I know each writer has their own length for chapters, and none is right or wrong. I just want to simply ask each person how long their average chapter is.

Mine right now are at about 2000 words, but each chapter shows one of four main characters, so I have to have a lot. I plan to increase the chapter lengths later.

Mine aren't very long either. Average about 1,500 words at the moment.

I try to get the main events in, and then I go back through adding details.

They are as long as required, no more, no less.

Anywhere from two pages up to a couple dozen, I'd say.

I use the mini-skirt rule: Long enough to cover the essentials; short enough to be interesting.

They range from 4 to 30 pages. (Sorry, I don't use word counts until the first draft is done)

I use the mini-skirt rule: Long enough to cover the essentials; short enough to be interesting.I love it! :)

4,000 words or 6 pages on Microsoft Word at font size 12.

It varies. My shortest are just one page in word, and the longest four or five pages. Usually they are two or three pages.

Mine seem to be around between 20-30kb. Since there are about 1700 words in 10kb of my writing, I guess that means my chapters are usually between 3400-5100 words.

I use the mini-skirt rule: Long enough to cover the essentials; short enough to be interesting.


That is one of my new favorite quotable lines! :D Do you mind if I use it?

Cog, glad you like it.

Wreybies, feel free to use it.

My shortest miniskirt, sorry, chapter consists of one paragraph, sufficient to say what needs to be said. My longest...hmm....thirty pages - ish.

^ Ditto- amazingly good quote lol.

Mine vary from around 500 words, as they are short flashes to introduce my main character, as he doesn't actually turn up for a little while into the book, to long action packed ones that vary. My average is somewhere between 3500-4000, and the longest is 8000, I think.

3,000-6,000 words is about my range.

lol @ the mini skirt rule.

As a reader, I like shorter chapters. A big turn off as far as reading a novel goes, is super long chapters that begin to feel like a chore to get through. I read by chapter, so that's why I like it when a writer doesn't have really long chapters. Plus, it makes your progression in the novel feel as if it goes by faster (or is it just me?). So as a writer, I try to do what I personally like as a reader. I try to keep my chapters under 5,000 words, definitely under 6,000. If they get too long, I divide them up.

Miniskirt rule... That has to become standard.

As for me, I break between time skips. Like, I wont have three days occur in one chapter. If my characters are gonna call it a night, it's best to let the reader break as well.

how can an 'average' figure help in any way?... between 2 and 24 pages, for instance, using cog's figure, will come out to 11 pages as an average... but how many of the chapters in his imagined book will have 2 pages and how many 24?... and what good does knowing the 'average' size do anyone?...

sorry, but that seems like one of those silly, futile questions that have no clear answer, to me...

I use the mini-skirt rule: Long enough to cover the essentials; short enough to be interesting.

They range from 4 to 30 pages. (Sorry, I don't use word counts until the first draft is done)

I love that rule. I promise to carefully "study" all the miniskirts from now on . . . just to be a good writer!

That's certainly one way to address the issue, or to skirt around it.

That's certainly one way to address the issue, or to skirt around it.

haha.... punny....

I love that rule. I promise to carefully "study" all the miniskirts from now on . . . just to be a good writer!

Well, at least now you have a "good" excuse. Oops, I meant reason.
So all the guys who ogle my legs are just trying to improve their writing?
*sound of ego deflating*

You'll just have to speak to them to find out if they can compose a complete sentence. If they can't, either they are stricken dumb by your beauty, or perhaps just plain dumb.

Oops . . . I got distracted by the miniskirt fantasy and forgot to answer the chapter length question.

The answer is simple. Each chapter is as long or as short as necessary to accomplish its role in developing the overall plot of the book.

I would also offer an aside - it is my impression that many of today's readers don't have long attention spans. For that reason, in my current book I made the chapters read like a mini stories, each with it's own opening action, a middle story that deals with some conflict and a mini-climax that completed the chapter but did not resolve the bigger plot conflict. The book is 512 pages (paperback size) with 21 chapters.

Now, can I get back to mini-skirts? LOL

a HEM!

how can an 'average' figure help in any way?... between 2 and 24 pages, for instance, using cog's figure, will come out to 11 pages as an average... but how many of the chapters in his imagined book will have 2 pages and how many 24?... and what good does knowing the 'average' size do anyone?...

sorry, but that seems like one of those silly, futile questions that have no clear answer, to me...

Sometimes people are just curious about what others do. :/ It doesn't mean they're going to take someone else's way of doing things as the "standard," they just feel like knowing. The answers aren't supposed to help anything as far as I could tell, though I wouldn't know the OP's motives. I didn't find the question too silly. One person's silly question is another person's curiosity being piqued. It resulted in a funny quote that a lot of people here seem to have enjoyed, at least.

