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How Long Should A Chapter Be?
How long does a chapter need to be?
When you’re starting out on your writing journey, you might wonder what the right chapter length is. If you are, let me reassure you that this is something you don’t need to worry about! Your chapters will be as long as you feel they need to be.
For example, do you want to have a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter? Then you might want to use short sharp chapters, like Dan Brown, for fast pace.
Or perhaps your story is a slower read, more about character evolvement than plot speed, and so you can afford to be more languid in your writing, evoking a mood or feeling rather than action.
Let’s look at when to use long chapters and when to use small.
Short chapter length
Some people really like short chapters. This is because they enjoy the feeling of speeding through the book. They want to be taken on a journey and don’t want to have to think too deeply. It’s escapism.
Perhaps they read whilst commuting to work and so want to know they can finish a chapter before arriving at their station. Or perhaps they just have a short attention span!
Some books have up to 60 or 70 chapters, but each chapter is perhaps only two or three pages long. They have essentially broken down their scenes into chapters because they want to have clear breaks between each scene.
This might be because the story is being told from multiple points of view, or there are jumps in the timeline. For example, the story goes backwards and forwards and uses a lot of flashbacks.
Be wary of making your chapters too small, though. Your reader still needs to feel that there is a point to the chapter and that it serves a purpose.
That said, there are chapters out there that are as short as a single word, but that word has relevance to the story as a whole and tells the reader exactly what they need to know in that moment.
This, of course, needs to be balanced out with fuller chapters and can only be used to serve a particular purpose.
Longer chapter length
Most people don’t mind a decent length of chapter, but if the chapter goes on for 20 pages or more, it can be off putting, especially if there is no section break that allows the reader to take a breath.
Visualising an image painted by a writer burns a lot of calories! You need to give your reader the space between each image to take a breath and rest their brain!
If you make it too difficult for the reader, they may switch off. There are not many readers who enjoy such a long piece of writing without the opportunity of coming up for air.
That said, for those readers that don’t mind a longer chapter, it is usually because they see each chapter as a little story within the bigger story.
If you choose to write long chapters, ensure that you give the reader a complete picture so they’re not left feeling like they’ve spent all this time reading but haven’t gained anything by it. There must be some kind of resolution or conclusion at the end of that chapter before you move onto the next one.
Most readers don’t have a set idea of how long they think a chapter should be. It is the storytelling that matters. Ultimately, it comes down to the quality of the writing and the storytelling.
Chapter length should be determined by the completion of the scene or the idea, not the word or page count.
Pacing
Most writers tend to use a mix of longer and shorter chapters because the varying lengths help with pacing. If you want to slow the story down, you might use a longer chapter that lingers on one scene and goes into it in great depth.
But if you want to speed the book up, you might use smaller chapters to keep build tension.
It can also be used to give the reader the sense of nearing the end of the story, that the drama is heightening and they mustn’t put the book down.
Having readers complain that they can’t get to sleep because they have to read “one more chapter”, is something that every writer wants to hear and using pace is one way to achieve this.
Trust your instincts
So, as you can see, there are reasons to use both long and short chapters. Ultimately, you need to trust your gut when it comes to the right length. Nobody knows your story like you. Nobody knows how the story needs to be told except you.
When you read your work back, how does it seem to you? If it feels too long, then it probably is. If you feel it’s too short and doesn’t have enough depth, it probably is.
Storytelling, at its heart, isn’t complicated. You are a reader. You’ve probably been reading most of your life and have absorbed by osmosis what works for you and what doesn’t. Trust your gut.
When you hire an editor, that is the person who will tell you if you need to add a bit here or take out a bit there. But for now, don’t worry about that, just keep telling the story.
If this article was useful, you’ll love:
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Emma Dhesi writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.
By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.
Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.
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