how this one goes.

My first attempt was 22o,000 words and one chapter. I cut it down to 150,000 and then to 0 words. as you've guested I'm doing a complete rewrite. I'm on chapter 5, each chapter has between 2,500-2,700 words. reading what others have said I don't think it matters what your word count is, as long as the story flow from one to the next.

Karen - 60k minimum for short adult novels - if you're writing for teenagers/children it can be a lot less (40 - 50). Publishers like 90k as a mean average (>60-110). While established writers can exceed 110k, it's not preferable for a new writer - because it is more costly to produce with a higher retail price - therefore a greater risk that the publisher will lose money if it doesn't sell.
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Another reason for chapter breaks, following on from Erebus, could be when there is a significant change of the POV character. You have to spoon-feed the reader, my friend. Make absolutely sure he/she realises you are in another head. In 2010, it is essential technique. Section breaks can work - but it is akin to a semi colon versus a full stop.
Sorry, didn't mean to be patronising - just passing on what the industry has told me.

Different genre dictate different chapter breaks. When I've been editing thrillers for example, the chapters have to be quite formulaic, short and punchy. Non-fiction of the 'how-to' variety normally has very strict structures too. However, as a general rule, I would advise that you have all your chapters roughly the same length for consistency. Although as has been mentioned above, there are some clever tricks for breaking the narrative up. I think it's useful to take a look at your longest chapters from the point of view of a restless reader and see where you could introduce a break and how that would change things. Good luck!

I've heard of some story that a chapter only three words long.

I think the answer to that one, Babblefish, is that chapters are as important as you want them to be. For me, they are breath and rhythm. Each chapter has its own atmosphere and speed. Unconsciously, I have often put chapter breaks at a change of tempo rather than at a twist in the plot. On editing, the tempo of a passage may change: removing dialogue, for instance, will slow it down. And so my chapter breaks have evolved. The book is currently in a rhythm with quite short chapters, but I haven't finished playing with it yet.

Well said Mr Onceupon.

I used to worry about getting the count of each chapter perfectly right, but then realised that as long as it flows well you can stick them wherever you want. No one really notices when they're reading, unless they're like two pages long then a hundred pages long.

But one can get overly worried over these things. Where chapters are shortish, readers will simply read straight from the end of one chapter to the start of the next. The inner pause they experience may be no greater than the pause they experience at an ordinary "within chapter" break (usually signified by a line or two of white space separating chunks).

Ha! See, Harry uses "one" as well. Take that Zomb00 :)

Going back to what John said about naming chapters.

I've decided to name the chapters of my current novel with the date they are set. My book is going to go back and forth between different time periods and without this it'll be confusing for the reader to keep up.

In this case I think this would be acceptable and I reckon its a shame that chapter names are not used more in books