And for some people there is a "clear answer." I gave mine, for example, and a lot of others have too. *shrug*

I'm like the poster above, as long as necessary to cover the action. You can always increase or decrease later...

I haven't divided my story into chapters yet.... I tried, so, I guess, one of chapters is more than 100 pages long.

Sometimes people are just curious about what others do. :/ It doesn't mean they're going to take someone else's way of doing things as the "standard," they just feel like knowing. The answers aren't supposed to help anything as far as I could tell, though I wouldn't know the OP's motives. I didn't find the question too silly. One person's silly question is another person's curiosity being piqued. It resulted in a funny quote that a lot of people here seem to have enjoyed, at least.

And for some people there is a "clear answer." I gave mine, for example, and a lot of others have too. *shrug*

Yeah, I was just curious.

ok... i stand corrected... shouldn't have questioned your motives... apology tendered, m

ok... i stand corrected... shouldn't have questioned your motives... apology tendered, m

No problem. :cool:

I am finding that I liked consistency, which is something new for me.

I recently started forcing myself to keep my chapters consistently between 20-25 pages. In my past work, I felt my short chapters interspersed with my very long chapters created choppiness and uneven pacing. I'm sure a more experienced writer could pull it off, I'm just not there yet.

One thing I will say about forcing myself to remain consistent within these parameters this time around is that I have been able to practice the art of pacing. This has been a great help to me and is one of the areas where my work definitely fell short.

Because I know in advance that I have x pages/x words/ within each chapter to present the scenes, keep the reader interested and leave him/her wanting more by the last page of that chapter, it has helped me edit and chop unnecessary wordiness, which is another problem I have.

*Also loved the mini skirt rule, btw.*

I know each writer has their own length for chapters, and none is right or wrong. I just want to simply ask each person how long their average chapter is.


It depends upon what I'm writing.

My fantasy chapters run between 4,000 and 6,000 words. My anecdotes run about 1,300 to 1,500.

I've written a one-sentence chapter and a 20 000 word whopper. In writing, Form follows Function.

What I usually do is determine the amount of words I would like to average for a novel. I then decide how many chapters I think might cover those words. Remember, I'm working on averages, so nothing is carved in stone.

For the purposes of this example, let's assume that I want to write a novel that I believe would work well at about 100 000 words. I then break those words up into 20 chapters, which means around 5000 words per chapter. Some chapters will turn out at around 2000 words, and some at 7000. This is merely a guide I set for myself; a blueprint.

At 5000 words, I then set an average of 6-8 scenes. This means that an average scene is anything from 600 to 800 words, give or take. This is short enough to prevent the reader from becoming bored, yet long enough to establish enough detail to drive the story forward.

Now I can sit back and work it out. If I write a scene of 800 words (give or take) per day, I've reached my goal. 120 scenes/days like this, and I've written the first draft of my novel. That's 4 months for a first draft novel.

That means that by the time you've re-written and sent it out to a publisher, you could be done with the first draft of your second novel before the acceptance/rejection comes back.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I would say keep chapters as short as you can; with longer chapters you run the risk of losing the attention of your reader. Longer chapters also make your novel seem like a heavier read. It is especially important if what you’re writing is quite intense or weighty to break it down into smaller chapters. I don’t think that chapter length is always relative to the length of the novel – I think people often make the mistake of thinking that because their novel is long they should therefore stick to long chapters. Chapters can stop before the scene or in the middle of action – this acts as a page turner. I do like the mini skirt approach – long enough to cover the essentials, but I would say however that you can sometimes get away with occasional flashing!

Although I agree with you, Ladder Writer, one should keep in mind that readers read scenes, and not chapters. If your chapter is only 1 scene long, then yes, keep it to the mini-skirt thingy. If you have multiple scenes, your scene should be short enough to make the reader think, "hmmmm... I can push through this one quickly..."

When he's done reading that scene, he then flips the pages to see how long the next scene is. Before he knows it, it's 2:00 in the morning and he's swearing you for keeping him out of sleep, regardless of how many chapters he read (or didn't read.) So instead of the chapter being a mini-skirt, it's the scene that becomes the mini-skirt.

Look, for example, at how Stephen King wrote 'Salem's Lot. They are loooooooong chapters, but the scenes are relatively short, so you keep turning dem pages, thinking that you'll quickly squeeze in one more scene before lights out.

Again, Form follows Function. What you're writing will ultimately determine how you write it. For example, an action adventure that's fast-paced will have shorter chapters & scenes to keep the action flowing and intense.

I believe that what works for each writer will be different. Artists are like that. One painter paints with water colours, the other with oils. One uses light strokes, the other plasters it over a number of layers. The trick is to discover what works for you and then to master that form regardless of what works for others...