My completed manuscript stands at 83,000 words and is divided into forty chapters. My average chapter length is about 2,000 words, that's six or seven pages. I do have shorter chapters and a few that are longer.
My completed manuscript stands at 83,000 words and is divided into forty chapters. My average chapter length is about 2,000 words, that's six or seven pages. I do have shorter chapters and a few that are longer.
40 chapters! I've always been prone to long chapters hence I have substantially fewer, even in my longest book.
Lol. Just checked that against my record of chapters and realised I have subdivided each chapter and so now have 44 subdivisions! (Approx 133,000 words.)
Personally I much prefer to write longer chapters, but knowing readers find them a chore, I've taken to dividing them but maintaining the original main chapter separations. It was as far as I was willing to compromise my structure. So I have chapter 1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2 and so on.
Hello all. I have just checked my M/S and it is 71,500 words. The first chapter is 3000 some are shorter but most about the same within a 1000 words but one chapter, dare I say this is 10,000 words, it seems to work but to be honest I have never thought about word count in chapters or working to those constraints, I end and start chapters when it feels like punctuation to the story but after reading Adrians question I will now take a look at chapter 7 and see if there is a natural break that maybe I missed, I am a novice with lots to learn and I am picking quite a lot up from the other writers who share this site and may I say I am grateful, hope that doesn't come across as patronising I genuinely mean it. I have found people willing to share advice and knowledge they have had to pay for and will share it gratis here with other like minded writers. sorry I tend to run on a bit, I'll be quiet now. Regards Paul
In my opinion, 10k is a hefty chapter. I stick to around 3k words give or take 2k because it's more comfortable for the reader. I agree that there should be something interesting going on in each chapter, but I'd try to break up a huge chunk of prose like that.